00:11:51.140but the book sales spiked uh significantly the next day and it goes to show what i've been trying
00:11:57.260to tell the conservative party for now four years ignore legacy media nobody's watching it the only
00:12:04.820people who are watching it are one of the subsects or the groups who are at home cooking for their
00:12:09.740kids they're half paying attention to what's going on on the tv in the background and they'll notice
00:12:15.720something for 30 seconds and move on media has changed that's joe rogan has three hour long
00:12:20.940podcasts and it's the largest audience in all of media it's because people want to hear
00:12:26.760individuals in their full context and that's what i did with you and everybody else at the
00:12:32.800conference i said we're going to do independent media and we're going to be here for as long as
00:12:38.300you want and that ended up being two hours and 20 minutes if i remember uh if i remember correctly
00:12:43.140but a little asterisk after that was i was a little disappointed because after that meeting
00:12:49.620i think you were still in the room or you had just left the room i got a call from alexa at rebel
00:12:55.780media and she said we missed the press conference we had a miscommunication because i had emailed
00:13:02.980as and said we're doing it you want to come like come so there's a miscommunication alexa lincoln
00:13:08.900and mocha showed up i said be here in 10 minutes chris has already left but tamara and i are here
00:13:14.420tamara and i will stay and we'll do an area for you guys because i figured i'm going to kill
00:13:19.060multiple birds with one stone i'll be able to get ahead of the legacy media narrative
00:13:24.740they'll be able to hear us in our full context i got the impression that rebel news was at least
00:13:30.580supportive of the idea that everybody has the right to protest so it was perfect so we ended
00:13:36.660up doing 50 or 51 minutes just tamara and myself now my inbox was overloaded i had tens of thousands
00:13:45.860of messages coming in i24 dw abc australia bbc every news outlet in multiple countries although
00:13:54.580is the biggest story on the planet i gave the exclusive interview to rebel news and spiked it
00:14:01.620I called Alexa that night. I said, what's happening? She's all excited. I'm going to
00:14:07.140translate it and I'll put it in French and we'll get it to Quebec. I said, great. The next morning,
00:14:12.440nothing. I followed up with her. Where is it? We're still waiting for approval. Waiting for
00:14:16.000approval. It's the biggest news story in the world. And then what happened later on in the day? What
00:14:20.920happened, Alexa? I don't know. I don't know. And after two, three days, you know, I was scheduling,
00:14:25.680you know, meetings like crazy. I was doing interview after interview after interview,
00:14:29.200focusing on u.s media and that interview never aired although when jim kalaharios my lawyer came
00:14:36.180out of testimony there was um he was interviewed by uh william from rebel and they put together a
00:14:43.300little video and spliced in some b-roll i guess from that interview with myself and tamara so
00:14:47.700never aired i don't understand why they still haven't aired it just um and listen i don't know
00:14:52.580their production schedule i know how it all works but it just it's the biggest news story on the
00:14:57.200planet how do you not air it i couldn't believe it yeah and i i wasn't even aware that had taken
00:15:03.020place that there was sort of a bonus press conference after the press conference with
00:15:06.740with rebel but even so you kind of kept that approach up until the very end i know there
00:15:12.600was that famous video of glenn mcgregor basically being asked to leave the i think it was the
00:15:17.300sheridan hotel uh hallway because uh there was another one of these things taking place there
00:15:22.340Punchy McGregor. That's my name for him. Punchy McGregor.
00:15:25.320Fair enough. But I guess the interesting thing that I would raise about this is that when the media was misrepresenting the convoy and you weren't talking to them to correct the record, you had said something when I interviewed you for my book many months ago that you really wanted to expose them, that you really wanted people to see exactly what they were all about.
00:15:48.400And was that part of the convoy or was that your own personal project, if you will?
00:15:55.760Well, the way we had structured it was we had, you know, three hotels.
00:16:00.280There were different teams that were responsible for different things.
00:16:19.500So if you want to do any messages, any press releases, whatever, go to him, make sure him and the team vetted, because there was four of us, actually.
00:16:28.220And that was the structure that we had.
00:16:30.340Because if not, it could have been just chaos.
00:16:32.860And you saw what happened when some people that really didn't speak on behalf of the convoy, but wanted their 15 minutes in fame, well, they got in front of a camera and confused the narrative amongst the public.
00:16:45.920The other reason that I wanted to phrase out legacy media was I saw what happened during January 6th, right?
00:16:54.660So the media in the States, the legacy media took a certain position, a certain narrative, and what did they do?
00:17:01.520They run B-roll after B-roll after B-roll after B-roll, targeting and smearing the participants, irrespective whether you agree with what they did or not, okay?
00:17:09.940I did not want them to have their own exclusive footage so they could run these b-rolls and attacking Tamara and myself in perpetuity forever.
00:17:23.500And I knew if they didn't have any interviews one-on-one with us, then I would limit them in terms of their intellectual property they would use against us.
00:17:35.580and the post-millennial actually confirmed that because they said once they were they were all
00:17:39.980chuckling apparently their office because uh one of the press conferences it might have been the
00:17:44.940second one uh they were laughing that the ctv cbc all the mainstream media had to log on to the
00:17:51.420post-millennial feed and start sharing it online they didn't have their own access to it so that's
00:17:57.980exactly yeah and i think global ended up stealing he and bexty's footage or something and ended up
00:18:02.860there was a controversy about that if memory serves exactly so i was trying to kind of doubly
00:18:09.180help alternative media and that's why i gave the example with rebel news i was confused because
00:18:14.380they had the exclusive footage like they could have been i would have it should have been one
00:18:20.060of the biggest videos in the history of that company like it was just perplexing to me let's
00:18:26.220talk about the competing press conferences and and i guess the people jockeying to be
00:18:30.940the one seen as in charge here, because I know this was a big issue. I was getting invitations
00:18:36.140to things that were presented to me as being a quote unquote official, although we'll talk about
00:18:41.600the complexities of that term. And then I'd send you a message, you know, like, this is the first
00:18:44.840time hearing about it. What? And I know this was like constantly something you had to grapple with
00:18:49.680here. But at the same time, I mean, one of the things that Tamara has testified to and other
00:18:54.580people involved in the convoy have tested to is that this wasn't a, I mean, I know there was the
00:18:59.000board formed for Freedom Corp. But this wasn't a hierarchical top-down organization. No one had
00:19:05.760any real leverage or control over others. So it was very difficult for anyone to say that anyone
00:19:12.360wasn't involved. So when you get someone popping up that says, you know, yes, I'm doing this thing
00:19:16.700here and they're available to media, the media is obviously going to pounce on that. But I guess
00:19:22.540the question is, in an organic grassroots movement, how can you effectively, or do you believe you
00:19:28.480did effectively put out all of these, what you would say are fires or however you want to describe
00:19:33.800them? Well, there's two different levels to this strategy. So one was having like a cohesive
00:19:41.620message around peace, love, unity, and freedom that would go on the press releases. And that
00:19:48.440would be for legacy media and media and yourself. I think you're more, you're more mainstream than
00:19:54.400legacy media to be entirely honest but like yourself and your company and other companies
00:19:58.880to contact representatives of the people who had the largest moral persuasion who are those people
00:20:05.440the people who all who fundraised the 10 million dollars that's why i was getting so many requests
00:20:10.480initially because it was my name and tamara's name uh on the gofund right so that's where the moral
00:20:15.360persuasion came from but then on the other side i suggested to many of the road captains and
00:20:20.800truckers they said listen god here you guys were all on tick tock i don't know why you're using
00:20:27.920tick tock because i don't like the arrive can app but whatever you want to use tick tock that's great
00:20:32.960go out and sell the message to your audience go on tick tock use it all day long get as many people
00:20:38.400as possible or instagram which i suggested instead and so that was kind of the two-pronged approach
00:20:44.160that when it came to because we knew there's be legal implications right especially with this
00:20:49.200around this amount of money so there had to be some sort of loose legal structure organization
00:20:55.440around it but then everybody else could do their own thing at the same time it's just
00:20:59.760i said to them just try to keep it nice just don't say don't yeah i know you don't like trudeau but
00:21:05.760let's let's dial it down a little bit and i think for the most part they did and it was successful
00:21:10.880so i was looking a little bit towards you know how bitcoin works which is a a decentralized mechanism
00:21:18.160and i looked at the process in terms of okay we have all these decentralized nodes those are all
00:21:24.240the different groups that brought 300 people there 200 people a thousand people there whatever
00:21:29.360we'll broadcast a broader message for everybody and everybody will kind of will figure out a way
00:21:35.040to support each other for the most part it worked there was a little friction from one of the because
00:21:40.320we had so many organizations trying to take over like big well-funded organizations and one of them
00:21:45.760they were very uh anti-covid vaccines and i said listen great but we need to get people who are
00:21:53.200supporting covid vaccines to support us as well we need to brought to past a wide net and if we
00:21:59.920can bring them in then guess what you'll be able to talk to them and persuade them and conf and
00:22:06.320you want to convince them so if we do that strategy why don't you your organization which
00:22:11.680already functions already brand already have a following we'll say where you're here and the
00:22:17.520freedom convoy supports your organization you support the right for for truckers to come protest
00:22:24.560and for the people who are interested in that message they'll gravitate towards you but we'll
00:22:29.600be able to cast a broader net to people who normally wouldn't listen i remember the first
00:22:34.320day i'm walking up to parliament hill in front of the chateau laurier and i've said in many interviews
00:22:40.560my inspiration for this was i went back to my days uh going to grateful dead concerts and going to
00:22:46.640fish concerts and the almond brothers right very peaceful loving party too much drugs for me but
00:22:52.480other than the drugs it was it was a great environment and you know one of the first few
00:22:57.040people i saw there's a group of people with tie-dye and peace signs and we love everybody
00:23:03.120and those were not conservatives but they were canadians and they were happy to finally be out
00:23:08.800out of their home and meeting new people.
00:23:11.180And this was, I know of two COVID babies,
00:23:14.760sorry, convoy babies that have been born
00:23:38.120you had Bridget Belton and Chris Barber get linked up on TikTok, build a little bit of
00:23:43.080momentum. People like Pat King was involved in the sense of promoting it early on. James
00:23:48.900Botter tried to be a bit more of a central organizer. James and Pat effectively out of
00:23:54.360the picture by the time the convoy gets to Ottawa. You've got other people that are brought
00:23:58.840in. You're certainly at the helm of media here. And there were still, though, even after those
00:24:06.700changes, some friction. I mean, you testified to the breakdown with Tom Marazzo at one point
00:24:12.960saying he wanted to be a ghost and then holding that press conference, which I've talked to Tom
00:24:17.520about. And I accept it at face value that what he was accused of saying was not what he's saying.
00:24:23.340But you've actually gone further and have used the word sabotage with Tom and also with Keith
00:24:29.720Wilson, the lawyer that the JCCF retained. And at what point did that view emerge in your view and
00:24:36.000and why it was an evolution like things were really unsettling in the beginning um on february
00:24:44.1604th and you have to understand the context of the messaging it was peace love everybody come
00:24:49.280together right uh there were some people did the f trudeau flags which was the messaging that
00:24:55.440ironically united people from quebec and alberta like they loved it they were having a blast with
00:25:01.120it was great uh but our messaging was all positive and then on february 4th i'm in my hotel room at
00:25:08.960sheridan because we're all in in hotels right next to each other the swiss was a little bit farther
00:25:14.320but the arc and the sheridan were one street across from each other basically within walking
00:25:18.720distance that's why i saw each other all the time and somebody comes in i don't remember who came
00:25:23.920into my hotel room because it was it was constantly in flux so many people coming in and out somebody
00:25:29.200comes in says you're not going to believe what the lawyers just did and i said what lawyer what are
00:25:35.680you talking about i'd met one lawyer private previously that was setting up uh the corporation
00:25:40.640i think that was team if i'm not mistaken that's his name and it's the lawyers just went on and
00:25:45.600did a doom and gloom video on twitter and it's going viral and i'm like oh my god what what was
00:25:51.520so they the person i can't remember what it was really uh showed me the twitter message and uh
00:25:59.280just got so i wanted to rip somebody's throat out because that's the exact opposite that's
00:26:05.120that's what pat king was doing and this is keith wilson's your freedoms are under attack video
00:26:10.480your freedoms are under attack that's not peace love and unity who told him to talk right where
00:26:14.640do you come from uh so i went over to the uh the ark hotel and i was far more aggressive than i
00:26:22.480depict in book um but uh just to explain that what you just undid everything that i've been working
00:26:29.920on since january 15th who let you talk and who that bj i'm like yeah that's bj who let you talk
00:26:38.160and it was just from there on there was um there was it was always a challenge there's always
00:26:45.200friction you know they they came in and said well congratulations you have a five million dollar
00:26:50.560class action suit for what what are you talking about this is what happened but it's okay
00:26:56.160because we're here we're going to uh do your legal work for free okay so we're all kind of in the
00:27:02.880room there were so many fires to put out and it was convincing that oh we're gonna help you and
00:27:09.280whatever okay what do you guys think everybody thought the same thing fine and uh that's what
00:27:14.240really started but then that was for to represent us in the class action suit but then all of a
00:27:18.960sudden we're getting dictated to you know a couple days later oh we need to meet the city i remember
00:27:23.920the first time i heard of this stupid idea and i said why would you meet with the city no you're
00:27:29.200not meeting with us the city hasn't come back to come to us yet they told us where to park just
00:27:34.880relax and cool your jets i didn't know at that time until the hearing that they already had
00:27:41.920been speaking to the city so morazzo and keith and dean french so morazzo said he came uh that
00:27:49.200randy hillier uh told he's fun on your show he's randy hillier uh called me and told me to come so
00:27:55.600So Randy Hilliard's buddy, Moretso, Keith, whoever he linked to, Dean French, Doug Ford's still very good friend, all of a sudden start negotiating with the city.
00:28:07.640Well, they weren't negotiating on behalf of any truckers.
00:28:09.720They might have been negotiating on behalf of Doug Ford.
00:28:12.360And it was just frustrating to see that evolve.
00:28:15.100But we didn't know that was happening until several days later after they started talking to the city.
00:28:21.240and it just kept being like they don't understand uh the client solicitor relationship it's like no
00:28:26.360no we tell you what to do thank you for helping us uh come to us and we'll tell you what to do
00:28:32.200and it was just it was constant it would and you know when i me and tamara we were always in sync
00:28:38.120with each other but tamara she's a wonderful person and she does not like she knows everybody's
00:28:44.680got a good heart so she's trying to accommodate everybody especially then so many people are
00:28:49.240threatening her oh we're gonna sue you for a hundred thousand dollars and everybody was after
00:28:53.960the money so she was put in a very very difficult position and you know so she got very weary of
00:29:00.520saying no to people because anybody she would say no to would threaten to sue her so that was my job
00:29:06.280so she would call me and say this person whatever anyways um and go ahead yeah so and with this case
00:29:13.800as well it seemed to be there was a consorted effort to go out of their way to because every
00:29:19.160day me and tamara talk like 20 times a day and constantly she would call me and say what do you
00:29:25.080think about this idea no i don't think that's a good idea because and she said oh yeah that's a
00:29:28.440good point okay no problem and that's how we worked we were always sympathetic the whole time
00:29:33.640but there were people that were uh they seemed to be trying to work tamara for lack of better term
00:29:40.120and that's why i suggested to her we need to get you a handler uh but that's she's a very one-on-one
00:29:46.680emotional person who connects with people she didn't want to handle her and uh okay so it is
00:29:51.320what it is but let's drill down into this a bit more because i i know that you had a very collegial
00:29:57.080relationship with tamara and i i don't think i i don't think you would say and i certainly wouldn't
00:30:01.160say that you were working for her in any uh meaningful capacity but she was the president
00:30:05.500of this entity that had been set up. She was the president of what's called Freedom Corp. And I
00:30:10.860know she's precluded by bail conditions from having conversations with you along with other people.
00:30:16.680So I don't know what, if any, your relationship is with Tamara now. But I do know that Tamara is
00:30:21.780still, it seems like, very tight with Keith Wilson and Tom Marazzo. So was that not a choice that she
00:30:28.420was making as the spiritual leader of the convoy, that that was the direction she wanted to go and
00:30:33.460and not the approach that you're putting forward well so for example when we registered the
00:30:38.080corporation she was to be the president i was supposed to be the vice president and i said okay
00:30:41.820fine go ahead and do it because we were both you know it was our combination of messages you were
00:30:46.940the two most public faces of this thing absolutely that's right that's right and so i'm back to the
00:30:51.260sheridan i had i think um i think it was new max i was doing an interview that night if i'm not
00:30:55.900mistaken and i had to cancel when i broke my ankle and um the next thing i know the next day is
00:31:02.040next day or two days later I find out oh you're not the vice president you're something else
00:31:06.300somebody you know kicked me to the curb amongst the legal entities that were advising whatever
00:31:12.540I really care it didn't make a difference to me sort of thing but you know what I also indicated
00:31:17.700is Tamara and Barbara and two are both in a very difficult position because they've been put into
00:31:23.920into a position where they were not told none of us were told that on February 17th we could have
00:31:30.860applied uh to the court to have a percentage of the money that was donated and put into escrow
00:31:38.540that that money we could have applied to have that released for the purpose of a legal defense
00:31:44.220we were not told that um i found this the night before i testified in uh in ottawa so you can
00:31:51.980imagine how uh annoyed i was to learn that solo in the game so their position now because they
00:32:00.380were not told they could apply to have for person for the purpose of legal representation that now
00:32:07.580beholden to the one organization that's funneling all donations into it and it's interesting that
00:32:14.380that money the 1.7 million dollars that they've raised since the convoy uh they seem to be
00:32:21.820strategizing to use the escrow money not using the 1.7 million and the rest of us
00:32:28.380us have nothing you know uh chris was thrown off the board i was thrown that's chris gara correct
00:32:35.900of adopted chad eros thrown off the board so 50 of the board over time through some legal wrangling
00:32:45.020anybody who's been on a board knows how that works when there's certain entities who have other
00:32:50.180interests in this case i think it was political interests that they had us kicked off the board
00:32:55.460and now we're all left hanging so it's concerning what's going on. I just want to jump into that
00:33:01.320because I know originally when you and I have spoken in the past you've had some criticisms
00:33:04.920not I wouldn't say very serious ones but just criticisms about Chad Eros and about Chris Guerra
00:33:11.780so how do you end up aligned how did you end up aligned with them on the legal
00:33:15.700fight that you're in now? Let's say that again I missed the first half of your question. Yeah so
00:33:19.700i just you've been critical in the past of chad eros and chris gara and now you seem to be on on
00:33:26.500side at least with each other for the legal fight and i was just wondering how that evolution
00:33:30.220happened chris gara i was never at odds with we uh we never had any sort of uh chad during the
00:33:37.180it's interesting like people are trying to binary one or the other you know chad has had friction
00:33:42.680just like any board of people who have the world's attention on them don't know what to do and are
00:33:48.800trying to navigate this this thing and your government's attacking you it's just a stress
00:33:53.640it's a stressful situation um but chad you know when i broke my ankle and they they carried me
00:34:00.700onto the the couch of the ark hotel the first two people that came and sat around me and were
00:34:06.520were bridget and chad and chad sat with me the longest like i felt bad i'm like chad you know
00:34:13.380you don't have to stay all this time like you can if you have other stuff to do and this is somebody
00:34:17.640we were just having friction with an hour before because you know what we can resolve our
00:34:21.720differences we can have differences on strategy what to do what to do moving forward but uh when
00:34:27.400things push came to shove when things were serious like we're all sympathetic though so that was
00:34:31.940another narrative that came out of nowhere from my perspective that we're we're all there was all
00:34:36.880this friction no it was just a lot of stress that we were dealing with so let's apply what you just
00:34:42.480said there to the discussion that we've been having for the last few minutes what why do you
00:34:47.100make the claim of sabotage why is it not just that there are a bunch of different strategies
00:34:52.060on the table about how to handle this there's the jccf view there's your view there you know
00:34:57.440maybe other people with their own what why do you what let me ask it a different way do you assume
00:35:03.440that there is people there is a case of bad faith here and if so why uh yeah i i was you know the
00:35:11.060Once we signed this legal retainer for the class action suit, I started getting, you know, demands from John Carpe saying, say this, go to this point person for messaging.
00:35:21.760I'm like, okay, I don't know who this guy is. Thank you for the legal representation in the class action suit, but nobody invited you here to speak.
00:35:29.220And in fact, I had somebody who is quite famous, who knows the JCCF, who called me and said, you know, I saw the JCCF is involved in the freedom convoys.
00:35:39.620that true and i said yeah tell me more and this person said to me stay away from them whatever
00:35:47.700you do and it's why i thought they have a good reputation and i was in i was explained to me that
00:35:54.020all of their good lawyers that they had have left uh as we all know famously a couple of years ago
00:36:00.580a little happened barbara k left you have bruce party left and since then they don't have any
00:36:05.540lawyers they just have activists and i thought to myself well that's the language of the people that
00:36:10.580i've been meeting who claim to be representing us legally so that was kind of a red flag in uh
00:36:16.900in the back of my head um in terms of you know the uh strategy like the tom ratso was i remember when
00:36:24.820i met him the first time he said uh on the i think it was the fourth or no maybe it was the fifth i
00:36:29.940I can't remember. In that week, 4th, 5th, or 6th, one of those days. And he, when he said, I'm a ghost, I'm, nobody's going to know I'm going to be here and all that sort of stuff. And I thought, okay, great, great, perfect. So I said, I'm going to deal with messaging with my team. You can go look at some trucks or whatever that is. But I remember thinking, and I said this in my testimony, you're going to deal with logistics. What logistics? Like the trucks are parked, the government and the law enforcement is trying to figure out what to do.
00:36:59.940chief slowly had already told us said publicly that this required a political solution doesn't
00:37:07.000require a policing solution we were golden that all of a sudden these people show up
00:37:12.200linked to doug ford through dean french's office and then boom all of a sudden the tone changed
00:37:19.260and part of it was you know they they know from having a brother in policing very high up
00:37:24.480is mood and behavior that's why i lost my mind on keith because he completely changed the mood
00:37:31.680and behavior based on what we were trying to communicate to policing so if you add all of
00:37:36.840that stuff up and the fact that all of a sudden you know i remember when they said we're going to
00:37:41.320you know move some trucks said no you're not leave the trucks and everybody on the board
00:37:46.200you know there was not regular board meetings that's why when diverge media asked keith if
00:37:52.840were all these board meetings send me the minutes there was one board meeting and he took the minute
00:37:58.680from keith from from uh keith took the minutes from chad apparently chad can explain to this
00:38:04.200too better and diverge media asked okay well can you give us the the minutes for the meeting
00:38:11.000and then he refused to answer and then threatened uh asked them if they have a lawyer so that's the
00:38:15.400kind of nonsense that we were dealing with constantly amongst a thousand other fires
00:38:21.400to put out like this was such a small minute detail that when we suggested leave the trucks
00:38:29.640it was kind of over and you know i i kind of insinuated i went back teeth a couple of times
00:38:35.480just kind of joking and make funny fun of him and i said we didn't call it a deal by the way i never
00:38:40.360heard that d that word till august so i misspoke in my testimony but i did say to him so how is
00:38:46.840everything going with the city and he kept saying not good okay good oh i was right that's kind of
00:38:52.520how i interpreted it and i didn't see any other indicator to that so much of this narrative that
00:38:57.960started in august was birthed in august and is retroactively trying to rewrite history and it's
00:39:04.040really frustrating i know one of the biggest criticisms you face and i i've seen it a couple
00:39:10.600of times in our live chat here just uh scrolling by is your decision to get out of ottawa when the
00:39:17.880crackdown was happening now as it turned out you hadn't actually left the city but you had left
00:39:21.480the red zone and i just wanted to give you an opportunity you go into it in the book very early
00:39:25.480on and i just want to give you the opportunity to explain that to people and i know that's something
00:39:28.520that still is is brought up yeah and i also we did an interview myself and jim kalaharios with
00:39:34.120sheila gun reed and explained all of her questions and didn't shy away from anything and this was one
00:39:39.320of them this is the one of the smears so on february 18th the road captains came to my hotel
00:39:47.160room in the sheridan because both media room and the hotel room two suites and uh they they came in
00:39:54.520because tamara was arrested chris was arrested there seemed to be a vacuum in decision making
00:40:00.360and so naturally they came to me because they saw me and tamara probably had the closest relationship
00:40:07.080and by the way I love that woman I really do and I still do and our friendship has not been
00:40:12.660affected it's been difficult I'm sure for her as well that we've been unable to talk this is the
00:40:16.840longest we've ever gone without speaking anyways that aside the road captains came in on February
00:40:22.24018th and they sat down and they explained to me that one of the truckers had guns pulled on him
00:40:28.540last night that the police surrounded his truck broke his windows he went like he was instructed
00:40:34.020just to hide in the back of his bunk and the cops opened the doors climbed in dragged him out of his
00:40:41.860bunk threw him in the snow and arrested him at gunpoint and i said okay so uh police are getting
00:40:50.400violent and they said yeah so what do you want to do and one of them said i think i i suggested that
00:40:56.740are you saying you want to leave uh like i'll support you whatever you want to do just tell me
00:41:01.180what messaging we need to put out because you guys got to be careful and i want people to be
00:41:05.160safe i don't want anybody to get hurt this is getting crazy what the government's doing
00:41:08.280and a couple of them said yeah it's time to leave the first person believe it or not was bridget the
00:41:13.120most feisty as we know through throughout the thing she said yeah i think it's time to leave
00:41:17.680and then joe jensen was the next person to say yeah it's time to leave because they're all sitting
00:41:22.840on bed and johnny behind me there was maybe 20 of them in the room this wasn't what people signed
00:41:28.020up for absolutely that's right that's right we didn't sign up for the government getting violence
00:41:31.700on us so i said okay so if you're gonna leave then if that's the the consensus and they all said yeah
00:41:38.100let's time to leave i said great i'm going to start putting messaging out you all call you
00:41:43.140liaison officers i didn't have one because i was never on the ground which is also why i was never
00:41:47.220arrested um although i got close but and you did get the account freeze well nobody was dealing
00:41:54.580with potential warrants and stuff like that like that i haven't even gone into that too much in the
00:41:58.420book um so they said call your liaison officers try to reach out to the tribes tell everybody
00:42:04.660we're gonna leave the government's lost its mind getting violent we've made the point and we won
00:42:09.620which was a conversation i had with joan peterson the night before yeah on the 17th we did the uh
00:42:15.780podcast together so we discussed that on the 17th and he echoed that sentiment and miranda in fact
00:42:21.060said to me who's on the board she said but Ben she's she's so adorable she stands up from the
00:42:25.940bed she says but Ben these truckers are not going to want to leave and I said I know I know Miranda
00:42:32.020that's why you're a leader you got to inspire them you got to encourage them that we've won this
00:42:36.020battle and we got to leave so nobody gets hurt and uh just and if you need help communicating to them
00:42:44.020I'm stuck in a wheelchair but I'll get on the phone with everybody with anybody who wants to
00:42:48.180because i don't want them i know they're gonna they're gonna adopt the martyr uh sense uh the
00:42:53.860martyr syndrome and we can't have that we can't have people getting hurt and so they left um they
00:42:59.860so you left they said okay and everybody started you know scrambling around i'm going to call this
00:43:04.340person whatever they went up i said go up to the boardroom on the 16th floor i think it was
00:43:09.700and i'll meet you up there in a few minutes start calling your liaison officers let's all have a
00:43:13.780group call tell as many people as possible and i went on to uh twitter either before that meeting
00:43:20.500after that meeting i'd have to check the time stamp and i put a tweet out and my mistake was
00:43:25.460i should have done a multi-thread tweet tried to squeeze everything into one tweet but so much was
00:43:30.820going on it was a little bit chaotic that day and it said many of us are leaving ottawa i was what
00:43:37.460should i was trying to fit in the road captains and truckers are leaving but i couldn't fit it
00:43:41.300that's why many fit um the police are getting violent some to that that uh that messaging and
00:43:47.700we're going to be leaving and then i see ezreal event retweets and says you looks like you ran
00:43:52.820it's like oh my god anyways people jumping to their their own conclusions it's really frustrating
00:43:59.380so that's how well i mean i think people have been hearing the term hold the line and i and i guess
00:44:04.580that was why it was easy for people who were outside i mean look i was pepper sprayed covering
00:44:09.220it. So I know it was very hairy there. I think it was easy for people outside of that to not
00:44:14.320understand what the stakes were if you were just going to stand there. For sure. No, 100%. And then
00:44:19.340in fact, you know, after I came down from the meeting room upstairs, the hotel room was paid
00:44:24.820until the end of February. So I figured, okay, I'll stick around. I'll do media for the next,
00:44:31.120you know, week, couple of weeks, whatever it was, week and a half. And everything will be,
00:44:34.960i'll be able to button everything up i had a a podcast scheduled with barry weiss that night
00:44:40.400that i ended up doing but never saw the light of day i'm not sure why and um then keith wilson
00:44:46.240called me and says bj you gotta leave why are you gonna leave i gotta leave said well the police
00:44:52.800are arresting they arrested sarah they arrested chris and i think even even keith would despite
00:44:58.000friction would admit to this um it's actually not bad legal advice he said to me uh no you have to
00:45:03.920leave because um the police are going to arrest you and i said keith come on they're not going
00:45:09.600to come into the sheridan and break down the doors and arrest me my brother's police officer
00:45:14.800they're just trying to diverse the crap i know how that works but he argued with me for 20 minutes
00:45:19.600and he said no because if you get arrested maybe you'll be subjected to a gag order and then nobody
00:45:26.000can speak for freedom that's how you know that talk he speaks it's exactly what he said i'm like
00:45:31.360like oh come on keith so i said all right i'll try to call an uber i doubt i can even get out of here
00:45:37.000but i do have a friend who lives in ottawa in orleans i'll see if i can get there at least get
00:45:41.980out of the red zone i'll leave the hotel but i have to be in ottawa anyways to get my cast off
00:45:46.660and who knows what else is going to happen so i can't just leave ottawa he said well leave the
00:45:52.100hotel and let me know what happens and so i left and i was in an uber i'm listening to the radio
00:45:58.740and then they say my name and i said to the uber guy hey can we change the radio station but it's
00:46:03.700crazy man it was like what i imagined tayran would be in a snowfall because every street was a police
00:46:10.660cruiser with three or four officers standing around looking inside cars and like okay i'll
00:46:16.340put my hood on and just like i didn't know if how how serious this was and uh and that's how we all
00:46:24.020left so we all decided together the road captains that brought everybody to ottawa uh decided this
00:46:30.900is where people are going to get hurt and we can't have this we believe well you got out you live to
00:46:35.780tell the tale both literally and figuratively uh the book is honking for freedom the trucker
00:46:41.780convoy that gave us hope the author is benjamin dichter and i think you know better than anyone
00:46:46.420else you're uh somewhat of a controversial figure in canada but i know you've always relished that
00:46:51.060exactly well thanks very much for uh for coming on and we didn't even get a chance to talk about
00:46:57.380the cryptocurrency stuff sorry the bitcoin stuff i was corrected and i said i would get it right
00:47:02.100uh there's a fantastic chapter about that in the book and we'll happily talk about it
00:47:07.060in the future as well benjamin thanks so much in jordan peters endorsement you'll notice he refers
00:47:12.260to him as the then prime minister justin trudeau yes perhaps a bit of optimism from professor
00:47:19.300Peterson there. All right. Thank you, Mike. Good to talk to you. All right. Thanks a lot, Benjamin.
00:47:23.860That is Benjamin Dichter, author of the book Honking for Freedom. And just lest anyone be
00:47:29.740unclear on this, the whole point is that I want all of these perspectives told. I mean, when I
00:47:33.660released my book, I didn't take the view that I wanted to be the be all and end all. I said I
00:47:37.960wanted more people telling this story. So I'm glad Ben has his book out. Tom Marazzo, who we were
00:47:44.080speaking about has a book coming out in February as well. And I don't take, you know, I've had Tom
00:47:49.480on the show a couple of times as well. So I'll have him on for that as well. But I think it's
00:47:54.200important to hear all these different perspectives, because this was a watershed moment in Canadian
00:47:58.760history. And I think a very important one. And certainly as Canadians, I think we all are invested
00:48:05.140in this story. And I know the True North audience is as well. And we're coming up on the one year