Juno News - Police threaten to arrest True North journalist covering Trudeau

00:00:00.000 I wanted to pick up where we started off talking yesterday, and it was kind of a last minute

00:00:13.460 change. I called an audible because moments before the show began, my colleague, True

00:00:18.900 North's Alberta reporter and host of Alberta Roundup, Rachel Emanuel, was very, I would

00:00:25.080 say rudely given the bums rush out of an Alberta technical college when Justin Trudeau was

00:00:31.040 holding a press conference. He was addressing media, but only certain type of media, not

00:00:37.700 True North and not Counter Signal, which is run by Kian Bextie. This was a rather shameful 0.99

00:00:44.180 display, but as I remarked yesterday on the show, not all that unsurprising. I've had my

00:00:49.440 own run-ins with Trudeau's bodyguards in the past who have barred me from getting close

00:00:54.600 to him, even where other journalists are permitted. True North, you may recall, in 2019, actually

00:00:59.180 had to sue her way in to the leaders' debate. This was not a Liberal Party event. This was

00:01:05.040 a Government of Canada-run event, the official election leaders' debate. We won, but it shows

00:01:10.620 the lengths through which Trudeau and his minions do not want any independent journalists questioning

00:01:15.180 them. We were trying to get Rachel Emanuel on the show yesterday, but I think she was

00:01:19.280 actually in a dead sprint to get away from the RCMP when the show was on. But she did it,

00:01:24.060 and she joins us now. Rachel, good to talk to you. I was exaggerating a little bit there,

00:01:29.080 but you actually did have quite a serious encounter that started with the college's security and

00:01:34.200 ended up with, I think, Calgary Police and RCMP, did you not? Yeah, I mean, it actually started

00:01:38.800 even before that. Initially, earlier in the day, we had gotten word that Trudeau was at a hotel

00:01:43.420 in Calgary. Eventually, we narrowed it down to the Sheraton. You know, you can kind of drive

00:01:47.360 by the hotels, keep a lookout for additional security, unmarked, you know, big black vehicles outside

00:01:52.520 of them, things like that. A lot of times, these vehicles also have Ontario license plates. So we

00:01:56.480 knew a little bit what to look for. So we figured that he was meeting Alberta Premier Daniel Smith

00:02:00.620 at the Sheraton. And, you know, we headed on into the hotel there, into the lobby, were very quickly

00:02:05.160 asked to leave. You know, maybe we should have worn some security uniforms or something to look like

00:02:09.740 we belonged. You know, fair enough. We waited outside. We caught Daniel Smith on her way out of

00:02:14.040 a side exit there, and she was happy to give us a couple questions quickly. Of course, Alberta Premier

00:02:18.220 Danielle Smith often speaks with media. She's very fair about that. And she also speaks to all types

00:02:23.760 of media, not just independent reporters or conservative reporters, those that would tend

00:02:28.240 to be a little bit more supportive of her policies. Then, you know, we were waiting in a vehicle so we

00:02:33.000 could follow Trudeau's motorcade so we could get the location of his press conference. And even while

00:02:36.860 we were simply sitting in our vehicle waiting for the motorcade to leave, police was already giving us

00:02:40.880 a hard time. Oh, you can't wait here. Oh, you can't park. You have to move over there. You have to move

00:02:44.140 over here. Once the motorcade left, you know, police vehicles driving in front of us very slowly,

00:02:49.000 so we couldn't, you know, get around them, get closer to the motorcade. Of course, then we were

00:02:53.400 listening to the press conference. Once the question period of the press conference started,

00:02:57.820 the moderator said the first question is going to go to the SAIT reporter, and that's when Kean put

00:03:02.780 it together. Oh, they're at SAIT. So we went to SAIT. Sure enough, there we see his motorcade. So we're

00:03:06.900 just kind of waiting, waiting in the building there for him to come down. We were going to just try to ask him

00:03:10.940 some questions as he walked over to his motorcade. And then, you know, RCMP, Calgary police, they're

00:03:16.640 all there. They're all giving us a very hard time. As soon as we walked out of that building, we were

00:03:19.940 listening to the press conference, and we figured, eh, once it comes close to an end, we'll walk out.

00:03:24.140 We'll wait near the motorcade so that we can get our questions in. As you know, it's a mere 30 seconds,

00:03:29.200 10 seconds, maybe even. He's walking from the building to his motorcade. We've all seen the clips of

00:03:33.040 reporters following him from buildings to vehicles. And even that, you know, they take issue with. They start

00:03:37.500 moving the vehicles so that we can't even get a view of him. And then the police starts being like, you got

00:03:42.400 to move further back. You got to move back. You know, they're trying to push us back at us as far as

00:03:45.600 way as you can. You can see a little gap between the vehicles and the clip that you're playing. And that was

00:03:49.400 basically as close as we were going to get. And even that they were, you know, frustrated with. They kept

00:03:53.420 trying to push us back, make things difficult for us. It was one of the most pathetic displays I've ever seen. 0.98

00:03:57.440 And you can only think to yourself, imagine if they use this kind of energy to actually fix some of the 0.95

00:04:02.480 actual countries, some of the issues that we have going on in our country. Things would look a whole lot better. And then, of course,

00:04:07.300 just, I think it was probably three minutes before he finally finished that press conference and came

00:04:12.340 out. State security came up to us and said, nope, you know, we don't want you to be here. You're not

00:04:17.840 accredited media. You have to leave. And once they say it's a trespassing issue, you do have to leave

00:04:22.800 very quickly or you will be charged with trespassing. That's about a $300 fine. I know that Kian has run 1.00

00:04:27.660 into that issue with the past during the general election when independent media had these same issues

00:04:33.000 with, you know, trying to go to NDP press conferences. So then it gets a little more

00:04:37.520 dodgy. And, you know, trespassing charge isn't the most serious of things, but I think best to avoid

00:04:42.300 it if you can.

00:04:43.760 Yeah. I mean, some journalists, I guess, probably collect them as a badge of honor. But at a certain

00:04:47.880 point, if the prime minister rents out a hotel ballroom, for all intents and purposes, that's

00:04:52.600 private property and the hotel ballroom could trespass you. So I get why you moved outside there.

00:04:58.940 Same thing happened when I was kicked out of, what was it, Laurentian University in Thunder

00:05:03.520 Bay trying to attend a Trudeau event. Once they say it's private property and you can't

00:05:07.240 be here, it doesn't matter that Trudeau's there or not. But I would actually say it goes

00:05:10.940 beyond. It goes earlier than the Sheridan because you had done the thing that you're supposed

00:05:14.420 to do the night before. You requested accreditation. But they do this thing now where they, on Trudeau's

00:05:19.640 itinerary, they don't even announce where the event is going to be. You have to request

00:05:24.280 accreditation. And they tried to basically make it so that no one can do what you did by just not

00:05:29.600 responding. So they made a concerted effort early on that you were not going to be permitted.

00:05:35.180 Absolutely. And just to give your audience a full picture of what's going on behind the scenes

00:05:39.380 there is they've really started to lock these events down that Trudeau is at. They do not want

00:05:45.260 people to know where he is. They do not want protesters showing up. Trudeau is hated in Canada

00:05:49.820 right now and especially in the West. And people tend to find out where these events are happening.

00:05:54.220 They tend to find out where he's staying and they go and protest. And so we've seen them really up

00:05:58.020 the ante and trying to keep these things secret. I sent out a lot of requests. A lot of people in

00:06:01.980 the province who are always in the know did not know where either of these events were happening.

00:06:06.040 They didn't know where the meeting with the Premier was happening and they didn't know where that

00:06:09.180 dental care announcement was happening. So things were really under wraps this time. And we just saw

00:06:13.560 the police go to that extra effort just to make sure that two little journalists wouldn't be able to 1.00

00:06:18.480 even so much as ask the Prime Minister a question because that would be too much of a nuisance for

00:06:23.000 our beloved Prime Minister. And we couldn't offend his ears with some conservative journalists asking

00:06:28.040 him some questions. We saw something similar with the Alberta NDP. They really tried hard to keep their

00:06:34.520 press conferences and their announcements under wraps. But in that case, they were also trying to get

00:06:40.360 the word out to have other people come. So they didn't do so very effectively. And we typically found

00:06:44.100 them in advance. But it's going to be interesting to see what future visits from the Prime Minister to

00:06:48.160 Calgary look like because I think they've decided this is a new model that they're going to use

00:06:52.080 where they're just going to be super secretive. We couldn't even get information from the Premier's

00:06:56.060 office. The Premier's office said, no, we can't share this. That would be a breach of security

00:07:00.800 contract with the Prime Minister's office. So they were taking this very seriously as well. And I was

00:07:05.040 a little bit like, well, what's the Prime Minister ever done for Alberta?

00:07:08.680 Yeah, has he earned that? Has he earned that from them? Just to go to the policy aspect here, we've seen

00:07:13.900 this week, and I'll be talking about it in a moment, this carbon tax revolt being waged by

00:07:18.600 seven of 10 provincial premiers so far. Ground zero for that has really been Alberta. So to some

00:07:24.940 extent, I mean, Trudeau yesterday was in the belly of the beast here, but absolutely unrepentant when

00:07:30.100 he asked. He went on, I think it was like some eight minute long rant defending the carbon tax

00:07:34.540 yesterday at that presser, didn't he? Pretty remarkable. I mean, Justin Trudeau is someone who

00:07:38.940 doesn't learn his lessons. He's someone who doesn't care what the Canadian people think.

00:07:42.380 We understand that because he chooses to stay at the most expensive hotels wherever he travels.

00:07:48.480 This has been a controversy for the Prime Minister time and time again. He simply does not care about

00:07:54.040 the cost of his luxury lifestyle that he's passing on to taxpayers. That's one thing that's been

00:07:59.520 incredibly obvious for us. Another thing is even the simple fact that he won't allow a regular person

00:08:04.240 like myself into his press conferences to ask questions because I'm not considered an elite accredited

00:08:09.120 media. I'm honestly just a mom. I've got a very successful podcast, one of the most listened

00:08:13.120 to shows in Alberta, if not the most popular political podcast in the province. And he isn't

00:08:18.000 even willing to give me so much as a question or to allow me to enter a room that he's in or probably

00:08:23.220 even look in the same direction as him if we're being honest. So this is a Prime Minister who generally

00:08:27.980 hates Canadians. And so I'm not surprised that he's not budging on the carbon tax. Something I will say

00:08:32.440 that is interesting is that I had Cheryl out on my show, the Alberta Roundup yesterday. She used to be the 1.00

00:08:37.520 Director of Communications for former Alberta Premier Rachel Notley, who as we know, is resigning

00:08:42.100 once a new leader is selected. And she said that the carbon tax is poison in Alberta right now. It's

00:08:48.220 an extremely unpopular policy. She said that while she agrees with what the policy is trying to

00:08:53.080 accomplish, it's just not going to be very feasible for politicians in Alberta right now.

00:08:57.520 So here we even have someone who worked for the Alberta NDP signaling the fact that this is a policy

00:09:02.300 that's really a no-go right now. So even she can kind of understand this is something we need to

00:09:06.480 change direction on, but not Trudeau because this is a man who is unwilling to admit when he's wrong.

00:09:12.560 Very well said, Rachel Emanuel. Glad you emerged unscathed. No handcuffs, no trespassing ticket,

00:09:18.360 but good on you for trying. Maybe he'll take some time before returning to Alberta because of your

00:09:23.480 effort. So I appreciate your time as always, Rachel. Happy to be here. See you guys.

00:09:27.420 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show. Support the program by donating to True North at

00:09:32.720 www.tnc.news.

Juno News - March 18, 2024

Police threaten to arrest True North journalist covering Trudeau

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