Juno News - January 12, 2024


Rebel News suing Chrystia Freeland over reporter’s arrest (ft. Ezra Levant)


Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

183.52798

Word count

2,420

Sentence count

165

Harmful content

Misogyny

5

sentences flagged

Toxicity

2

sentences flagged

Hate speech

1

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Rebel News reporter David Menzies was heckled by plainclothed police officers in York Regional Police Station in Toronto. The incident was caught on video, and Ezra Levengan and Christian Freeland are suing the police for their part in the incident.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You're tuned in to the Andrew Lawton Show.
00:00:09.100 Christian Freeland, perhaps not actually a supporter of press freedom.
00:00:13.980 The reason I wanted to revisit this, Ezra LeVan has announced that they are suing not just Freeland,
00:00:20.360 but also the RCMP and York Regional Police for this.
00:00:23.260 I know they're still working out the details on exactly why, but Ezra joins me now.
00:00:28.100 Now, Ezra, I mean, this is something that you've basically had to just contend with, with David Menzies.
00:00:33.340 And I know that there are a lot of people, when the Conservatives have spoken up in support of David,
00:00:38.520 as they did yesterday, that have said, oh, well, hang on.
00:00:41.500 They were the ones who not that long ago were kicking him out and calling the police.
00:00:45.320 But I don't think that's, you know, an accusation of hypocrisy.
00:00:48.240 I think, if anything, it's to say that they realize that that is not what politicians should be doing.
00:00:53.940 And I was critical when that happened, as I know you were.
00:00:57.020 So, that being said, the media is not offering any support right now.
00:01:01.740 Yeah, and I'm not surprised by that.
00:01:03.760 I mean, I remember when I was growing up, I would study legal cases where the media,
00:01:11.300 all the different rivals, all the different competitors,
00:01:14.020 would each chip in a couple of thousand dollars to hire a lawyer together
00:01:18.380 to fight every free speech freedom of the press case in Canada.
00:01:22.960 So, CTV, Global, CBC, Toronto Star, Global Mail, they would each chip in a few grand,
00:01:28.380 and they would hire an excellent lawyer who would go to court on any free speech matter
00:01:33.300 and say, Your Honor, I'm here on behalf of basically every journalist in the country.
00:01:38.540 Yeah, you see that with publication bans right now still to some extent.
00:01:41.820 That's right.
00:01:42.440 So, that's the one place you see it.
00:01:43.980 But I have not seen it for general free speech cases in 10, 20 years.
00:01:49.800 So, what happened to David Menzies yesterday, and we've all seen the video,
00:01:53.780 14 million people have seen the video in about 36 hours, by the way.
00:01:58.720 We see that David had clean hands.
00:02:00.980 He didn't push anyone.
00:02:02.320 He didn't threaten anyone.
00:02:03.360 He didn't swear at anyone.
00:02:04.420 He didn't assault anyone.
00:02:05.680 And we all saw the worst.
00:02:07.460 That was astonishing that he was arrested.
00:02:09.640 But we all saw how the cop pushed him, sticking out his arm, getting in his way,
00:02:16.220 and saying, You're under arrest.
00:02:17.560 He's a plainclothes cop who didn't identify himself, by the way.
00:02:21.320 And so, we all saw how the police immediately lied about it and tried to gaslight David,
00:02:26.480 saying, Oh, you were aggressive.
00:02:27.840 You were pushing people around.
00:02:29.400 Pack a lies.
00:02:30.140 I get the feeling that these bodyguards for Trudeau and Freeland do this all the time.
00:02:36.660 This is just the first time it was caught on tape.
00:02:39.700 So, normally, I mean, if this were a CBC reporter that Doug Ford did this to,
00:02:46.060 or Danielle Smith did this to, or back in the day Stephen Harper did this to,
00:02:50.160 you might well see that consortium of media companies hiring a lawyer together,
00:02:54.860 and you would see a national condemnation of this.
00:02:57.980 But, no, it's David Menzies of Rebel News.
00:03:00.980 And, actually, by the way, he's the only person in our company with a journalism degree.
00:03:06.280 And, I mean, so we're all citizen journalists here,
00:03:09.280 but he's actually the most credentialed of us.
00:03:12.620 And he was doing real journalism.
00:03:14.700 And it's astonishing to me to watch the CBC denigrate him.
00:03:19.080 The CBC won't even call him a journalist.
00:03:21.900 They won't even call him a reporter.
00:03:23.140 Their website calls him a media personality.
00:03:28.060 I'm not too sad about that because the CBC won't call Hamas terrorists,
00:03:33.160 and the CBC doesn't know the answer to what is a woman. 0.99
00:03:37.060 Well, and their people also lack personality, so it might actually be a compliment. 0.89
00:03:40.680 Yeah.
00:03:41.100 But, anyway, my point is, yesterday, I checked the Twitter feeds of all the so-called free speech groups.
00:03:48.000 Canadian Association of Journalists, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression,
00:03:53.160 Amnesty International, Penn Canada, Canadian Civil Liberties Association,
00:03:58.260 Canadian, sorry, the Council for the Protection of Journalists,
00:04:02.820 about six different groups, not one of them had anything to say.
00:04:06.100 And I think it's because Trudeau has successfully colonized the media.
00:04:10.900 And most of those groups I just referred to are too busy applying for grants from Trudeau and Freeland to upset them.
00:04:19.820 Anyways, we're going to take things into, that's a very long way of saying we can't rely on anyone to help us.
00:04:26.260 No one's coming to help us.
00:04:27.820 So we have to help ourselves.
00:04:29.920 So I have spoken to Sarah Miller, who I know has been a guest on your show before.
00:04:33.660 That's the excellent young lawyer who managed to get Pastor Arthur Pawlowski his successful appeal at the Court of Appeal in Alberta.
00:04:43.880 She has agreed to take on this case.
00:04:46.080 Now, we're still formalizing the lawsuit, but I would imagine it would encompass false arrest, false imprisonment, malicious prosecution,
00:04:55.460 negligent investigation, assault, and charter violations violating David's freedom of the press.
00:05:04.900 And by the way, I'm not the only person who's worried about this.
00:05:08.120 I see the RCMP has claimed that they are reviewing the incident.
00:05:12.180 Now, the CBC will, I can tell you in advance, they're going to whitewash it.
00:05:15.260 But I'm not going to let them go so easily.
00:05:17.540 They abused, lied, arrested, detained, assaulted David Menzies, and said, whoopsie, my bad, you can go now.
00:05:27.260 All right, we can go now, but they can't go now.
00:05:29.620 Now we're going to take this before court.
00:05:31.220 And one of the things I'm going to ask Sarah as we prepare the lawsuit is, do we want a jury trial? 0.90
00:05:36.340 I don't know the answer to that right now, but I want the world.
00:05:39.600 Listen, 14 million people saw that video and were disgusted by it.
00:05:43.080 I want a judge to see that, maybe a jury to see that, and I want David Menzies to get a win.
00:05:50.720 And I want to set a precedent, and I want to send a warning.
00:05:53.840 Because this is not the first time Trudeau's thugs have beat up David.
00:05:57.120 And it's not the first time Chrystia Freeland's thugs have assaulted our people too. 0.97
00:06:01.100 One of her staffers assaulted our videographer, Lincoln Jay. 1.00
00:06:04.300 So if we don't stand up to these bullies, it's going to keep happening.
00:06:07.600 And sometimes people say, as are you too litigious?
00:06:09.440 Because my first answer to that is, they violated our rights.
00:06:13.560 It's my right to go to court.
00:06:15.260 Second of all, sometimes we win.
00:06:17.440 Like when we fought to get access to the election debates, and I know you were part of that fight in 2019.
00:06:22.500 And sometimes you just need a small precedent for a win.
00:06:25.500 When Stephen Gilboa blocked us on Twitter, oh, that's a trivial matter.
00:06:28.820 Well, no, not really.
00:06:29.800 Because it's a government department blocking us from getting government information.
00:06:33.480 We sued in federal court, and we won.
00:06:35.440 These are all little wins, and I wish more people were doing it.
00:06:39.540 I tip my hat to the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms and the Canadian Constitution Foundation.
00:06:43.860 But we need more civil liberties litigation.
00:06:46.980 No, absolutely.
00:06:47.780 And one of the big things that we see in this, and I mentioned our little mini solidarity that we saw at the Global Conference for Media Freedom a couple of years ago.
00:06:56.400 But, you know, that event was very interesting because you were there as well for a part of it.
00:07:01.200 But I don't know.
00:07:02.180 How far away was it?
00:07:03.080 Maybe 20 kilometers away from that conference, Tommy Robinson was appearing in court at the Old Bailey.
00:07:09.600 And I can't remember which appearance it was at that point.
00:07:12.020 But I believe it was a decision about whether he was going to jail or a decision about whether he was at risk of going to jail, whatever it was at the day.
00:07:20.100 And I recall talking to one of the journalism advocates at this group.
00:07:25.120 I think she was with Reporters Without Borders.
00:07:27.720 And, you know, she said, oh, yes, press freedom.
00:07:29.740 Journalists are being targeted.
00:07:30.720 And you mentioned Tommy Robinson.
00:07:31.960 And just instantly the color drains from the face.
00:07:33.880 Well, he's not a journalist.
00:07:35.060 And they had the same approach to Julian Assange.
00:07:38.180 And look, I'm all for debating the tactics, the ethics, the merits of a Tommy Robinson, a David Menzies, a you, a me, a Julian Assange, a Rosie Barton, a David Carr.
00:07:49.720 Let's debate and let's challenge and let's criticize and be skeptical.
00:07:53.980 But where you draw that line on what a journalist is, is crucially important.
00:07:59.180 Because the government's trying to make it where audiences aren't the ones that make that determination, where police do.
00:08:05.180 And I want to just play a clip, if I may, Ezra, here.
00:08:07.840 Because the Global Conference for Media Freedom ended up becoming a big dud.
00:08:11.900 Like, Chrystia Freeland and Jeremy Hunt in the UK had such big hopes.
00:08:14.720 And then the next year it ended up being like this virtual conference that Botswana was hosting.
00:08:19.300 And then it just disappeared.
00:08:21.040 But I asked at that next one, Francois-Philippe Champagne, who was the Canadian delegate, what a journalist is and if it's government, what definition government uses.
00:08:31.380 And this is the answer he gave.
00:08:33.280 Okay.
00:08:33.780 Well, that's a very good question.
00:08:35.240 And thank you for it.
00:08:36.100 I don't think it is for any government to define who is a journalist, actually.
00:08:40.580 I would leave it to journalists to define that themselves.
00:08:43.440 I think our role is to make sure that, as we said today, we have seen a number, there's a number of trends against media freedom around the world.
00:08:53.300 We heard from our colleagues in Belarus today who have been harassed, who have been facing violence, and have been seeing more and more restrictions on media freedom.
00:09:03.480 One other aspect which is of concern to me, and I mentioned that before, it's the kind of emerging technologies which are spreading misinformation and disinformation.
00:09:14.820 So I would think that we need more than ever journalists around the world to speak up, to stand up, and to report information accurately so that citizens around the world can be properly informed.
00:09:28.260 And that's the bedrock of our democracy.
00:09:31.080 And you notice the pivot to Belarus.
00:09:33.360 Christopher Freeland loves to do this.
00:09:34.740 You talk about it.
00:09:35.380 Well, let's talk about journalists in Congo.
00:09:37.400 Let's talk about journalists in Iran.
00:09:38.980 Let's talk about journalists in Belarus.
00:09:40.440 I say, let's talk about journalists in Richmond Hill.
00:09:43.680 So right there, you have Minister Champagne saying, no, no, no, it's not government that decides, but his government is the one that has effectively a podcast registry, that has state-subsidized media,
00:09:55.880 a government that has all of these designations of qualified Canadian journalism organizations where they decide you can be a journalist and you can't be.
00:10:03.560 And now you look at the liberal response to what happened to David, and it's all, well, he's not a real journalist, as though that excuses the conduct, first and foremost.
00:10:13.620 Yeah.
00:10:13.940 Well, that's why I want to get this in the court.
00:10:16.140 I mean, I spoke to a very senior lawyer this morning, a very senior criminal lawyer, famous name, and he said that, he watched the tape very carefully.
00:10:26.480 He said, absolutely, they violated his rights.
00:10:29.980 Absolutely, there's significant damages here.
00:10:32.400 So all these know-nothings at the CBC and elsewhere poo-pooing what happened to David, I know a court will find it differently.
00:10:41.080 And by the way, you've got to keep hope alive because we have had victories in the courts, which tells me there are still some people in Canada who believe in freedom for reporters.
00:10:50.520 By the way, you didn't include in your list of censorship there that the CRTC is now requiring news companies like yours and mine to come up with codes of conduct that the government will approve or not.
00:11:04.240 Could you imagine the chutzpah in this?
00:11:06.520 The government will hold journalists to account rather than journalists being allowed to hold the government to account.
00:11:11.280 I saw a CBC panel yesterday that said that David Menzies was harassing Chrystia Freeland by asking her questions by virtue of him being male.
00:11:21.440 And there was a gender aspect, and so the arrest may have been reasonable because he was a man and she was a woman.
00:11:27.980 That's the new ideological woke thinking at the CBC.
00:11:32.940 They would never say that, by the way, if the woman in question were Danielle Smith or another conservative like that. 0.99
00:11:40.060 But, Andrew, it falls to people like you and us and David Menzies to keep real journalism alive, that doesn't make excuses and say, oh, that's harassing, and doesn't excuse police brutality.
00:11:54.200 Because the regime media, the media party, they no longer believe in speaking truth to power.
00:12:01.280 They no longer believe in scrumming powerful people if it's people on the left who are being scrummed.
00:12:07.820 So I'm looking forward to going to court, and as soon as our lawsuit is finalized, we'll publish it, and I'm happy to share it with you and happy to talk to you about it or invite our lawyer, Sarah Miller, to go on your show to answer technical questions.
00:12:20.140 It's an expensive thing to sue because we get no government money.
00:12:24.480 We're like you in that regard.
00:12:25.700 So we do crowdfund it, and sometimes people say, oh, Ezra, you're always crowdfunding.
00:12:29.460 Yeah, because I feel like I'm fighting the whole world at the same time.
00:12:32.360 We have seven different lawsuits against Justin Trudeau right now, and this will be number eight.
00:12:37.760 If people want to help out, they can go to standwithdavid.com.
00:12:41.020 I don't know how much it's going to cost to sue the government.
00:12:43.340 I don't think there's any chance it'll be less than $100,000.
00:12:46.340 And I can tell you right now the government is going to have five or ten lawyers on the other side.
00:12:50.080 They always do.
00:12:50.940 I can tell you right now they're going to spend a million dollars of public money fighting against us. 0.95
00:12:55.600 But I'm pretty sure we're going to win, and damn it, we have to try.
00:12:59.100 All right, Ezra Levant, thank you very much for coming on. 0.86
00:13:01.580 Thanks, my friend. Bye-bye.
00:13:03.360 Thanks for listening to The Andrew Lawton Show.
00:13:05.680 Support the program by donating to True North at www.tnc.news.