Rebel News Podcast - BREAKDOWN： Trucker Commission Day 1 ｜ Ft. Ezra Levant & Sheila Gunn Reid

00:00:00.000 Well, hello. It is Ezra Levant out here in Ottawa, almost on location. I'm not quite

00:00:05.080 in the Library of Archives, but I'm awfully close. Sitting next to me is William Diaz Berthe-Oma,

00:00:11.340 our Ottawa-based correspondent. And across this giant country of ours is my good friend Sheila

00:00:16.040 Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter. She is headquartered in northern Alberta. Sheila,

00:00:20.080 how are you doing out west there? I'm doing great. I tuned into the live stream of the

00:00:25.260 trucker commission proceedings all day today, or at least as long as they went today. And there

00:00:31.460 were some things that really stuck out for me, even though they were just presenting reports

00:00:35.900 and making formal introductions today. There were some things I don't think anybody in the

00:00:40.680 mainstream media picked up upon because it referenced them directly and their bad reporting

00:00:47.480 and their fake news. Isn't that interesting? We will talk about that. Let me just tell you what

00:00:55.000 we're going to do for the course of the next hour and what we hope to do every day for the next

00:01:02.040 month and a half. Like I said, I am in Ottawa with William and we have a team. In fact, we have set up

00:01:08.880 like a pop-up TV studio. We've rented a large Airbnb, just a stone's throw from the Library and Archives.

00:01:17.320 It's got four bedrooms in which we will rotate through our Rebel News reporters. It is my plan to

00:01:24.740 have 15 Rebel News journalists cover this over the course of the next six weeks. And some people

00:01:31.620 will be here for a few days. Some people will be here for almost the whole duration. We are going to

00:01:35.860 be in the room. I want to reach into my pocket and show you something, Sheila. This is my official

00:01:42.500 accreditation. And William has it and you have it, Sheila. And 13 Rebel News journalists have it. Now,

00:01:49.540 normally that would be a very strange thing to boast about, saying like, look, Dad, I've got a

00:01:54.020 driver's license. Unless you're 16 years old, that's not much of a boast. But it goes to show

00:02:00.180 that this Commission of Inquiry maybe, just maybe, is less toxically partisan than the rest of this

00:02:10.420 city. For example, the Debates Commission that bans Rebel News or the Parliamentary Press Gallery that

00:02:15.700 bans Rebel News. Maybe, just maybe, maybe just for show. But the fact that 13 Rebel News journalists

00:02:22.580 have been accredited and we will be covering this thing like green on broccoli, we will be there to

00:02:29.060 scrum politicians, to ask lawyers and witnesses questions. We'll be there to ask questions of

00:02:35.060 Justin Trudeau, you know, the media party won't. Sheila, I'm pretty excited about what's coming.

00:02:39.380 And by the way, we're going to talk about the exciting first day that William has had too.

00:02:43.300 So Rebel News is on location. I'd have to check, but it wouldn't surprise me if our 13 journalists

00:02:50.980 make us one of the largest media outlets accredited to be here. Well, and I think we need to be,

00:02:58.580 because if you look at the media list, there aren't all that many skeptics. However, you know,

00:03:03.380 they did accredit the Epoch Times their video arm, Western Standard is there, True North is there.

00:03:10.180 There are some skeptics, but it's the usual suspects, the bailout media, who are happy to sit idly by

00:03:18.820 while the Liberals sort of stack the deck to rig the outcome of this thing. Because we've already seen

00:03:25.300 the mandate of the Commission focuses on the actions of the truckers when they should be focusing on the

00:03:31.940 actions of the government. The courts will sort out the actions of the truckers there. Some of them

00:03:38.180 are charged with mischief and other very, very minor related offenses, despite what the internet

00:03:43.540 hysterics would have you believe. There are no sedition charges here. And that's another thing

00:03:48.260 that came up in the reports today. But, you know, they're really trying to have another bite at the

00:03:56.420 apple with regard to holding the truckers to account instead of the government to account

00:04:00.740 for their actions. Well, yeah, I think that's something very interesting, Sheila, because

00:04:04.660 the point of the Commission, as some people don't fully understand, is not to see if the actions of

00:04:10.900 the Freedom Convoy were illegal, they were peaceful action, they were the things that should have 0.76

00:04:16.100 happened. The point of the Commission is to see if Justin Trudeau's authoritarian response

00:04:21.940 to the peaceful Freedom Convoy is something that was appropriate for situations. That's

00:04:27.060 something really important that you just said right there.

00:04:30.340 You know, let me jump in, Sheila. Go ahead, Sheila. You finished that thought and I'll jump in.

00:04:34.900 Yeah, I was just going to say, part of this, and of course we'll have lawyers weigh in on this,

00:04:39.380 but the whole point of this is to show, did the government react to a situation that met the very

00:04:47.380 specific benchmarks of invoking the Emergencies Act. I would say it doesn't. Based on what the

00:04:56.900 Commission lawyers said today, I would definitely say it doesn't, but that's what this is all about.

00:05:02.260 It is, it's got nothing to do with mischief charges against truckers.

00:05:06.820 You know what, that's the whole point about this Emergencies Act, which was never invoked

00:05:12.420 before in Canadian history. It was the successor to the War Measures Act. The War Measures Act was

00:05:17.940 deployed during the October crisis some 52 years ago, when there was a terrorist group called the

00:05:24.980 FLQ that were blowing up mailboxes. They kidnapped people. They assassinated people. It truly was a 1.00

00:05:34.100 terrorist insurrection in league with Cuba. I know this sounds hard to believe, but it really was as close

00:05:40.900 to Canada came in a hundred years to an insurrection. Trudeau Sr. brought in the War Measures Act.

00:05:47.620 It was just in Quebec, and it was just limited for a few weeks until they stamped out the terrorism.

00:05:53.540 This Emergencies Act was brought in. Why? Because there was some horn honking that irritated some...

00:06:00.740 The bouncy castle. Those were the ones that did it.

00:06:04.100 So the Emergencies Act has built into a kind of retrospective, was it justified? And as William

00:06:11.780 pointed out, it's up to Trudeau to justify why he suspended our civil liberties. There are truckers

00:06:18.500 and protesters who are facing charges of their own, and that's for other courts to deal with. But the

00:06:23.380 purpose of this inquiry is whether or not Trudeau had a bonfire of our civil liberties that was

00:06:29.140 justified. But look at this. I'm now quoting from the Commission's own mandate. If you go to the

00:06:34.020 publicorderoemergencycommission.ca, that's the official website for this inquiry. And if you click

00:06:39.540 on mandate, you'll see the instructions given to this judge by Trudeau. Oh, hang on. Is that how it

00:06:46.500 works? If I'm charged with a crime, do I get to tell the judge what to think about? And there's five

00:06:52.340 points written down here. Let me read the first three. So again, just remember, this is the

00:06:57.380 commission of inquiry into Trudeau's conduct and suspending our civil liberties. What were the

00:07:02.260 instructions that Trudeau gave to the judge to look at five things, including A, the evolution and

00:07:08.660 goals of the convoy and blockades, their leadership, organization, and participants? Huh? What? What's

00:07:14.900 that got to do with the fact that you torched our civil liberties? You want to put the truckers on

00:07:19.220 trial? B, the impact of domestic and foreign funding, including crowdsourcing platforms. Well,

00:07:25.140 I'll tell you right now, there was no impact because none of the money got through. GoFundMe

00:07:28.740 canceled it and give, send, go, had their money seized. But again, what does that have to do?

00:07:34.260 And to address that point, both crowdfunding platforms testified at Senate hearings,

00:07:42.340 or sorry, House of Commons hearings, and they said the majority of their funding was domestic. It was

00:07:48.420 not in any substantial way foreign. Yeah, another pack of lies from Trudeau. And then the third point

00:07:54.180 is that this judge was instructed to examine, quote, the impact, role, and sources of misinformation and

00:08:02.020 disinformation, including the use of social media. Yeah, or the CBC say Vladimir Putin's behind it. Like,

00:08:09.060 none of the three things I just left had anything to do with Justin Trudeau suspending our civil

00:08:12.900 liberties. And that's what they're trying to do. Now, listen, we've cleared our throat here for 12

00:08:16.260 minutes. We have a one-hour live stream today. You know me, Sheila. I could talk, I could talk for

00:08:20.340 an hour in one big deep breath. But we can't do that because we've got a lineup of great people.

00:08:26.180 And I want to say that every night during this commission, and we've got a special website for

00:08:31.780 truckercommission.com. Let me tell you what we got at truckercommission.com. Number one,

00:08:36.740 that's where all our videos are going to be. Number two, that's where we have our crowdfunding,

00:08:44.980 if you want to help us pay for our Airbnb and the cost of bringing our journalists in. And I

00:08:50.580 want us to stop Trudeau from trying to flip the script. He's trying to use this commission of

00:08:55.940 inquiry to have a do-over because he lost the PR battle for the truckers. He's trying to have a

00:09:01.380 do-over. So truckercommission.com. Okay. I want to be mindful of the time we have here, Sheila. It's

00:09:05.620 great to see you at West. And I'm going to be here from time to time. You know, we've got people,

00:09:09.860 like I said, we've got four bedrooms here at our homemade Ottawa office, our studio. We're

00:09:14.580 going to have people here the whole time. We're going to cycle through about 15 stout. It's sort

00:09:19.380 of fun. And, you know, our team's pretty young. It's sort of like a frat house, but instead of

00:09:25.620 dedicated to drinking and getting in trouble, it's dedicated to holding the government to account.

00:09:30.260 Yeah. And I think there's an importance there as well. And we saw the importance of having

00:09:34.340 Rebel News journalists instead of having mainstream media journalists today in the

00:09:38.580 building, in the library building. Because earlier, we saw Keith Wilson, the lawyer of Tamera Leach,

00:09:44.100 was walking around in the building. And the moment that I started asking him questions,

00:09:49.540 you saw 10, 15 mainstream media reporter gathering around us and then starting to put their microphone

00:09:55.700 in his face to ask him questions. And questions that were also in a different angle than the question

00:10:00.820 that we ask here at Rebel News. We ask questions from a freedom-oriented perspective. We ask

00:10:05.140 questions from a conservative, small-seat perspective as well. That's not what the

00:10:08.500 mainstream media does when they ask questions to both politicians and lawyers and just public

00:10:12.740 personas as well. So that's the importance, I think, Ezra, of having Rebel News people here.

00:10:16.980 Well, listen, I think we have a clip of that. Do we have a clip of that handy, Efron, of the scrum with

00:10:23.140 Keith Wilson? I don't want to play the whole interview, but if we can, we'll show that. Tell me a little bit more

00:10:28.340 about what you did. And then what we're going to do is we're going to throw to a short ad and we're

00:10:31.940 going to bring in Keith Wilson, King's counsel. The lawyer of Tamera Leach. The lawyer of Tamera Leach.

00:10:39.300 So give us a word about that and then we'll call in our first case. Yeah. So basically today,

00:10:43.140 what we saw in the building, what were the proceedings stated? We saw some preliminary

00:10:48.100 matters being discussed and some background reports as well. So no witness testify. I know

00:10:53.060 Catherine McKinney is testifying the next two days of proceedings. So that'll be definitely

00:10:58.100 interesting. The trans admiral candidate for the city of Ottawa. But today, we just saw basically

00:11:03.780 some preliminary matters being discussed. We saw an Alberta solicitor talk about the invocation of

00:11:11.220 the Emergencies Act and talk about what was her view of the Emergencies Act. And I think that was

00:11:16.180 very interesting to see her testifying to that because she was opposed to the Emergencies Act, 0.53

00:11:22.340 the way she was talking about. She was talking negatively about it. So that was interesting to see. But yeah,

00:11:27.300 with Keith Wilson, we spoke about what he hopes to

00:11:32.980 to see as the outcome of the of the inquiries. He gave us a little rundown of what was going to

00:11:40.500 happen. Some of the questions will take a look to the clip when we have it.

00:11:45.620 All right. Do we have that clip or should we call in Keith Wilson live? Okay, we're going to do that.

00:11:51.380 We're going to throw the commercial. Nobody go away. We'll be back in a minute and a half. And

00:11:56.820 joining me here in the living room studio will be Keith Wilson, KC himself.

00:12:02.500 Go go away. It's it's the values. You all right. Western values in Western society. And these are

00:12:11.140 values we could all relate to. But they're old world values of grit and community and perseverance.

00:12:19.060 It's a place where you can make a living with your back and your hands and a little bit of hard work.

00:12:28.260 And it's a place of opportunity. And I think as Albertans, we're fiercely protective of that.

00:12:33.380 The world's energy crisis has been grabbing newspaper headlines. In a nutshell,

00:12:38.740 we're running short of petroleum resources and the prices are zooming upwards. My colleagues

00:12:44.180 in the government and I have come reluctantly to believe that the price of oil in Canada must go

00:12:49.700 up. This was Alberta. The origin of the Alberta separatist movement begins with the election of

00:12:54.980 Pierre Trudeau as prime minister. It was it was a deliberate and malicious targeting in the West,

00:12:59.620 which suited Pierre Trudeau just fine, just like it suits Justin Trudeau just fine. Sunny ways,

00:13:05.140 my friends. Blackface. There is an actual hostile government towards Alberta. Why did your dad give 1.00

00:13:13.220 everyone in Western Canada the middle finger? Really, in politics, you do have to make big decisions.

00:13:19.540 And whenever you make big decisions, there's going to be people who agree with it and people who don't

00:13:23.860 disagree with it. Plenty of people want to leave this country. It's not the kind of idea you'd expect

00:13:30.820 to hear from someone who wants to win power and hold power. It's a it is a radical idea. And you would

00:13:39.540 normalize the discussion. And so maybe Alberta wouldn't have to go because maybe the rest of the

00:13:46.180 country and the rest of the world would say, whoa, don't go. Will you accept these changes instead? That's

00:13:52.180 what happened to Quebec. There's no Maple Leafs west of the Manitoba borders. Why do we why do we have a

00:13:58.020 maple leaf by unilateral decision on the Canadian flag? Think of how the American colonists were in 1775.

00:14:08.420 That's how a lot of Albertans are today.

00:14:18.740 Well, there's a bit of a lag here in the studio. This is the first night. We're going to be doing

00:14:29.220 this every night for six weeks. So it's a great time to test out our systems. Like I say, we're in

00:14:36.660 an Airbnb that we are turning into a studio. Today's just the first day. And how appropriate it is

00:14:43.460 that joining us in our little homemade studio here in the Airbnb at Stone's Throw from the

00:14:48.980 Library and Archives is Keith Wilson, King's Counsel, who has been a lawyer for Tamara Leach and other

00:14:55.700 truckers. Great to see you, Keith. Thanks for joining us here tonight.

00:14:58.500 You're happy to be here.

00:15:00.180 So tell me what happened today. It sounds like from Sheila's report, there wasn't the actual action of

00:15:07.780 the inquiry. It was sort of backgrounders, reports that the commission itself had done,

00:15:13.540 sort of setting the stage. Why don't you explain it in layman's terms? What happened today? First of

00:15:18.500 all, tell us who who's presiding? What's the room like? How many people are in there? How many lawyers?

00:15:25.220 Where were you? Before we get into the substance, tell us, what was it like?

00:15:28.340 Well, it was there was a tension in the room for sure. I think everybody in that room

00:15:34.580 understands the gravity of what's happening here. This is a historic legal and political event of

00:15:41.220 our lifetime. Justice Rouleau, he's a sitting justice of the Ontario Court of Appeal. He was

00:15:49.300 appointed by the prime minister in the Privy Council to be the commissioner in this matter.

00:15:55.140 He kind of laid down the ground rules and allowed the various parties to, you know, the who's who in the

00:16:02.260 zoo. To give you a sense of scale, when we had an all-council call last week.

00:16:08.900 So all lawyers. All lawyers, thank you. All lawyers were on this call that are involved,

00:16:14.260 and there were 78 lawyers on that call. When I look at how the deck's stacked, we calculate that

00:16:20.660 there's approximately 50 lawyers against us. But we're ready for it. We've got a phenomenal team.

00:16:26.500 There's four of us. And yeah, so Justice Rouleau's task is to receive the evidence from a wide

00:16:35.220 variety of parties and documents and oral evidence and cross-examination to determine whether or not

00:16:41.460 the invocation was justified. Now, you say 50 lawyers are against us. I'm assuming that means

00:16:48.100 they're lawyers for the state. They're lawyers for Trudeau. They're lawyers for the city of Ottawa and the

00:16:53.380 police. So on the other side, you mentioned there's four of us. Are you referring to your

00:16:58.660 legal team? Yeah. And are you affiliated with the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom?

00:17:03.060 That's right. So the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom's legal charity has been

00:17:08.020 helping cover a large portion of the legal costs of the legal team and very important work. And they

00:17:14.980 could use more help at all times. The Justice Center itself is also participating, dealing more at a

00:17:22.180 policy level and a charter and rights and freedoms alongside of the Democracy Fund.

00:17:25.940 Alan Hawner, the lawyer for the Democracy Fund, was there today, and he made some remarks.

00:17:30.020 So are there any other good guys there? The Democracy Fund and JCCF, who else is there?

00:17:34.260 Well, there's another group that's representing the protesters at Windsor. There's some academics

00:17:41.460 that are very concerned about the Constitution, Ryan Elford.

00:17:44.340 Well, I'm pleased to hear that. I'm shocked to hear that. I didn't know any

00:17:47.140 academics cared for freedom anymore.

00:17:48.420 Yeah, I hear you. But no, he's been very engaged. There's going to be some really complex issues

00:17:54.900 where they've already signaled the federal government that they're going to want to go in camera.

00:17:58.660 That means turn off. It actually means turn off the camera, right?

00:18:02.260 That's right.

00:18:02.660 It means sort of it's a secret hearing that no transcripts, no videos will be allowed.

00:18:06.660 Like I said, how do you have a public hearing that's a secret hearing?

00:18:10.260 Well, absolutely. And what are they going to talk about? Cease's assessment of the puncturability of

00:18:14.980 jumpy castles? I mean, come on. So anyway, it's going to be interesting. But the cross-examination

00:18:21.380 start tomorrow. And if things go as we expect, there'll be some very interesting developments

00:18:27.940 tomorrow.

00:18:28.340 I want to bring Sheila Gunn-Reed in just one minute, but I want to ask you to clarify that

00:18:32.260 last thing you said, cross-examination. So typically, a witness says something, and then they're asked

00:18:38.580 tough questions based on their testimony. Do we have a list of witnesses? Do we know the order

00:18:44.260 of witnesses? Do we know the name of all the witnesses? Who's up tomorrow?

00:18:50.260 So let me first zoom out a little bit. The list is long. There's a publicly released list that has 65

00:18:57.460 approximately witnesses on it. The prime minister's on that list. The commissioner for the RCMP,

00:19:03.140 Brenda Luckey's on that list. Mendocino's on that list. Blair's on that list. One-fifth of the cabinet.

00:19:08.820 Richard Freeland, Omar, all of these people. The head of the OPP, the mayor of Ottawa,

00:19:15.860 and so on, the various police chiefs.

00:19:18.420 Including the police chief who, it looks like he was fired for not being taken off.

00:19:22.420 Yeah, certainly.

00:19:23.460 I'll be interested to hear from him if he's allowed to speak.

00:19:25.620 Right. And it's a living document. It's not a final list. We've submitted a list of 25 witnesses

00:19:30.980 that we'd like to see, including Dean French, the former chief of staff, to Premier Doug Ford,

00:19:36.340 who helped negotiate the deal with the mayor just before the Invocation and Emergencies Act,

00:19:40.740 former Premier Peckford, a number of Danny Bulford and so on, a number of important people involved

00:19:46.820 in the freedom movement. We think they should testify. So we're still working that through.

00:19:51.060 And what's going to happen is you're going to see each day, the witness list is going to get

00:19:55.300 filled out a little bit more for the coming days. So right now we know the witnesses for tomorrow,

00:19:59.940 then we know the witnesses for Monday.

00:20:01.460 And who are they?

00:20:02.100 So tomorrow we're actually going to have Lexi Lee, who is the plaintiff with Paul Champ,

00:20:06.660 the personal injury lawyer that brought the $300 million class action lawsuit.

00:20:11.300 Yeah, because Horton Hawking is so, you know, she's disturbed for a lot. 0.91

00:20:13.940 She had to hear some horns hogging. 1.00

00:20:15.060 A ridiculous claim.

00:20:16.020 Very troubling.

00:20:16.660 But you know, it's a big deal. Tom Marazzo is one of the persons listed, Tamara Leach.

00:20:21.220 Chris Barber and others have been listed in this class action. No one wants to get sued

00:20:24.740 for $300 million. So this is a serious matter. So she's going to testify.

00:20:28.500 Interestingly, Ms. Dean, who was on the police board chair, 0.80

00:20:32.100 I believe is going to be up tomorrow if we get through the schedule,

00:20:35.220 as well as some other local officials and residents.

00:20:40.580 Interesting next week, we're going to have Steve Kanalakis, who is the city manager.

00:20:48.100 I was involved in direct negotiations with him, as was Tom Marazzo, with respect to the deal and

00:20:54.260 other matters. So it's going to be interesting to see how his testimony unfolds. And we have

00:20:58.980 documents to make sure he stays in his lane.

00:21:02.660 Well, that sounds very exciting. We're going to talk to Alan Harner a little bit later. He is

00:21:09.460 your counterpart at the Democracy Fund. And I know he made some remarks today to the commission.

00:21:13.940 Very exciting. But I want to invite our dear friend Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter,

00:21:18.660 and who has been live tweeting all day. Sheila, I'd like you to weigh in either with questions for

00:21:25.620 Keith, or you said you saw some tantalizing things in the opening briefings from this commission that you

00:21:34.500 say were curious and that maybe were ignored by the mainstream media. So what are the things,

00:21:42.100 because you were covering this thing all day, tell us something that our viewers wouldn't know,

00:21:47.780 or put a question that Keith Wilson would love to get you involved in the conversation.

00:21:51.940 Sure. You know, what I found most curious, Keith, and I don't know how much of it that you saw or

00:21:56.420 stuck around to watch, the explanation from the government for why they used Section 58. Now,

00:22:06.420 Section 58 is the justification for invoking the Emergencies Act. It's like a restraining order

00:22:13.620 against the government, really. And it says that to declare a public order emergency, there has to be

00:22:20.260 an emergency arising from threats to the security of Canada that are so serious as to be a national

00:22:25.860 emergency. Apparently, bouncy castles, hot tubs and honking does that. Threats to the security of

00:22:31.140 Canada, including threats or acts of serious violence against persons or property to achieve

00:22:36.660 political or ideological objectives. There was no real violence against the truckers. There was violence

00:22:42.100 committed against truckers. And a national emergency so emergent that the local police forces do not have

00:22:49.380 the tools to deal with the emergency. And Keith, your client is charged with mischief, being annoying in

00:22:58.500 a public place, really. So I guess my question to you is, well, and I guess because you're there on the

00:23:04.900 other side of this, prediction wise, are they even going to be remotely successful in proving that the police

00:23:12.820 did not have the tools they needed to address bouncy castles, hot tubs and open air soup kitchens? 0.57

00:23:22.100 Well, I don't think so. And one of the things that's going to be surprising

00:23:26.100 is the extent to which they're infighting, the infighting within the police, the infighting between

00:23:31.540 the city officials or the elected officials, the fighting between the police, infighting between the

00:23:38.020 The level of dysfunction I think that's going to get revealed here is going to cause people to

00:23:45.220 question the competency of some of our government agencies. In the opening statement for our group and

00:23:53.620 lawyer Brendan Miller is our lead counsel in the barrister's role. So you may have saw Sheila his

00:24:00.100 opening statement where he basically put the pop cans on the fence posts and knocked each one of them off

00:24:05.700 and said there's five things you have to prove and there will be no evidence to support any one of the

00:24:11.380 five. So this is going to be, I knew it was going to be interesting and I think it's actually going to be riveting.

00:24:21.860 I do too. And you know, just again from the government's explanation here, they're already

00:24:28.820 starting to use social justice nonsense to change the meaning of words. Under continuing blockades and

00:24:34.980 activities tied to serious acts of violence, they say these activities are tied to serious acts of

00:24:41.540 violence. Slow rolls, slowing down traffic, creating traffic jams, and tow truck drivers refusing to

00:24:50.180 work with governments to remove vehicles from blockades. According to the government, those are

00:24:55.460 activities that are tied to or result in serious acts of violence. It's outrageous that they think that

00:25:01.540 they can get away with this. Keith, I know you just lost your phone for a second. Sheila was saying that

00:25:07.700 the stretching of those words to include slow rolling trucks as an act of violence is absurd and

00:25:15.700 it marks a lurch from real law to touchy-feely woke politics. Well, what Professor Alford said in his

00:25:23.860 statement today is that that's not the test. The test isn't whether something's associated or close to

00:25:31.060 or related to or nearby. It has to be actual evidence of it, actual evidence of violence towards the state,

00:25:42.020 actual evidence of each one of those criteria or any combination of them. So that's the jockeying for

00:25:48.900 positioning is occurring. I don't envy the federal government lawyer's position. They're in a tough

00:25:54.820 spot. I got one more question for you, Keith, and then we're going to have another short commercial

00:25:59.780 break and we're going to call on your colleague at the Democracy Fund, Alan Harner. Tamara Leach has become

00:26:07.700 a tremendous symbol of this movement. Peaceful, patriotic, positive, and yet

00:26:18.180 the vendetta against her, not just by Trudeau and the police, but by the prosecutor. And I've never

00:26:24.980 heard in my entire life anywhere in Canada, let alone in any other Commonwealth country, of someone

00:26:30.980 being jailed even for a day for a mischief charge. Actually, that's not true. One guy who shut down,

00:26:37.860 who blew up the power grid in Quebec, got a little bit of jail time. But I've never heard of a pre-trial

00:26:48.260 custody of 49 days for someone who has no violence, no threat to the community. I've just

00:26:57.300 never seen such a thing. Tell me a little bit without giving away any confidences. What do you

00:27:03.300 expect Tamara Leach to say as a witness? And what do you think the impact will be of what she has to say

00:27:10.740 on this inquiry? And finally, these are a lot of questions. What's she going to say? What's the

00:27:16.340 impact going to be on the inquiry? And what are the bad guys going to try to do or do to her in cross

00:27:21.940 examination? Well, let me try and tackle those. I first say that she's going to tell the truth.

00:27:28.100 And the impact is going to be to confirm that this was an extreme example of the federal government and

00:27:35.380 Prime Minister Trudeau overreaching and using this nuclear weapon of statutory powers against Canadian

00:27:43.380 citizens. I'm not going to go into cross examination, but I'm going to say this, Ezra,

00:27:49.060 because it's really important. It goes to an underlying theme in your question. Today,

00:27:54.180 Tamara was mobbed by the legacy media and they all said, Tamara, they're asking her for comment

00:28:01.220 on this, comment on that, comment on this. And she just smiled and declined to comment.

00:28:07.540 So when I was scrum, they're like, well, why won't Tamara talk to us? And I thought to myself,

00:28:12.580 are you guys kidding me? Are you not paying attention here? So I explained to them

00:28:16.180 that under these draconian bail conditions, she's not allowed to criticize the federal government's

00:28:23.060 COVID mandates, and she's not allowed to speak in support of the freedom convoy. And I pointed out

00:28:29.300 to them that right now in Putin's Russia, they could interview Volani, his critic, but in Trudeau's

00:28:37.460 Canada, Tamara Leach can't speak. Incredible. Well, it'll be interesting because of course,

00:28:44.980 my understanding is if you speak before a judicial commission, it's like being in a court and you

00:28:50.020 have absolute privilege, immunity to answer truthfully before a judge. Now, that's my

00:28:56.500 understanding. Let me correct me if I nail that for you. And that's what I explained to the reporters as

00:29:01.060 well, the gaggle of the legacy media, was that they need to understand that the way this works

00:29:08.100 is because it's a public inquiry, and these are pretty rare, that under the rules in the law that

00:29:13.220 applies, it means that when Tamara is subpoenaed, and as with Tom Marazzo and Chris Barber and others,

00:29:21.060 when they're speaking under oath in the commission, they have protections under the charter and the

00:29:25.940 Canada Evidence Act, which means nothing they say can be used against them in other proceedings. So

00:29:30.580 the only place she can speak right now because of these bizarre punitive and politically motivated,

00:29:39.220 in my view, bail conditions is in that room. So I think it was an eye-opener for the reporters

00:29:46.980 because they really wanted to ask her questions and then suddenly realized, wow, so she goes back

00:29:51.060 to jail if she talks to us here? And the answer is yeah. Yeah, well, it'd be interesting to see.

00:29:55.460 But wouldn't they love that? Yeah. But wouldn't they love that?

00:29:59.700 Isn't that the truth? Sheila's saying they would love that. Some of them would. Some of the reporters

00:30:03.300 would love it if she was back in jail. Some of the more partisan reporters. Others, the fact that they

00:30:07.220 don't know that this is the fact just is stunning to me. Yes. A Canadian citizen who's a public person

00:30:14.100 has spent nearly two months in prison and they don't know that. And they don't know about these bail

00:30:19.140 conditions. They're not particularly troubled by it. And oh, OK, that's interesting. To me,

00:30:23.780 that's just as appalling. Well, Keith, it's great to see you. And I understand you're going to be here

00:30:27.860 for the duration as well. Yes. Our Rebel News homemade studio. Today's day one. Thanks for helping us

00:30:33.860 iron out the wrinkles in it. I think we're doing OK. And it's very important to me that this story of

00:30:40.740 this commissioning inquiry be told, not just by the regime media, because as Sheila pointed out,

00:30:47.060 and as the questions are put to you pointed out, if we relied on the regime media, we would not know

00:30:51.620 what's really going on. In fact, if it were only up to the CDC, CTV, Global News,

00:30:57.460 the truckers would have been called violent insurrectionists. Well, you saw Trudeau called

00:31:03.700 racist, misogynist, sedition. It was only because of citizen journalists that those lies were rebutted.

00:31:11.780 So I think that having independent journalists here, and I heard that Western Standard has a

00:31:16.260 reporter accredited. I hope True North does. OK, that's good to hear. And we're going full tilt here.

00:31:22.180 I really think we have a special duty, as our motto says, to tell the other side of the story. So thanks

00:31:26.820 very much for coming in. I'm sure we'll talk to you in the weeks ahead. Thanks for having me.

00:31:30.340 All right. There you have it. Keith Wilson, King's Council. I have to get used to saying that after so

00:31:36.340 long of calling it QC, Queen's Council. If you don't know what that means, it means he's a

00:31:41.140 top dog lawyer. Stay with us. We're going to run a quick commercial. And when we return,

00:31:45.220 another Top Gun lawyer, our dear friend Alan Haunter will join us. That's moments away.

00:31:53.700 Yeah. So just for the viewers at home, you know, that don't really know what's happening for the next

00:31:56.740 six weeks. Can you just outline quickly what's happening here in Ottawa?

00:32:00.180 Well, my name is Keith Wilson. I'm one of the lawyers representing the Freedom Convoy.

00:32:05.060 And because the federal government took the unprecedented step of invoking the Emergencies

00:32:10.180 Act, under that law, there's a requirement for a public inquiry to be held. And that public inquiry

00:32:17.060 was started here in Ottawa. And it's going to last at least six weeks. There's going to be a wide

00:32:21.380 range of evidence presented. Witnesses from the municipality, residents, the protesters, the police

00:32:29.300 and the federal government, including the prime minister, are going to be testifying.

00:32:33.700 I think it's going to be a very engaging process. You can tell from the opening day that

00:32:39.860 the different stakeholders have staked out some very different territory in terms of

00:32:44.500 what their positions are and what they think needs to be addressed here.

00:32:48.740 And what would be the best possible outcome that you see from this inquiry?

00:32:54.420 Well, the truth, that the truth comes out and with some accuracy as to what happened here in Ottawa

00:32:59.940 and what was happening in other locations in the country at the time that the prime minister and

00:33:04.980 his cabinet made the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, because they made the decision in a cabinet

00:33:10.020 meeting on the Sunday evening of February 13th. And on the Saturday and the Sunday of that weekend,

00:33:16.740 the borders had opened at Coutts and Windsor. There was no border closures. And over that same weekend,

00:33:22.100 myself and other people involved with the Freedom Convoy had negotiated a deal at the initiation of

00:33:28.340 Mayor Watson of the City of Ottawa to move the trucks and the protest vehicles out of downtown, consolidate

00:33:34.740 on Wellington and bring the downtown back to normal. And so in my view, and I think the evidence is going to

00:33:43.380 show that it wasn't justified. There was no need for it. And the Emergencies Act is a pretty dramatic

00:33:48.740 tool to say the least. What the Emergencies Act does is it allows the government to interfere in your

00:33:55.540 life without going through the normal due process. So many of my clients, many of those people involved

00:34:00.180 in the Freedom Convoy had their bank accounts frozen. They were unable to buy groceries. They were

00:34:04.820 unable to put gas in their vehicles. Their credit cards stopped working. They were unable to take money out of

00:34:08.820 their bank accounts. Their mortgage payments bounced and so on. The order issued by the Federal Government

00:34:14.180 by the Deputy Prime Minister Freeland also ordered insurance companies to cancel all of the insurance

00:34:19.860 policies, including life insurance, mortgage insurance, vehicle insurance, and ordered the

00:34:25.540 securities companies to liquidate any investments that Canadians had who are on this list. So these are

00:34:31.060 dramatic powers to isolate Canadians from normal living and put them in a virtual jail cell financially.

00:34:38.660 And in addition, what a lot of people don't understand is that under the Emergencies Act, it also gives

00:34:44.820 the Federal Government powers to intrude into areas of provincial jurisdiction. It gets to override provincial

00:34:51.620 government's rights.

00:34:52.580 Well, there you have it, Keith Wilson scrumming with our friend William Diaz Bertiom on the premises

00:35:04.740 of the National Library and Archives. What a pleasure to have Rebel News in the house, and by that I mean

00:35:10.420 actually in the house as opposed to on the outside. I should tell you we do better journalism on the

00:35:15.620 outside than most mainstream media do from the inside, but now we're leading the way. As Chris Wilson pointed out,

00:35:21.780 it was William who put the microphone to Tamara and then the others caught up. It was William who put the

00:35:26.500 microphone to Keith and the others caught up. You know what, the most interesting thing that Keith said to me

00:35:33.220 was not that journalists are hostile to Tamara Leach or the truckers. I mean, we know that. At least the edgy

00:35:42.980 Trudeau quoting journalists like David Aitken or, you know, Glenn McGregor. The most

00:35:50.820 alarming, depressing thing Keith Wilson said to me was that most journalists just simply don't know.

00:35:58.820 They're unaware that in our country in 2022, while we criticize Vladimir Putin for being authoritarian,

00:36:04.980 while we criticize China and Iran, in our own country we have a truly a political prisoner who served

00:36:10.740 49 days in prison without a trial for the alleged crime of mischief. And she has to this day a

00:36:19.860 speech ban. She cannot criticize the government. She cannot support the truckers, 0.74

00:36:24.660 neither of which have anything to do with mischief. That to me was the most incredible thing. Well,

00:36:30.820 that was Keith Wilson. And now joining us in the fancy chair in our extremely fancy Airbnb studio is

00:36:38.900 my friend Alan Harner, who is the head of litigation at the Democracy Fund. And he,

00:36:45.060 along with the JCCF, has standing and he's actually on the commission. And Olivia, in a moment, I'm going to

00:36:50.500 call for the clip of Alan's opening remarks. So please get that ready. Alan, great to see you. Welcome to our

00:36:58.100 very humble studio. Well, thank you very much, Ezra. It's a pleasure to be here.

00:37:02.420 I'm going to invite you to come a little closer to the microphone just to make sure we hear them

00:37:05.460 clearly. So today, Keith told us a little bit about how it went. It was sort of throat clearing,

00:37:14.340 scene setting, backgrounders, the real action starts tomorrow. Tell me what you thought was

00:37:19.940 interesting. What are the most important things to know from your point of view that happened today?

00:37:24.900 Yeah. Well, so as for today, I think the most important thing we've seen and the most

00:37:29.620 interesting thing we've seen is that counsel for the different parties gave their opening statements.

00:37:37.060 And opening statements are not evidence, but they show you where the parties are heading and what type

00:37:42.980 of evidence they intend to lead. And I think there were some surprises there. I think the biggest surprise

00:37:50.020 for me or one of them actually came from the OPP lawyer. Now, there are a lot of police who are

00:37:57.060 involved in this commission as parties. There are police associations. And I think that some of them

00:38:04.260 have been a bit embarrassed about the way this protest unfolded. And they're trying to save face

00:38:09.220 because of perceptions about them. I don't, I'm not saying those perceptions are true or not,

00:38:15.220 but that's something that's, that's very much alive. So the lawyer from the OPP said today,

00:38:21.620 and I'm going to quote, I have the exact quote here. He said, Windsor was very much a success story.

00:38:30.340 So why would he say that? And I think the reason he's saying that is because in Windsor,

00:38:37.860 the police managed to stop the protests. They managed to, there goes my earpiece. They managed to

00:38:46.420 clear the protests before the invocation of the emergency act. They managed to do it with the

00:38:52.740 laws that were available. Isn't that interesting? So when he said, by the way, from a policing point

00:38:58.900 of view, it was a success. There was no violence. They, there was no insane insurrection or things did not

00:39:08.100 get out of hand. They went in, they moved the vehicles after a couple of days. I know that because

00:39:14.020 our own David Menzies and I think it was Isabel Reboche were there. And it was quite a dramatic

00:39:18.580 moment, but it was handled. And in terms of, you know, can we get a tow truck driver to tow a truck?

00:39:25.620 Our existing criminal code gives police the power under the criminal code to commandeer the use of

00:39:31.220 tow trucks or frankly, any vehicle for their purposes. You don't need the whole country in martial law,

00:39:38.020 seize bank accounts, quash insurance policies, deploy ride horses to get a tow truck. You actually,

00:39:46.340 in the criminal code, have the power to take any tow truck you please at any time. It's quite an astounding

00:39:52.500 power that the police have. That's very interesting that the OPP sort of, like I'm sure they wouldn't

00:39:59.220 characterize it as attacking the emergencies act, but by implication if they had a successful clearing of

00:40:06.100 the bridge. And by the way, there was no strategic problem with having trucker protesters in Ottawa.

00:40:12.020 Okay, so there's some horn honking that stopped immediately after a local judge said stop the horn

00:40:16.820 honking. But there was no strategic shutdown. There is no strategic value to those lanes of traffic

00:40:24.820 a couple of blocks away from Parliament Hill. There was a lane kept clear for ambulances and firetrucks

00:40:29.060 the whole time. Whereas blocking the Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit is extremely

00:40:35.060 important. That is one of the most economically important bridges in all of North America in terms

00:40:40.740 of trade. So that was very important, and yet that was cleared in a couple of days with no violence,

00:40:47.860 with no shock and awe, and certainly no emergency act. That is a very interesting comment by the OPP.

00:40:53.940 I think you're absolutely right, Ezra. And what surprises me is that I thought TDF was going to

00:40:59.620 need to make this argument. I thought the JCCF would have to make it, but now it looks like the OPP is

00:41:05.060 going to be helping us out with that. I wonder if that's on purpose, or if that's just speaking the

00:41:09.620 truth, the whole good and nothing but the truth. Well, as I say, I think they're probably trying to

00:41:14.340 save face here a bit. That's my theory. I don't know. Let me raise another point again, Ezra,

00:41:20.740 sort of along the same lines, the government of Alberta. I thought they had a very interesting

00:41:27.620 opening statement, because they had coots. And this is what they say, and I'm going to read it

00:41:34.260 again, because this is an exact quote. They say that the law enforcement mechanisms were, quote,

00:41:40.900 completely sufficient to deal with coots.

00:41:44.820 Huh. You know what? And it's funny, because, of course, Jason Kenney hated the coots truckers. 1.00

00:41:52.740 He lied about them. He smeared them. He defamed them. He said they were violent. They were not.

00:41:57.140 The RCMP actually made a public statement saying that Jason Kenney lied about it. It was quite

00:42:01.460 astounding. The coots truckers caused the downfall of Jason Kenney, just the same way the Ottawa 1.00

00:42:08.180 truckers caused the downfall of Aaron O'Toole. So the Alberta government is no fan of the truckers

00:42:13.300 by any stretch, certainly not the Justice Department, which has been persecuting them. But again,

00:42:17.460 same thing. They did not need the emergencies act. They did not need martial law. They didn't need to

00:42:24.580 seize bank accounts of families to move some trucks out of the way. In fact, they managed to pretty much

00:42:30.980 negotiate it away. That is very interesting, too. Sheila, what do you think of these things that Alan

00:42:36.180 Holler is pointing out? Well, you know, it's interesting because I noticed some things

00:42:43.060 similar to that, too. Again, going back to the government making the case for why they

00:42:48.500 invoked the emergencies act. And I don't think Alan can hear me anymore because I think his earpiece

00:42:52.900 fell out. So you might have to play telephone. Oh, he's got it back. Yeah, we'll get more earphones.

00:42:58.660 We'll get bigger, better earphones in the days ahead. This is day one of our homemade studio,

00:43:03.060 Sheila. We'll get there. It's a DIY operation. But I noticed that the government is relying on

00:43:10.980 media reports. They said that one of the reasons they invoked the emergencies act because it was a

00:43:16.580 threat to Canadian sovereignty was media reporting about give, send, go, indicating that the

00:43:22.580 majority of donations to the protests were made by donors outside of Canada. Well, give, send, go,

00:43:26.980 and go fund me testified at a House of Commons committee that that was not the case. And the

00:43:34.100 two stories CBC published about Russian interference, those were both retracted. But that's never indicated

00:43:41.540 in the government's reasoning here that they relied on largely debunked media reporting.

00:43:47.460 Yeah. Yeah. What do you think of that, Alan? Well, you know, I think that is a very interesting

00:43:54.420 point, Sheila, and we haven't heard any evidence from the government yet. I believe we're going to

00:44:00.180 hear from them starting next week. I think Keith is right. I think the government is in a pretty tough

00:44:06.020 spot and they're going to be asked questions about those media reports on these other issues that you

00:44:11.940 raise. You know, there's a lot of collusion between the media and the government. The media would come

00:44:20.180 up with a hoax. The government would use it as proof to go to the courts to get some power or whatever.

00:44:25.940 I mean, it was a closed loop. They were re-breathing each other's air. They were,

00:44:31.540 I'll scratch your back, you scratch my back. I mean, nothing makes me laugh more than the CBC

00:44:36.740 talking head who said to Marco Mendocino, maybe Vladimir Putin's behind the truckers. And he just

00:44:42.660 sat there. He didn't say, you're crazy. You're a crazy lady. He just sort of said,

00:44:49.140 and I don't know. I mentioned that because the ombudsman of the CBC made a statement on that in

00:44:55.460 the last few days saying how embarrassed he was. Well, and you know what? This is going to be very

00:44:59.860 interesting. What I'm hearing from both Keith Wilson of the Justice Center and yourself of TDF,

00:45:05.140 and Sheila's reports also, is that this trucker commission has a lot of interesting things to

00:45:11.060 say that may actually contradict the official regime narrative. And it, whether it's the

00:45:17.460 government of Alberta or the Ontario Provincial Police, the OPP, it's not just freedom fighters

00:45:23.060 saying it. I mean, if the OPP, which I happen to think is an abusive police force, I say that from some

00:45:28.180 experience, if the OPP is saying we didn't need the sledgehammer guys, there are some interesting

00:45:37.060 things being said here. Now, the question is, will the regime media report that in the way that we've

00:45:43.060 just heard here? And I'd say that the media is more compromised in Canada than it ever has been.

00:45:48.900 You don't just have the CBC state broadcaster. You now have 99.9% of journalists in some way on Trudeau's

00:46:00.420 payroll. We've listed the independent journalists in this country. Rebel News, True Northwestern,

00:46:06.740 Standard, Epoch Times, and I think I've done my list. And so I think it's extremely important that we

00:46:11.700 have our little homemade studio here. And I'm really grateful for the Democracy Fund and Justice Center.

00:46:15.860 I think you're doing good stuff. So you're going to be going every day, eh? You or your colleagues?

00:46:21.860 Absolutely.

00:46:22.900 Okay. Well, we'll keep an eye on that. We're going to report on it. We're going to report on the JCCF

00:46:27.300 and the Democracy Fund because we're going to report on everything. You know, our motto,

00:46:31.540 what's our motto? Telling the other side of the story. So Alan, thanks for popping by

00:46:36.980 our homemade studio. It's 6.51 and we do have one more very special guest. So we're going to have a short

00:46:43.020 commercial break and we'll be right back. My name is Alan Hohner and I am the Litigation

00:46:49.980 Director for the Democracy Fund. The Democracy Fund is a registered charity and a civil liberties

00:46:56.940 organization. As you've heard, we're sharing standing with the JCCF and with Citizens for Freedom.

00:47:02.860 Our interest in this inquiry arises from our legal work. In February of 2022, we sent lawyers to Ottawa

00:47:12.700 and to Windsor to provide demonstrators with legal information about their rights when protesting,

00:47:20.940 as well as the limitations of those rights. Around the same time, we were granted intervener status

00:47:28.060 as a friend of the court at the Superior Court of Justice in Windsor over the Ambassador Bridge

00:47:36.460 injunction proceeding. Currently, we represent dozens of persons who have been criminally charged

00:47:44.060 in relation to the protests at Ottawa, Windsor, and Coutts. And we represent thousands of others

00:47:51.820 who have been charged under the Quarantine Act or provincial offenses related to the pandemic.

00:47:58.860 We've also brought applications before Superior Courts.

00:48:07.100 Well, we are back. You know, there's a bit of a time lag in our homemade studio, so forgive me that I

00:48:12.540 have that little pregnant pause there. It's great to be here on day one of our studio, just for those who are

00:48:18.460 joining us at our special website, truckercommission.com. We will have nightly live streams, updates

00:48:25.500 throughout the day in video, in tweet form. My point to you is if you want the antidote,

00:48:32.300 the other side of the story, you have to bookmark truckercommission.com. And it is my hope that you

00:48:38.780 find this useful enough to maybe even check in to help us cover the cost of the Airbnb, which I think

00:48:44.060 is about $15,000. I know that's a shocking amount of money, but we are so close to the library and

00:48:48.780 archives, you wouldn't believe it. And it's a big place. There's four bedrooms, and it's cheaper,

00:48:53.980 I think, than getting a hotel room and a studio. We're in one of the rooms of the Airbnb. We're going

00:48:59.740 to make it even better. So please do support us at truckercommission.com. Now, sitting next to me

00:49:06.140 is Tom Morazzo, who is a witness here. Now, Tom, I just want to ask you a question before we get started,

00:49:11.340 because I'm nervous now, because Tamara Leach has bail conditions on her that are extremely 0.99

00:49:18.060 onerous. And there is an insane, out of control prosecutor in this town. And I want to make sure

00:49:25.500 that I know any restrictions on you so I don't inadvertently get you or me in a pickle. Do you

00:49:32.700 have any bail conditions that I need to know about? I do not have any bail conditions. Okay,

00:49:36.540 good. Now, I relax a bit. I don't want to go to the clink. So what are you charged with,

00:49:42.380 if you don't mind? I actually haven't been charged that I'm aware of. There's no charges pending.

00:49:49.980 Okay, thank you. Forgive me for being overly cautious here. I just don't want, I mean,

00:49:54.940 remember what happened when Tamara Leach was thrown in jail a second time. Absolutely outrageous, 0.97

00:50:00.140 but the other side is not dealing with us in good faith. Right. Sorry. Okay,

00:50:04.060 thanks for letting me clear that up. Tell me a little bit about your plans to testify. How were

00:50:08.860 you called as a witness? Did the commission call you? Were you suggested by council? How did you

00:50:13.980 come to be one of the, like, I'm sure hundreds of people would like to testify. How did you get on the

00:50:18.700 list? I believe that Keith Wilson and Eva had put together the application in the early days when the

00:50:27.900 commission was looking for witnesses to come forward. And my name was one of the ones that

00:50:33.820 was put forward and it was accepted by Justice Rouleau and I guess the government team. And that's how I

00:50:43.260 got on the list. And it's interesting to me that there are so few of us that are actually participating

00:50:51.260 in this. I'm quite surprised by how small the people that I worked with during the convoy,

00:50:58.060 how small that list actually is. So that's your standing as you were helping to organize the

00:51:03.500 convoy or to interlocute between the convoy and the police. That was one of the things you were doing,

00:51:09.500 right? You were a go-between, like a human ambassador bridge, if I may, between the truck and the police,

00:51:16.140 right? Yeah, there was, um, my role did actually evolve over time. Uh, when I first got there,

00:51:21.980 it was, I was more focused on the logistical aspects and making sure that it was, uh, safe

00:51:26.860 and responsible. We had safety lanes open to the public and emergency service. That's the point

00:51:31.500 that most people don't know. They call it a lockdown, they call it an occupation. There were lanes open.

00:51:35.980 The police were shutting down more lanes to the truckers. Yes, in fact, they were. And there was, uh,

00:51:40.860 there's one, one incident I was asked by the police to go confirm that we were not locking in an,

00:51:45.820 an intersection. And when I arrived, there was heavy equipment, two concrete barriers,

00:51:50.940 and five police officers standing there blocking the intersection, not us. I believe it. I believe

00:51:56.460 it. So, um, do you, you, you've got to prepare, let me guess, you have a prepared statement.

00:52:02.940 You're going to read it and then your lawyer will ask you questions and then you'll be open to

00:52:06.940 cross-examination. Is that how it goes? Is it like a trial that way? Like, have you prepared a commentary?

00:52:12.540 I've had many discussions with the legal team. Yeah. Uh, but how the actual steps will unfold once,

00:52:19.100 once I do get called to testify, I'm not entirely sure of how that's going to go,

00:52:23.900 uh, because none of the witnesses have actually testified yet. So I don't really know what that

00:52:27.900 is. It's not really a trial, but it's like, you know, there's witnesses before a parliamentary

00:52:32.460 committee. That's what I was thinking. Those are often, you make a statement and you take questions,

00:52:36.540 but there's so many lawyers. I mean, we heard there's, there's almost 80 lawyers there,

00:52:39.820 each one wanting to take a shot at you. Yeah. And I, so I don't even know if there

00:52:43.020 would be time for me to do an opening statement of any kind. I think it's, there's just, I'm going

00:52:47.260 to be too open to too many, too many lawyers from too, too many different groups to consume that much

00:52:54.620 time, I suppose. Now, are you there representing a group of people? Like, are you, do you have any

00:53:01.420 official status? Are you there in your personal capacity? Well, I was summonsed, uh, to appear,

00:53:07.340 uh, and to make myself available in Ottawa in person for the entire duration of the

00:53:12.940 inquiry. Is this going to be in person or some of them appearing by remote, like by Zoom or something?

00:53:17.580 Uh, that is yet to be determined. Sure. Because I don't, I'm just so curious.

00:53:22.460 Because I don't believe that the witness list has actually been finalized.

00:53:25.340 That's what he's still saying. Yeah. A draft, uh, a working draft.

00:53:28.860 Yeah. Yes. All right. Well, very interesting. I'm going to bring my friend Sheila Gunn-Reed in.

00:53:32.860 She's our chief reporter and the big boss in Northern Alberta. Sheila, what questions do you

00:53:37.180 have for Tom Marazzo? Who's, are you a witness tomorrow? No, I don't believe I'm not tomorrow.

00:53:41.980 Okay. I was getting excited there for a second. Sheila, go ahead.

00:53:45.740 That, well, Ezra, you just stole my question. Are you a witness tomorrow? But are you, thanks.

00:53:51.660 But also, Tom, are you, are you able to sit in the room when other people are testifying?

00:53:56.380 Or are they keeping you outside like they do at the normal courtroom?

00:54:01.100 I sat in on the first day today inside the hearing room because it was open to the public.

00:54:05.820 So I was sitting there in the audience. In fact, the, the back four rows were completely empty.

00:54:11.500 Um, so I, yeah, I, I originally believed that I would need to get credentials to get into the room,

00:54:17.660 but it turns out there was no need for me to get credentials. Keith arranged for me to, uh,

00:54:23.260 to come to the room and, uh, I didn't have to go in with credentials, but I think Keith worked his

00:54:28.460 magic as usual. Anything else, Sheila, for Tom Marazzo? You know, Tom, was there anything today

00:54:37.180 that you heard in the opening statements in the presentation of reports, anything that stuck

00:54:42.620 out to you that surprised you or shocked you, or maybe you were just sort of blindsided by the

00:54:48.540 honesty as, as, uh, Alan Hohner was by the OPP? You know, that's a great question because there

00:54:54.780 were a couple of things that really, uh, did surprise me. And, uh, the, the, the biggest

00:55:00.940 surprise to me was, you know, it was my understanding that this inquiry was about examining the actions

00:55:07.820 of the federal government and the decisions that, uh, Justin Trudeau had made to invoke the emergency

00:55:13.340 act. But what I found particularly interesting was all of the law enforcement agencies actually

00:55:20.380 were taking ownership of the, the invocation of the emergency act, which I found really kind

00:55:28.860 of also strange when the, the, in previous commissions, they testified saying they never

00:55:33.580 asked for it, but it would appear to me that their demeanor was that they were almost in defense

00:55:39.260 of the government and are taking some sort of a position of ownership over the invocation of

00:55:45.340 the emergency act, even though they say they never asked for it. And so I found that to be a little

00:55:50.540 bit, um, I don't know, disturbing because I thought it was the government that was there to be examined

00:55:57.660 for their decisions in invoking the emergency act, not law enforcement agencies across this country.

00:56:02.780 Well, this, we're just at the very beginning of what's going to be an interesting and an intensive

00:56:09.740 six weeks. I understand that they might even do a very non Ottawa, non government thing and even meet

00:56:16.220 on, on Saturdays, like to go six days a week. That's astonishing to me. Um, that's just, I mean,

00:56:23.820 we're in a place that thinks, uh, passport offices, uh, can work from home and have a six month delay.

00:56:29.260 Like that's, that's normal in Ottawa to find someone who's willing to work six days a week

00:56:33.740 is so upside. It's like, it's like Costanza. Find someone to work after three, find someone to work

00:56:39.180 after 30, you know, this judge lives up to the public interest in the public duty. I know people

00:56:47.420 point out that he's a liberal donor and a liberal appointee and things like that. And I, and I want

00:56:51.580 to brush that aside. Part of me wants to think, okay, you know what, it's not shocking that a judge

00:56:57.180 in Ottawa as a liberal, given how judges are appointed. It's just not shocking to me because

00:57:01.980 a lot of judges are liberal. A lot of lawyers are liberal. And I don't want to, I really want

00:57:06.140 to give this guy the benefit of the doubt and say, you know, he's not a liberal anymore. He's not an

00:57:11.660 activist anymore. He's on the bench. This is a serious matter. He's taking it seriously. He's

00:57:16.380 being rigorous. He seems to be even handed in terms of the witnesses and, and, you know, even granting

00:57:22.620 intervener status to the JCCF and the Democracy Fund. So I really want to hope, I really need to

00:57:28.460 hope because the courts have been such a shocking disappointment over the last two years. I went to

00:57:34.380 law school and the charter of rights was this holy grail. It's so important part of our identity.

00:57:40.620 And yet the charter, other than the case of Arthur Pawlowski in Alberta, the charter has not

00:57:46.140 shut down any lockdown elements in the last two years. Our Supreme Court hasn't even weighed in on the

00:57:51.500 subject. It's like the judges just didn't give a damn. And so I really need my faith in the legal

00:58:01.100 system revived. And I hope that this judge does it, but you know, don't put your trust in princes,

00:58:08.620 as the good book says. Last word to you, Tom, are you excited about being here? Are you looking forward

00:58:13.660 to this or are you dreading it? No, I've actually been looking forward to this every day since I left

00:58:17.980 Ottawa last February. Yeah. And you know, I too am looking for that hope as well. But the one thing

00:58:25.020 that I can say is regardless of what the government says, what the judge himself says, or the commissioner,

00:58:33.660 my faith is actually in the legal team that is representing the convoy itself. And when I, you know, I'm

00:58:41.580 involved in the conversations with Keith and Eva and Bathsheba and Brendan Miller, you know,

00:58:49.980 Olivia, can I get you to call up Brendan's remarks? We'll play that in a minute. So I know we clipped

00:58:55.740 it earlier. Sorry to interrupt. Keep going. But they're, they're, you know, brilliant minds that

00:58:59.500 are here doing the work of Canadians that supported the convoy. And there's a lot of talk online where

00:59:06.140 people are saying, you know, this commission is a big farce. It's, it's irrelevant. It's,

00:59:10.860 it's not important, but I disagree. I disagree because this is where the first time since the,

00:59:16.940 the, you know, COVID restrictions that the public is going to get to examine for the first time,

00:59:23.660 I believe the government's actions against the people of Canada, you know, in the 6 million that

00:59:30.460 chose not to get vaccinated, that have a very good grievance. They're going to get to hear

00:59:35.580 their grievances are going to be heard, I think throughout this entire process.

00:59:40.780 And so I think it is important. And I think this is very much a, a court of public opinion,

00:59:47.260 if nothing else, there's no punishments. There's no, I think this is really what it's important

00:59:52.380 for about everyone hearing the facts. Yeah. And if we, if we want this, this country to move forward

00:59:57.580 and start to heal from the experiences of COVID, I think this is the starting point.

01:00:01.580 Well, Tom, those are some very thoughtful and philosophical comments. I'm so glad you're here.

01:00:05.420 I'm so glad you're a witness. Stay put for one second. We're going to run. Olivia,

01:00:09.900 do we have the clip? Oh yeah, we do. So you were referring to the legal dream team

01:00:15.420 who was representing and one of your lawyers, um, made some thoughtful remarks and we'll play that

01:00:21.660 and we'll call it a commercial. And that'll let you chance to gracefully

01:00:26.060 we're still setting up our, uh, our living room studio here. So give us a break, but I'm kidding

01:00:32.860 around. It's nice to have you on our first day. I'm very pleased with how the live stream is going

01:00:37.420 more than 2000, um, contemporaneous viewers, and we're just getting started and we're going to be

01:00:44.220 here for six weeks. We've got 15 different journalists who are going to rotate through.

01:00:49.340 We're bringing journalists, not just from our Toronto office and our Ottawa team,

01:00:53.260 but he and Simone came all the way from Calgary. Uh, Alexa Lavoie is going to come. Of course,

01:00:58.940 she's based in Montreal, Lincoln J. We have so many people who were part of the trucker convoy coverage

01:01:06.940 who know this is important. Second part of it. So thanks for joining us. Let's play that video

01:01:12.540 by your lawyer, Brandon Miller, right? That's the name of the lawyer. Let's play it right now. Take a look.

01:01:15.980 Good morning. Um, my name is Brendan Miller of Foster LLP and I am counsel to Freedom Corp,

01:01:23.660 which is a organization that represents the protesters of which attended Ottawa in January

01:01:31.180 and February of 2022. Uh, my colleague, Ms. Beth Sheba Vandenberg of Foster LLP is my co-counsel on this

01:01:38.540 matter, as well as the solicitors of record, uh, both Mr. Keith Wilson, King's counsel, as well as Ms.

01:01:45.180 Eva Chipiuk, uh, who is counsel to the convoy. Uh, with respect to, uh, sort of everyone's given an

01:01:52.540 overview of the theory of their case, uh, it is our view that there was no justification

01:01:58.860 whatsoever to invoke the Emergencies Act. The Emergencies Act requires several things. One,

01:02:07.340 it could be invoked due to espionage and sabotage. Are you going to hear any evidence

01:02:13.900 about espionage and sabotage? The answer to that is no. Two, it could be invoked on the basis of

01:02:20.780 clandestine or deceptive foreign influence or foreign influence that involves the threat to a person.

01:02:27.020 Are you going to hear evidence about that? The answer to that is no. It also could be invoked on

01:02:32.620 the basis of threats or use of acts of serious violence against persons or property. Are you going

01:02:39.260 to hear evidence of violence against persons or property? The answer is no. Lastly, it can also be

01:02:46.620 invoked if there is a group or persons trying to destroy or overthrow by violence the system of

01:02:55.260 government of Canada. Are you going to hear evidence about individuals trying to do that?

01:03:02.220 The answer is no. And the answer is, is that there was no reasonable and probable grounds to invoke

01:03:08.060 the Emergencies Act and that the government exceeded their jurisdiction, both constitutionally and

01:03:14.380 legislatively and legislatively in doing so. Thank you.

01:03:19.820 Well, that's a very interesting comment, isn't it, Sheila? What do you think of that?

01:03:24.140 I thought he was great. He laid it bare. All the, all the things that restrains the government

01:03:30.380 in the Emergencies Act from just whipping out this piece of legislation willy nilly and stomping all

01:03:36.860 over the civil liberties of Albertans, but Canadians writ large, there's no proof of any of it. There's no

01:03:43.580 proof of any of it. And yet in the government's response, they say the measures that were taken were

01:03:49.340 tailored such that any effects on charter rights were reasonable and proportionate.

01:03:55.740 Yeah. Well, there's going to be some strong lawyers and strong witnesses in the weeks ahead.

01:04:02.620 We're going to be here to cover it journalistically during the day and each night. It is my ambition

01:04:08.300 that we have a live stream. We've got a great team of citizen journalists and frankly, a lot of our team

01:04:13.340 fused together. We became a team during the crisis of covering the trucker convoy. When I think to the

01:04:20.380 people we hired on the fly, people who joined us in an emergency state, this company, Rebel News,

01:04:29.180 has the size that it has. When we started the pandemic, we had 30 people. Now we have about

01:04:34.540 double that. Covering the pandemic was important. Covering the lockdowns was important, but covering

01:04:39.740 the truckers was our time to shine because our motto telling the other side of the story, because

01:04:44.140 of our style, citizen journalism, because of our promise, no government money. And it was the

01:04:48.700 confluence of those factors that allowed us to cover the trucker convoy in a way no one else could.

01:04:53.900 And it is my hope that we tap into the same values and the same spirit and rely on the same Rebel News

01:05:00.780 citizen journalism team to give you outstanding coverage in the next six weeks. So Sheila, 0.54

01:05:06.540 I know you're going to hold the fort from out west there. I'll be in Toronto or Ottawa or flying

01:05:11.580 around. I'm going to do my best to come by the Airbnb here. We've got to give this place a nickname.

01:05:16.860 And we've got to make sure we keep it tidy when you've got a bunch of young guys all staying under

01:05:22.380 one roof for weeks at a time. We've got to make sure that it remains tidy and hospitable to our guests.

01:05:29.340 I'm joking around. But it's going to be a lot of fun. But it's actually deadly serious,

01:05:35.820 because the matter we are convened to describe, fun is not an acceptable word. When our reporter

01:05:43.660 Alexa Lavoie was shot in the leg by a riot gun, when RCMP horses stomped on peaceful protesters and

01:05:50.220 the RCMP joked about it, when 200 people had their bank accounts seized, when people were arrested for

01:05:55.820 essentially political crimes in jail. There's nothing fun about that. We're going to have,

01:06:00.860 we're going to be happy warriors, I guess, is a phrase I ought to say. We like our craft,

01:06:07.100 and we like living up to our mission of telling the other side of the story. But we are not here for fun.

01:06:12.060 We are here because a terrible thing happened in our country, and we need to hold our powerful

01:06:16.860 political leaders to account, even if the rest of the media is just sucking up trying to get their

01:06:22.700 next media bailout. Last word to you, Sheila. Our presence in Ottawa at this commission is so

01:06:29.420 important. It is day one, and we've already seen how important to enforcing the government narrative

01:06:36.700 the mainstream media was. Their inaccurate reporting closed the circuit that allowed the liberals to do

01:06:45.580 what they did to so many Canadians. Fake news, the government reacted to fake news, to things that they

01:06:52.140 knew were fake, and then the mainstream media quietly retracts and washes their hands of the mess.

01:06:58.700 This is why we are so important in this story. We have to be the counterbalance to this mess.

01:07:05.980 Yeah. Well, it's really great to see you. Thanks for holding the fork and joining me on the live stream.

01:07:11.340 Thanks to our team here in Ottawa, Efrain Oswaldo Flores Lonsanto, William Diaz Bertiom,

01:07:19.020 Kean Simone, our team in Toronto, who I think is Olivia Bruyne. There might be other people there as well,

01:07:24.620 and I thank them. Sheila Out West, and all of you at home who make this possible because we are 100%

01:07:30.380 crowdfunded. We take no money from mega corporations, no oligarchs, and most importantly, no government

01:07:37.820 funding. So until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at our rebel pop-up studio in Ottawa,

01:07:44.860 to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - October 14, 2022

BREAKDOWN： Trucker Commission Day 1 ｜ Ft. Ezra Levant & Sheila Gunn Reid

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