Rebel News Podcast - BREAKDOWN： Trucker Commission Day 29 ｜ Justice, Defence, Transport ministers testify

00:00:00.000 Oh, good evening, everybody, and welcome to Breakdown, the Rebel News daily show wherein

00:00:21.100 we analyze the day's proceedings at the Public Order Emergency Inquiry.

00:00:25.360 I'll get to exactly what that is in a second, but I want to say hello to my friend Selene,

00:00:29.360 who looks great in orange, by the way, and Selene has been in the Public Order Inquiry Commission

00:00:35.560 hearing room since very nearly the beginning. What was it like in there today? We had some more

00:00:41.300 high-profile cabinet ministers doing their best to cover their butts.

00:00:46.180 It was interesting because it was a different tone in the room per the minister actually giving

00:00:52.520 their testimony. So there was actually a lot of people left during Lamedi's testimony because he

00:00:58.640 was just so darn rude and blatant in the fact that he knew that he could say anything that

00:01:04.740 he wanted or withhold anything that he wanted. And then the rest of it was pretty neutral and

00:01:09.660 then there was almost no one there for Omar's testimony. Omar Algebra. Yeah, that's how you

00:01:17.200 say it. Algebra, Algebra, depends on who you are and whether or not you care if you're saying his name

00:01:23.160 properly because I don't. But I show everybody what we're doing here. So as I said, this is Breakdown.

00:01:30.100 It's the Rebel News daily analysis of the comings and goings of the Public Order Emergency Inquiry.

00:01:35.120 The Public Order Emergency Inquiry is taking place in Ottawa right now where our team is at the Airbnb

00:01:40.580 satellite studio just up the road from the commission hearings. You can see and support all of their work

00:01:46.080 at truckercommission.com. The commission is the fail safe built into the Emergencies Act law to prevent,

00:01:54.120 let's say, an egomaniacal yet fragile buffoon from invoking the Emergencies Act to dissipate peaceful

00:02:02.800 anti-regime protests happening on the streets of their nation's capital, which is exactly what Justin Trudeau did.

00:02:10.140 A convoy of truckers and their allies. Truckers were the catalyst and the cross-border vaccine mandate

00:02:20.340 imposed upon them by the aforementioned Omar Algebra, who looks particularly like a goblin 0.65

00:02:26.600 on the thumbnail for this video. And I don't know if that's on purpose or if it's just his natural state.

00:02:32.540 But that was the catalyst for the protests. And then it was just people from all walks of life who

00:02:41.700 are really just sick of two years of nonsensical, unscientific, unfair intrusions upon their lives

00:02:50.520 and their behaviors and their jobs and their families by every single level of government from

00:02:56.180 municipal upwards. And I would say even lower school board to federal. It was everything. And it was the thing

00:03:05.360 where people said, you know what, me too. I've had enough. We went to the nation's capital for almost four weeks

00:03:13.560 and about two and a half weeks in, Justin Trudeau dropped the hammer on them. However, as we heard today,

00:03:20.700 they wanted to do it after about 30 hours, maybe. We saw David Lamedi, our justice minister, as you mentioned.

00:03:30.300 He's the justice minister and the attorney general, which means that he's the government's lawyer,

00:03:36.520 which means when he doesn't want to answer something, he can claim attorney-client privilege,

00:03:40.460 which he did multiple times today. He can also claim cabinet privilege because talks between cabinet ministers

00:03:47.900 are protected by secrecy. They get cabinet confidentiality. So basically, he could answer whatever he felt like

00:03:54.240 today or not. And we saw text messages between David Lamedi and I think it was a senior bureaucrat,

00:04:01.440 maybe his ADM, maybe his chief of staff. I forget. Doesn't matter. Because the point is, David Lamedi on January 30th,

00:04:08.420 the truckers really arrived like 28th, 29th. And by the 30th, he's like, we're going to invoke the EA.

00:04:15.060 Yeah. It was predetermined. I mean, it's, I've been screaming it from the beginning. It's a setup.

00:04:21.220 This is, you know, again, we saw all through all the testimonies from all the people. We started with

00:04:25.840 police officials. We even had citizens testifying, citizens of Ottawa who, you know, tried to feel

00:04:31.780 righteous and throwing eggs, pelting trucks with eggs, like their children, they're 12 years old. Then they

00:04:36.940 want to complain about micro, um, microaggressions. That one's funny, but we've seen that it's just

00:04:43.160 been one big finger pointing in one direction. And now we've arrived. It's all the liberal ministers

00:04:49.240 in Trudeau's cabinet. And they're the ones that, uh, that invoke this, that made this happen,

00:04:55.380 that have been trying to cover it up by pointing fingers back at everybody else. And, uh, Marco

00:05:01.520 Mendicino is a really good example of that because he publicly declared how many times

00:05:05.760 that it was the OPS and the OPP and other officers or, um, just police in general that actually called

00:05:13.680 for the invocation of the emergencies act. And, um, that was never the case. And that's come out

00:05:19.120 since. And it's, it's been the truth and he testified so hard. Um, still he's going down with

00:05:25.560 a lie. Um, just kind of watching that shit burn as it, as it passes by. It's great. It's really 1.00

00:05:30.480 great. Yeah. Yeah. They said, you know, the police asked them to, but nobody ever needed to ask them

00:05:35.520 to, because this is a predetermined outcome that they were willing to do from the very beginning.

00:05:40.280 Now we have a big lineup of guests today. I think we've got Alan Hohner from the democracy fund who is

00:05:47.340 sitting, I think, directly adjacent to you in the Airbnb studio. Hey, Alan, good to see you.

00:05:53.600 You were questioning the, uh, cabinet ministers today. Why don't we go to Alan's clip and then

00:06:02.100 let's talk to Alan.

00:06:07.560 Celine's not, or sorry, she's not ready. Um, you know what, let's, Alan, you had some text messages.

00:06:15.820 No, are we good? Okay. Alan, you had some text messages that, um, came out in your examination.

00:06:22.500 Uh, why don't you tell us what those were all about?

00:06:28.440 Right. So, so Sheila, in, in my examination of David Lamedi, what I wanted to explore

00:06:33.860 was when, uh, when cabinet and the prime minister, uh, decided to invoke the emergencies act.

00:06:42.940 And we, we know under the emergencies act that they have to consult with the provinces.

00:06:49.040 And, and so what we did is we took them through a timeline. We saw an email and that email was from

00:06:56.200 the, um, the prime minister's office. And it was suggesting that, um, there was going to be a press,

00:07:01.680 a press conference on February the 14th, and that it was to be kept quiet until after the first

00:07:07.200 minister's meeting. So we just wanted to explore that and see why it was, uh, supposed to be quiet

00:07:13.100 and whether or not the prime minister and cabinet had made up their minds beforehand.

00:07:17.400 And one of the text messages that we brought, uh, the minister of justice to was a text message from

00:07:23.160 the 13th in which he was having a conversation with an MP, I believe, um, uh,

00:07:30.200 in, in, in, in the sort of Ottawa area. And they, and, and that text message concluded

00:07:36.960 with a summary of a conversation in which they said that there's a consensus to invoke the emergencies

00:07:43.960 act. Now, in fairness, it didn't matter what the first minister said.

00:07:50.640 Well, it was theater. Well, you know, I, I, I can't say for sure. Right. But we, we just wanted

00:07:58.460 to put it to him and explore it. And so, you know, there's, there's been evidence both ways,

00:08:03.320 but part of the process or part of the purpose of the inquiry is to test this evidence.

00:08:10.040 And we also have, I think, a second clip of you, Alan, um, questioning minister justice

00:08:17.400 about text messages and the lengths at which the government of Canada would go to keep the

00:08:23.120 emergencies act in effect. And it seemed as though they were willing to keep it in effect

00:08:27.920 insofar as the NDP and the senators would support them. And they would, you know, sort of repeal

00:08:38.440 the use of the emergencies act when they felt as though they were losing the support of the NDP.

00:08:44.980 So it really wasn't about public safety at all. It was about how much they could do and how long

00:08:49.720 they could do it for until it became, uh, a political hot potato for them.

00:08:54.440 Right. So Sheila, so what we saw was that there was a text message between, uh, MP Greg Fergus and

00:09:01.260 the minister of justice on February 23rd. That was the date that the emergencies act was revoked.

00:09:08.240 And it was that, and, and the message suggested that perhaps, um, the federal government wanted to

00:09:15.080 stay ahead of the NDP and they wanted to revoke the act before, um, uh, before the Senate could vote on

00:09:22.900 it. There was, of course, there was some contrary evidence later on in the proceeding, but the

00:09:29.140 question still remains, if the NDP, uh, withdrawing their support wasn't a concern, then why bring

00:09:34.920 it up? And if the Senate voting against the emergencies act wasn't a concern, then why talk

00:09:41.600 about that in a text message? Uh, Olivia, did you find that clip?

00:09:56.680 This is another email exchange between you and Greg Fergus. And he says on February 23rd,

00:10:02.840 I'm glad we ended the EA, but it would have been more appropriate if we waited until Friday,

00:10:08.460 44 hours after the vote seems unseemly. And your response is, no, we needed to stay ahead of the NDP

00:10:17.040 and the senators were saying that they would vote against based on their view that there was no

00:10:22.680 longer an emergency. That is your text message with Mr. Fergus. It is indeed. And I, and although we did

00:10:30.220 have the votes and although the vast majority of senators understood that they were being asked to

00:10:36.380 vote on the emergencies act at the time at which it was invoked, there were a number that didn't

00:10:44.720 understand that. We had said from the beginning, sir, that we would not keep the act a minute longer

00:10:50.680 than, than, than we needed to. It's something we said to the NDP and it's something that we said

00:10:56.080 to senators. And I'm being completely consistent here to say that we needed to be ahead of that

00:11:02.620 in terms of keeping our promise in order to, uh, in order to not keep the act in place a minute longer

00:11:10.100 than necessary. And that's precisely what we did. And this is my last question. I put it to you that

00:11:14.640 this text message shows that in fact, you would have kept the emergencies act in place for

00:11:20.540 longer, had it not been for the fact that you were concerned that the NDP would withdraw their

00:11:25.120 risk, their support and that the senators would vote against. I reject that premise. There are

00:11:30.820 other, there are other text messages that you will see where we have predicted that we had sufficient

00:11:35.440 votes. We'll leave that to submissions. Thank you very much, minister. Thank you.

00:11:41.140 Sure sounds to me like he would only keep the emergencies act in place

00:11:44.560 as long as he could get away with it politically.

00:11:50.120 Well, we'll never know what, what would have happened with that Senate vote. Will we?

00:11:55.440 No, we won't, but I think he does. I think David Lometty does. Um, now, uh, I want to talk to you a

00:12:02.820 little bit about some of the other questions, I guess, from the freedom side. Um, Olivia, you want to

00:12:08.720 queue up clip for David Lometty refuses to answer freedom convoy layer, Brandon Miller's question

00:12:15.280 about the broader scope of section two of the emergencies act. Lometty kept citing hiding behind

00:12:21.460 solicitor client privilege, but this is one thing that's really come out in the final days of the

00:12:27.660 commission. I think it was probably universally understood at the beginning of this, that to invoke

00:12:35.880 the emergencies act, the convoy had to reach the bar of section two of the CSIS act, one of those

00:12:43.780 four provisions there. But then all of a sudden when police forces kept saying, no, it didn't meet

00:12:48.940 that. It didn't meet that. Um, then we've said, okay, well not we, but the liberals, it is their

00:12:55.320 contention that it's actually much broader under the emergencies act. And really this is in the only

00:13:03.940 the final weeks of this thing. Have we even ever heard that before it was yes, definitely police

00:13:09.960 forces act us asked us repeatedly that they needed these extra tools. And only when police forces

00:13:16.480 started testifying that they didn't, they sort of changed whatever the argument would be. And they

00:13:21.600 said, well, actually it's, that's not even the requirement under the emergencies act. Am I reading

00:13:26.520 that right? I'm not a lawyer, but you are. Well, you know, Sheila, I think you've, you sort of zeroed

00:13:32.960 in on what has been a major frustration for many people who are watching the emergencies, um, the

00:13:40.680 commission, as well as some of the lawyers, because what we really want to get to is, is this, this

00:13:46.720 question of, well, why did you invoke the act? And to, to know that we have to know a little bit more

00:13:53.280 about what was discussed in cabinet. And we, we really need to know what advice David Lamedi gave

00:14:00.580 to the other cabinet members. But as you saw that information, that information is privileged.

00:14:06.640 So there's solicitor client privilege that's in play and there's cabinet privilege and that's in

00:14:12.840 play as well. So there's, there's a double layer of privilege here. And in some ways at sometimes there

00:14:18.040 might also be a third level of privilege, national security confidentiality. So there could be

00:14:23.380 potentially three levels of privilege, uh, but, but it is frustrating. And, you know, when I think of

00:14:30.080 it, I think it makes perfect sense that the government would not want to waive national security

00:14:36.580 privilege. There's a very good reason why that exists. And generally there's also a very good reason

00:14:42.140 why cabinet privilege exists. Um, and also for solicitor client privilege, but solicitor client

00:14:49.100 privilege can be waived. Right. And we saw at the beginning of this, uh, uh, of this inquiry that the

00:14:57.200 government was, uh, congratulating itself on its historical waiver of, uh, privilege, but when it

00:15:05.140 really gets, uh, to the meat of things, we don't know what happened.

00:15:11.680 No. And, and we can piece together the timeline of some of the conversations, but, and you can infer

00:15:18.020 certain things from the timeline and the things that happened after certain conversations. For example,

00:15:24.640 we had the director of CSIS, David Vigneault say repeatedly, his convoy did not rise to meet section

00:15:31.280 two of the CSIS act. He it's in briefing notes, I believe to cabinet on February 10th, where he's

00:15:38.200 saying no plots of sedition. Nope, nope, nothing. This is not a national security threat. It's a

00:15:43.620 little inconvenient, but, but that's about it. And then between the 10th and the 13th, he meets with

00:15:49.780 David Lametti's, uh, justice ministry and for outside legal advice, but that hardly seems outside to

00:15:57.380 me when you're meeting with the justice ministry that wants to invoke the emergencies act.

00:16:01.280 And, and we've seen the government say that from as early as I think January 30th, David Lametti

00:16:06.260 did, but, you know, so he meets with the justice ministry and then by the 13th, his opinion on

00:16:15.700 what is the scope and scale of the emergencies act and what constitutes a security threat there

00:16:22.840 has changed from what everybody knew was in the act before. And then he advises Justin Trudeau.

00:16:30.480 Yeah. You know what? Go ahead and invoke the act. So, uh, again, I'm curious, what advice

00:16:36.640 is the justice ministry giving out? And, and they're, they, they won't really reveal any of that.

00:16:44.100 They're saying it's, you know, as you say, solicitor client privilege, but that's the crux of all of

00:16:49.360 this is what advice did you give to these people that led them to believe that they didn't need to

00:16:56.160 meet section two. And, you know, you're, you're absolutely right, uh, Sheila. And we, we're just

00:17:05.220 going to have to resolve this inquiry without knowing that advice. We've heard some evidence,

00:17:10.840 you know, from, from different people. We've heard evidence from the clerk of the Privy Council. We've

00:17:15.180 heard evidence from the, uh, national security intelligence advisor, and we know what their

00:17:19.540 interpretation of the test was. And, you know, I think a lot of us were quite puzzled when we heard

00:17:25.700 that because it, it, it doesn't seem, uh, it doesn't seem to accord with the obvious reading

00:17:32.640 of the legislation. And this might have to come down, uh, to legal submissions. And in, in some way,

00:17:40.580 I think, you know, no, I'm just, in a way I'm thinking out loud here. Um,

00:17:45.840 if the government is not going to say what advice, uh, was given, then they will have to live with that

00:17:53.200 in their legal submission, in, in their final submissions as well. Yeah. Yeah. And so it'll,

00:17:59.860 it'll come down to, to a legal argument. And that, you know, that's hardly the point of all of this,

00:18:09.420 because this is a, this is a public inquiry. So the public has an interest in finding out these

00:18:15.780 things for themselves. Um, let's go to clip four. So we can see this invoking of solicitor client

00:18:21.580 privilege in the face of prickly questions in real time. Narrow it down. Um, was there any such

00:18:28.060 document that you reviewed in preparing for your testimony here today that existed prior to the

00:18:34.780 invocation of the emergencies act, that it was discussed that isn't subject solicitor client

00:18:40.740 privilege, that it was discussed that, uh, there was a broader scope of section two as it applied in

00:18:48.080 the evidence act. Once again, that's, that's a question that's asking me, uh, to effectively divulge

00:18:53.800 legal arguments. Um, I, I remind my, my learned friend that it is very odd to put a lawyer on the

00:19:01.340 stand. I'm really here as a cabinet minister in order to speak to facts. Uh, and it is, it is, uh,

00:19:08.880 to some extent, uh, an obligation for me to try to answer questions as best I can, but you're asking

00:19:16.600 me to answer questions as a lawyer and it is, it would be remarkable to put a lawyer up on the stand

00:19:22.100 in the middle. Well, I understand, sir. And so again, I just, I would like the question to answer.

00:19:27.280 Did you see any documents that talked about this interpretation that you're discussing,

00:19:34.160 uh, that existed prior to the invocation of the emergencies act? Again, I'm going to rely on,

00:19:40.620 on solicitor client privilege there. I don't know. Keith Wilson testified. He's a lawyer.

00:19:49.460 That's right. So, so Sheila, you know, I think, uh, you know, we, we do have to be a little bit

00:19:53.860 fair to the minister of justice here. If something is really privileged, then he can't talk about it

00:20:01.320 and it's not up to him to waive it, but I'd like to return to something you said earlier,

00:20:05.600 because he said, well, the, the point of this commission is to get to the truth of what happened.

00:20:10.620 And, you know, this, this just goes back to the nature of privilege and privilege always exists

00:20:17.640 in intention with finding the truth, right? And it's usually because there's some type of

00:20:24.180 relationship that you want to protect. That relationship might be the relationship between

00:20:29.300 a lawyer and a client, or it might be the relationship between say, um, uh, uh, a church member

00:20:39.420 and a priest, right. Or it might be the relationship between a husband and wife and there, there are all

00:20:45.460 sorts of privileges, but they, they, they, they sort of, in some way they, they frustrate the truth

00:20:51.920 or the search for the truth, but that's part of our legal system. Now, you know, I think we mentioned

00:20:57.320 this before. Oftentimes privilege can be waived. And in this case, a solicitor client privilege

00:21:04.420 was not waived. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. It's very frustrating. It's very frustrating as a member

00:21:14.820 of the public. I understand why it exists. Um, but Justin Trudeau assured me way back in 2015,

00:21:20.500 this is the most open and transparent government that I would ever be exposed to in my entire lifetime.

00:21:25.740 And I'm still waiting to see it. I think we'll all have to make up our minds about that one.

00:21:32.540 Um, what I want to ask you while I have you in before I let you go, cause I know we've got another

00:21:36.620 lawyer standing there waiting to come on the show. What do you expect from the rest of the week?

00:21:44.060 Well, we have three more witnesses, uh, tomorrow we'll hear from, uh, Christia Freeland. Um,

00:21:50.060 we'll hear from a panel, uh, from the prime minister's office, and then we'll finally hear,

00:21:55.740 uh, from the prime minister. I don't think we're going to hear anything new. I think we're going to

00:22:01.520 hear, um, you know, more of the same testimony, uh, but there might be as few surprises here and

00:22:08.840 there, there'll be some contesting of their evidence. Um, you know, to some extent I'm a little

00:22:14.000 constrained here, Sheila, cause, um, I know we, we, we, we see things before the public sees them,

00:22:19.980 but we can't talk about them. And of course we have questions that we plan to ask. Um, but we

00:22:25.000 won't put those on, uh, we won't put those on live television or on live stream, uh, the day before,

00:22:31.160 uh, we're asking those questions. Yeah. You don't want to give the bad guys any heads up, but also I'm

00:22:37.860 not convinced that you're getting those, getting to see things well in advance of the public based on how

00:22:42.760 the federal government is releasing documents to you guys as the witnesses are testifying.

00:22:49.200 Some of that has come out in the public order, uh, emergency inquiry. You're right. So there,

00:22:54.100 there's been some, uh, some discussion already about how documents are released late in this

00:22:59.320 is part of the, um, it can be difficult to keep up when that happens. Absolutely.

00:23:05.360 Oh, you're so diplomatic, Alan. Alan, thanks so much for coming on the show. And thanks so much

00:23:12.120 for your hard work at the commission. Um, let's cut to an ad Olivia so that we can let Alan leave the

00:23:19.560 set without a tangle of headphones and, and, and disarray. Thanks Alan. Freedom in 2022 is not

00:23:30.080 sitting idly by while health diktats with no skin in the game make up all the rules. If you're like me,

00:23:38.020 and want to play an active role in upholding civil liberties and freedoms for all Canadians,

00:23:43.360 for our children, and eventually our grandchildren, then come out to our rebel live event and get to

00:23:50.100 know us in person. We'll hearing from some of the most influential leaders in the freedom movement.

00:23:57.460 We have events in Toronto on November the 19th and in Calgary on Saturday, November 26th.

00:24:04.980 Tickets are on sale now at rebel news live.com. Come out, have lunch, get some rebel swag,

00:24:12.420 meet the rebels and more. You don't want to miss this event. Check it out. Rebel news live.com.

00:24:34.980 So joining me now is Hatim Kerr. I hope I said that right, Hatim from the Justice Center for

00:24:41.840 Constitution. Okay, perfect. From the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms. I'm a big fan. I sat

00:24:46.520 behind you for two days. Um, I never actually got a chance to talk to you, but I'm a fan of some of

00:24:51.920 your other work on freedom causes here in Alberta. And you are doing what I would describe as a bit of the

00:24:59.120 Lord's work there because these tow truck drivers who were compelled against their will to be tools

00:25:06.340 of the state. Um, that really irks me. I, I just despise it. I loathe so much the idea of the state

00:25:15.140 commandeering anybody's personal property in their business, but especially when it violates their

00:25:21.000 conscience. And as we know out here in Alberta, they, they couldn't get a tow truck or energy company

00:25:26.700 to come help them within, I think the entire Northwestern part of the continent. And, and so,

00:25:32.440 uh, the, the Alberta government had to buy their own towing equipment, which they never really had

00:25:37.000 to ultimately lose use, but you were really hammering the government today on, um, the use of

00:25:46.040 the emergencies act to force tow truck operators to violate their conscience. Why don't you tell us a

00:25:51.200 little bit about that? And I know we've got a couple of clips that we'll go to after.

00:25:54.020 Yeah. So, uh, I mean, there's so many, you know, rights violations and freedom issues surrounding

00:25:59.660 this whole thing, but one of the ones that are probably most centrally affected are the tow truck

00:26:04.660 drivers. They were forced to physically do something and assist, uh, with perhaps something

00:26:09.580 that they didn't want to do. Well, I mean, if they had to be forced, they didn't want to do it,

00:26:12.800 but then the specifically why certainly some of them supported the, uh, the freedom convoy protest

00:26:19.760 minister Al-Gabra admitted as much. So the government had to use emergency powers in order

00:26:25.920 to compel them to do that. So the purpose of my cross-examination was to put that to minister

00:26:29.720 Al-Gabra, uh, though when asked, he, uh, he resisted the question, let's say he, uh, he, he,

00:26:38.520 he kind of resorted to the idea that, well, I don't know how the police use the power. Hopefully

00:26:42.420 they used it on people who wanted to help anyways. If that's the case, you don't need a power to make

00:26:47.100 them do it. Right. That was the part that I thought was, that was, um, kind of ridiculous

00:26:53.000 was he said, I don't really know how the selection process works, but I sort of kind of hope they

00:26:57.260 selected the ones that wanted to do it. Well, then why did you invoke the act to compel tow truck

00:27:01.340 drivers? If you just knew that there were ones that wanted to do it, he, he just sort of painted

00:27:05.720 himself into this circular logic. Um, and also if you don't know how police are going to use that

00:27:12.460 power appropriately, maybe you shouldn't be giving it to them. That's exactly right. And we saw a

00:27:18.040 similar dynamic with the use of the, uh, the economic measures to freeze bank accounts where

00:27:22.920 the finance Canada creates the power, at least as responsible for the discussions that led to its

00:27:28.640 creation. Then the power gets handed out to the police. And then when they get pressed on the

00:27:32.880 decision that they made to, to create the powers in the first place, they say, Hey, we weren't

00:27:36.900 responsible for how it was used. We hope that they just used it responsibly and that they didn't use the

00:27:41.440 powers that we gave them. If it was, uh, if it was going to result in rights violations.

00:27:47.180 Yeah. Yeah. We hope they didn't use the power to do whatever they want to do whatever they wanted.

00:27:53.420 Yeah. So in the example of the, the finance, uh, uh, Canada, we gave them the power to freeze

00:28:00.160 donors bank accounts, but we hope that they didn't do it. Why, why did you do that?

00:28:04.320 Yeah, exactly. Uh, let's, uh, Olivia in studio, we've got, I think two clips of you pressing 0.99

00:28:10.800 on, uh, some of my favorite people on the planet, tow truck drivers. Um, let's go to the first one.

00:28:19.260 Just gonna, just gonna push back on that one answer you gave me because I asked you if tow

00:28:23.120 truck drivers, uh, who would have refused out of sympathy with the protest, as you highlighted in

00:28:28.840 your interview statement would have been compelled by the emergency measure regulations to serve a

00:28:34.040 cause that they did not agree with. And you, you responded by talking about the necessity of it,

00:28:38.320 but I'm asking you, were those people compelled to serve a cause that they felt went against their

00:28:44.000 conscience and their choice of association?

00:28:46.780 So I answered the question by saying I was not involved in how tow truck drivers or tow truck

00:28:53.360 companies were selected. Uh, I would like to think that there were options to select tow truck drivers

00:29:00.320 who were willing to participate.

00:29:02.140 You'd like to think that, but certainly the power created that opportunity, right?

00:29:07.420 Uh, I was not involved in the selection of tow truck drivers.

00:29:10.940 I have no further questions. Thank you.

00:29:16.780 What on earth is he talking about there? You know, I, I hope that they would select the ones

00:29:21.820 that wanted to do it, but the point is that you couldn't find ones that wanted to do it.

00:29:25.980 Which also we've seen from other evidence isn't the case. There were, there were tow truck drivers

00:29:31.980 lined up, uh, either in Coutts or on the other side of the continent in, uh, Windsor and in Ottawa

00:29:38.060 before the emergencies act was invoked. And we heard that from witnesses from the Ottawa police service,

00:29:43.020 from the OPP and from, uh, Minister DeGran from Alberta.

00:29:46.860 Yeah, we did hear that. I think there was some 30 tow trucks with, I think seven or nine

00:29:54.060 that were heavy haul tow trucks with the capabilities to pull, um, some of these, uh, larger trucks and

00:30:01.820 tractor trailers out of location. They had those lined up and ready to go. And I think the OPP

00:30:07.740 testified to that. And I think the OPS also testified to that. And so, I don't know how much

00:30:14.140 prep these ministers do before they get here. I would like to think that with an army of government

00:30:19.100 lawyers, they would have been a little bit more prepared. And I don't know if they,

00:30:23.180 they just think that they can rewrite history in real time, but it is true that there were tow

00:30:28.300 trucks lined up, ready to go. They did not need the emergencies act for tow trucks in the nation's

00:30:34.380 capital. And they definitely didn't need them in Alberta because Alberta circumvented the whole

00:30:38.620 process, realizing on and around the 10th that they weren't going to get any help whatsoever from

00:30:45.500 the federal government with regard to getting, uh, Canadian forces equipment out of the base in

00:30:52.140 Edmonton, which I have been informed, uh, by several people, uh, both past and present CAF members.

00:30:59.100 There's a lot of that equipment just sitting there, even though we heard testimony that there was just

00:31:03.660 none to spare. Yeah. And I, uh, so we, uh, one of the big things we learned today was actually that

00:31:13.500 the provinces other than Alberta were offered assistance by the federal government to buy

00:31:18.060 their own tow trucks if they wanted to do that. And they refused in Windsor. The police turned back

00:31:23.100 tow trucks from this, from coming from the United States, because they didn't need it. Uh,

00:31:27.420 superintendent Bernier testified that he was able to look out the window and see tow trucks and that

00:31:31.420 he was satisfied that they were good. So although this may have been a concern at one point, it was

00:31:37.020 resolved before the declaration of emergency. And that's, that's kind of a running theme that we've

00:31:42.300 been seeing in the evidence. Uh, if you look at Windsor, Windsor was cleared right before

00:31:46.780 the, uh, the emergency act was invoked, uh, in Ottawa, they prepared a plan that was just about ready

00:31:52.940 to go right as the emergency act was invoked. And, uh, in Coutts, the police operation that led to

00:31:59.020 arrests, which then convinced the other protesters to leave happened right before the emergency act

00:32:03.500 was invoked. And yesterday we learned that the, uh, at the first minister's meeting that was being

00:32:09.020 relayed to the, the federal government. They're required to consult with the premiers of the

00:32:14.380 provinces before a declaration of emergency, presumably for this, such a purpose that they

00:32:18.940 can get information about whether it's actually necessary. And, uh, across the board, multiple

00:32:23.980 premiers said our low, uh, our local law enforcement has got it. Uh, the situation is under control.

00:32:30.060 We're getting the tow trucks we need, but the federal government went ahead and invoke the

00:32:33.900 declaration, uh, invoke the emergencies act anyways. You also pushed back on, uh, Omar Al-Gabra or Al-Jabra.

00:32:43.020 I'm not sure how to say it. Um, he said that he was unaware, I think to you, he said he was unaware

00:32:51.260 of the reluctance of tow truck operators to help the convoy yet were compelled to assist in removing of

00:32:58.620 the blockades. And then he was questioned on whether or not this would violate their charter

00:33:02.700 rights. And we saw the second half of that, but he sort of the first half of him, like not answering

00:33:07.580 the question I think is really important because you ask him, did you, did you take any steps or did

00:33:12.620 you, were these people even a consideration in all of this? And I think his lack of answer really

00:33:20.060 speaks to the fact that he didn't even see these tow truck operators as individual Canadians with

00:33:26.620 individual rights and individual wills. They were not tools of the state never once,

00:33:31.500 even though he used a law to make them that way. Why don't we throw to that one, Efron and Olivia,

00:33:36.540 if you can find it. And its intention was to protect the charter rights of Canadians.

00:33:43.420 Uh, that is, um, that's our constitution and we're all sworn to uphold our constitution.

00:33:50.460 Did, uh, do you believe cabinet protected the charter rights of tow truck drivers?

00:34:00.220 We protected, we kept in mind the charter rights of all Canadians, including truck drivers.

00:34:06.940 You'd agree that tow truck drivers weren't protesters themselves aside from perhaps individual cases.

00:34:12.460 I don't understand the question.

00:34:17.740 Well, so you said in your interview summary that some tow truck drivers refuse to tow trucks out of

00:34:22.140 sympathy with the protest, right? Um, I said that yes, there was a reluctance for a variety of reasons.

00:34:30.620 One of the reasons may be because they might be sympathetic, but the bigger reasons that we

00:34:35.020 heard is that they were fear, uh, afraid for their livelihood and their safety.

00:34:42.860 Okay. So even if they were afraid, why did you make them do it?

00:34:47.180 Yeah, exactly. Uh, you know, there's a lot of reasons.

00:34:49.580 Tow truck drivers may have refused to do something, but presumably that's a choice that they can make.

00:34:54.540 Um, and our charter protects the right to freedom of association, which one would hope would include

00:35:01.100 the right to choose who you work for and what work you want to undertake.

00:35:06.860 Yeah, your questions there's, it was like a big bear snare.

00:35:11.660 He just sat there and he just put his leg right in it, didn't he? Yes, yes, we care about charter

00:35:17.820 rights. Look at us. We're good guys. And then, oh yeah, what about the tow truck drivers? And he had

00:35:24.460 no idea what to say. There was like three solid seconds of awkward silence there. And I'm so glad you

00:35:30.700 didn't say anything because the silence says more than the words ever could. Um, we've got one more

00:35:35.900 clip from you. Uh, Omar Aljabra thanked the truckers during the public order commission. He stated that

00:35:43.740 the policies developed over the pandemic were cohesive with the guidance received from public

00:35:48.620 health and from observing the situation on the ground. Uh, Efron, I tagged you in that. Would you mind

00:35:54.540 if you can find that? He needs five seconds. Um, let's see what else, what else did Omar Aljabra do

00:36:11.260 today? He also said he's not making any apology for doing what he believed to be the best thing

00:36:15.420 for protecting lives. He said, our policies were based on the advice and facts and the science

00:36:20.140 that we received, not based on polls or number of protesters. But we know that's not true because

00:36:26.540 they invoked the emergencies act because, or they revoked the emergencies act because they knew they

00:36:32.380 were going to lose in the Senate and they were going to lose the favor of the NDP. So it's interesting

00:36:36.540 to see text messages saying, oh, I think the NDP are going to vote against us. We have to, we have to

00:36:44.140 invoking the emergencies act and then him Aljabra testifying that policies were completely based on

00:36:50.460 following the science, um, and, uh, their advice. Did you find that clip Efron? Well,

00:36:57.580 given the motivation of the protesters, did the government consider resuming the exemption for

00:37:02.460 truckers? We don't make public policy based on the number of protesters or emails that we get.

00:37:13.820 We make public policy, particularly during the pandemic. And let me be the first to acknowledge

00:37:19.820 governments around the world, including the federal government did extraordinary measures

00:37:25.660 in what we believed was the right thing to protect the health and safety of Canadians.

00:37:30.540 I never imagined provinces shutting down businesses. I never imagined provinces invoking curfews.

00:37:37.660 I never imagined the federal government putting limitation on travel, but we all did that. Governments

00:37:46.060 across Canada did these measures because we believed we are saving lives. And yes, they were extraordinary,

00:37:54.860 but I could tell you no one, at least us, I am not, I'm not making any apology for doing what we believed

00:38:03.980 the best thing for protecting lives. Now, of course it caused inconvenience. Of course

00:38:11.260 it caused disruption and our government did whatever we can to mitigate those disruptions. Uh, and Canadians 0.99

00:38:19.100 understood that Canadians understood that. So back to your question, our policies were based on the advice

00:38:27.660 and facts and the science that we receive, not based on polls or number of protesters, or even the illegal

00:38:37.180 political, uh, activities that should never, should never drive public policy.

00:38:46.780 So you get in different science than the other places in the world. Did you have an opportunity

00:38:51.500 to travel outside of the country recently, or at least when the mask mandates were still on just

00:38:57.820 Canadian airlines? I went to Geneva with Sarah Miller. Um, and I came back like in 18 hours,

00:39:05.580 but I knew exactly where my gate was in the Geneva airport, because those were the only

00:39:09.900 people wearing masks to get onto a Canadian airplane. And that was because of Omar al-Jabra.

00:39:15.660 And he says he follows the science, but the science seems to change from jurisdiction to

00:39:19.580 jurisdiction. I mean, only Quebec had a curfew. I'd like to know how many lives that saved. I want

00:39:24.860 to know how many lives masks on airplanes saved. Um, it feels like he was just making it up as he went

00:39:31.420 along to see what he could get away with for as long as he could. Yeah. So that, uh, his answer

00:39:36.460 there was part of a, uh, a line of questions I was asking him about the role, the actions of other

00:39:42.700 provinces in lifting their restrictions. Now there's a pattern where we we've seen at least four

00:39:48.700 provinces that took dramatic moves during the protest. And you know, like, for example,

00:39:54.540 we see in Ontario, uh, premier Ford didn't want to say that that was, uh, uh, yeah,

00:39:59.020 they don't want to say that that's in response to the protests, but we also saw a, uh, a read,

00:40:04.140 uh, a summary of a phone call by premier Ford yesterday, where he was saying the public is

00:40:09.180 at a breaking point. This is, I think it's obvious that the, the premiers were responding to the protests.

00:40:16.620 And so then the question is why couldn't the federal government do the same, especially if,

00:40:20.460 uh, you know, if provinces are going to start allowing a stadium of up to like 500 people to,

00:40:26.300 to, to operate, we can't let truckers who sit alone in their cabs can cross the border without

00:40:31.740 a vaccine. And, uh, uh, at the end of the day, minister Al Gabbard didn't want to acknowledge that

00:40:38.940 the, the, the provinces were responding to the protests and he, he maintained that, uh, they would,

00:40:44.060 they wouldn't listen to the protesters. It's based on the science. And he, there was a comment,

00:40:49.420 and he said, I think it was shortly after that clip that you played, but he said that sometimes

00:40:52.940 the sentiments of Canadians and their interests are different, uh, which, uh, I think basically

00:40:58.780 just amounts to saying we know better than they do. Exactly. That's exactly how I would interpret

00:41:04.620 that. And it's, uh, it is true that the provinces were reacting in Alberta. Once they started blockading

00:41:11.260 coots, we went from, we're going to drop the vaccine passport at the end of the month to two weeks

00:41:15.660 from now to the end of the week to tonight at midnight, like in the course of one day, that's

00:41:21.900 how quickly it moved up. As the convoy rolled through Saskatchewan, Scott Moe was like, don't

00:41:27.740 convoy me, bro. We're done with the vaccine mandate here too. It was happening that fast.

00:41:34.940 And ultimately, whether or not you think the science is different or unreliable or whatever,

00:41:41.100 these are Canadians telling you, I'm willing to accept the risk. And isn't that what it comes

00:41:48.060 down to is Canadians who are saying, look, you, you've told me everything I need to know about 0.98

00:41:53.020 COVID. You won't shut up about COVID, but I'm over it and I'm willing to accept the risk. It's like the

00:41:57.660 same thing why people still smoke, even though you put the scary face on the cigarette package.

00:42:02.540 It's people were deciding I'm willing to accept whatever risk here to go about living my lives

00:42:08.300 again. And certain provinces were making those concessions. And Omar al-Jabr, just as you say,

00:42:14.460 thought he knew better. Yeah. And this is kind of an issue that's been floating in the background

00:42:21.260 of this whole inquiry because the commission is tasked with investigating the circumstances that led

00:42:27.580 to the declaration of emergency. So there's obviously, and rightly so, been a lot of focus on

00:42:31.260 the protest and the way police handled it and the way the government responded to it and what they

00:42:35.340 knew. But behind all that is the reason the protest happened in the first place. And so

00:42:42.780 Antoine Dailly for Citizens for Freedom took Minister Mendicino to that the other day.

00:42:47.420 And, you know, I tried to take Minister Al-Gabr there now because it's an important part of the story

00:42:52.460 that happened here, that this protest happened two years after, two years of lockdowns, two years of

00:42:59.260 vaccine mandates. And actually we did hear so before all the witnesses today, there was a summary of

00:43:04.220 all the evidence that the commission had received from the public about what they had to say about

00:43:09.420 their experience with the protest. And it was it was very divided. It was there was two complete

00:43:13.980 opposite sides. But one of those sides was saying that it was a relief to have this protest because we

00:43:19.740 had we had felt alienated. We had felt isolated. And suddenly there were people standing side by

00:43:24.780 side, singing the Canadian anthem, waving flags. And that's that's an important part of understanding

00:43:31.340 why all this happened in the first place. You know, it's a great way to leave this interview with

00:43:37.740 you. We're going to go to an ad so that we can let you leave a little bit more gracefully than you

00:43:43.980 would if we didn't. Hadim, thanks so much for the great work that you're doing in there. We I know we at

00:43:49.580 Rebel News pay very close attention to the work that you're doing for the Justice Centre and for

00:43:53.500 the rights and freedoms of Canadians. So thanks for working so hard. Thanks for having me on.

00:43:59.500 Great. Roll the ad, please.

00:44:04.700 Freedom in 2022 is certainly about being able to make free choices for ourselves and for our family,

00:44:12.060 who we believe are the best. We have seen so much suffering over the last two years. People who die

00:44:18.940 alone in terrible condition, people losing dream jobs, polarized families and a society that insult

00:44:26.860 and yell at each other for making a different medical choice. But people have risen and it will be

00:44:34.060 true then that the future will have an important meaning for all of you, but especially for the next

00:44:40.860 generation. Rebel News has been present at every step of this great challenge. But so many other

00:44:49.100 pioneers whom you could meet and hear at our great conference about freedom for our beautiful country,

00:44:57.100 which is Canada. This conference, which will be held in Calgary and Toronto, will show you the faces

00:45:05.820 of the influence of freedom that you have seen over the past two years. You don't want to miss this. So get your

00:45:13.740 ticket now at ribbonnewslive.com and it will be a pleasure to see you there and meet you in large numbers.

00:45:24.060 It's time to drop these masks and let the truth shine.

00:45:37.180 This week is the most important week from the Public Order Emergency Commission and Trudeau and his ministers

00:45:41.580 responsible for invoking the Never Before Seen Emergency Act are testifying. Every night, as soon as all the

00:45:47.500 testimonies end, hang tight and watch our breakdown show where we go through all the highlights of the

00:45:52.140 day with your favorite rebels and special guests, such as convoy protesters like Tom Morazzo and their

00:45:56.940 lawyers, Keith Wilson and Eva Chipiak. Go to trafficcommission.com with all of our previous reports are,

00:46:02.700 and please go and chip in. Even five bucks is great so that I can get myself an amazing morning coffee.

00:46:08.540 We'll see you there.

00:46:09.420 Well, joining us now is good friend of the rebel, Tom Morazzo. Tom, how's it going?

00:46:17.740 It's good. It's good. I had another steak tonight for dinner.

00:46:21.820 Yes, I saved another one.

00:46:23.180 The second time in five years. Yes, yes.

00:46:25.260 Go easy, Tom. Go easy. But I'm very happy to see that you're filling yourself up with

00:46:30.620 healthy, reliable animal protein. I wanted to ask you...

00:46:34.660 It's Alberta beef.

00:46:36.780 Yes, even better. Even better.

00:46:39.420 Tom, I think you're described, and I think you described yourself as a convoy participant.

00:46:44.540 I don't think you've ever described yourself as an organizer. You were more of a logistics

00:46:49.020 guy on the ground. I know that I've been asked, and I think you've been asked too,

00:46:54.940 so this is a great opportunity to clear this up. You've been asked why no charges have been brought

00:47:00.220 against you, even though you were prominent in the convoy. So I don't think anybody can really

00:47:06.860 ever know why they weren't charged, except maybe they weren't breaking the law. But there could be

00:47:11.580 other reasons. So I'm going to ask you to speculate. Why haven't you been charged?

00:47:18.140 Well, it is a great question. And I do get this question quite often. And I know Danny Bulford also

00:47:25.100 gets this question quite often. And I think the truth of the matter comes down to this.

00:47:29.820 Yes. You know, people like myself and Danny Bulford and then some of the other veterans that

00:47:35.980 went to Ottawa to assist the convoy, we went there because, you know, within our communities,

00:47:43.020 whether you're currently serving or you're retired or whatever the deal, you're trained to be somebody

00:47:50.620 who does things, to organize, to just be doers for your community. And, you know, veterans and

00:47:57.340 retired police or active police, active military, they get involved in their communities, in their

00:48:03.420 churches, they do fundraising, they do sports with children, they volunteer. And so we play an active

00:48:10.220 role. So I think, you know, I tried really hard, and I know Danny Bulford as well, tried really hard

00:48:17.660 to develop a strong relationship with the local law enforcement in Ottawa during the time of the

00:48:22.780 convoy. And we were always consistently trying to work with them to make sure that what we were

00:48:29.500 doing was safe and as responsible as could be. And I think that was something that was recognized

00:48:37.180 by the local law enforcement. They said, Hey, how can we, how could we probably target these guys?

00:48:42.940 When the entire time they've been working with this to try to make sure like I was,

00:48:47.260 you know, it was very important to me. I mean, I, and I've said this before

00:48:51.740 during the convoy, my own son, where he lives in his hometown went to the hospital in the middle of the

00:48:57.340 night in an ambulance. This is a normal thing in my family. Okay. So it's a very important

00:49:03.420 thing for me personally. And I wanted to make sure that nobody in the city of Ottawa was ever

00:49:09.740 prevented from going to a hospital or emergency services were ever prevented from getting through.

00:49:15.980 We achieved that. And we heard testimony even during this, this inquiry that we actually did

00:49:22.460 do that. And for anyone to say otherwise is it's categorically false. And we know this,

00:49:29.180 and we've talked to the police, there was testimony about it. This never happened.

00:49:33.260 So when we get attacked, for example, where people say, Oh, you couldn't get to your hospital

00:49:37.260 or you couldn't get to your appointment, that's a, that's an outright lie. And to be clear,

00:49:43.100 there's no hospitals anywhere near where the convoy was actively participating or going on.

00:49:49.900 But to get back to the other question, you know, we, we just military and police,

00:49:56.620 we naturally work together. And so when they knew that we were trying to reciprocate a good,

00:50:03.420 strong relationship to be safe and responsible, I think the police recognized that and said,

00:50:07.980 you know what, there's, there's nothing good that can come of making an example of

00:50:12.140 these specific people. Right. And, and what's really frustrating for me is I've

00:50:17.420 been listening to the testimony of the last couple of days where they keep saying,

00:50:21.340 you know, military were involved, military involved. And in what you can tell,

00:50:26.060 it's very clear to me is there's a narrative. There's a, there's a subplot that's being laid out

00:50:33.900 right now. And that's why they keep bringing out former military, former police. They're,

00:50:38.220 they're angling for this really bizarre narrative that they've been trying to push forward.

00:50:45.180 You know, they were talking about military being at Coventry. It's not true.

00:50:49.260 Yeah. I know the composition of the people that were, were there. I mean,

00:50:53.100 you had electricians, millwrights, carpenters, or construction company wasn't being run by military.

00:50:59.340 And, and here's another thing that I want to say about the military people. Um,

00:51:06.540 there, there's a lot I want to say about it, but, uh, to this kind of does get to

00:51:10.620 the root of the matter. I think I did staff college as an army officer,

00:51:17.020 which means that's brigade level stuff. Like that's a lot of, that's a lot of soldiers in a,

00:51:21.020 in a battle space space, in a military, uh, context, you know, anybody who had done staff college,

00:51:27.820 even maybe a second, third year captain could have easily frustrated the law enforcement agencies

00:51:36.620 in this, in the city of Ottawa beyond belief. Like we could have frustrated them at every turn,

00:51:41.340 but you want to know the honest truth. We knew we could, I knew we could, I knew it would be easy,

00:51:46.780 but I purposely did not. I purposely did not take steps to actively frustrate law enforcement

00:51:54.060 because I didn't want them to get to the point where they thought, you know, if you're going to put

00:51:58.140 me in checkmate every, every chance you get, that's going to frustrate me. And I'm going to invoke

00:52:03.740 something awful, you know, it bought us three and a half weeks, you know, but really it would

00:52:09.420 have been extremely easy for us to do that. And we all knew it, but we just chose not to do it.

00:52:14.860 We chose a nonviolent path that every, every opportunity we had, that's not what we were there

00:52:21.500 to do. You know, and if you, if you look at the military that started to congregate there,

00:52:27.420 we're talking about, you know, people that later on have gone and joined an organization.

00:52:33.740 Some of us started called veterans for freedom. And this came out after the convoy veterans for

00:52:39.580 freedom was after the convoy, but we all met at the convoy and we've grown over a thousand people

00:52:45.500 in this organization and it grows every day. And we've got some very talented, very skilled

00:52:50.860 people that understand military operations, intelligence, you know, how to gather it,

00:52:56.700 how to consume it, how to, you know, take steps to protect themselves in case there's other people

00:53:03.180 out there that, that don't like the fact that you're active or that you have information.

00:53:07.900 You know, they, they, they're kind of framing this narrative, right? We understand how that game

00:53:13.180 is played and, and we're not fools. I mean, obviously we, we prepare for those kinds of

00:53:19.100 stupid eventualities. Right. Um, but the fact of the matter is veterans for freedom and everybody 1.00

00:53:25.820 that went to Ottawa, we have so many veterans involved that were given methiquine that trusted

00:53:31.340 the government, trusted the military. And now there's lawsuits going on. Even Romeo Dallaire

00:53:36.140 is part of the class. And then we gave them, by the way, by the way, then we gave them Moderna.

00:53:41.180 So we gave the, we gave them all like the entire military. If, if they received a vaccine,

00:53:47.420 they were inoculated with Moderna and then it's revealed that Moderna is going to give

00:53:53.500 exactly that demographic of people myocarditis. Yes. And then, you know, to, to top it all off,

00:54:00.380 like we, you know, we, we have all these, these amazing soldiers. And even during the time, uh,

00:54:07.100 when they, the height of the mandates, you know, we found out, uh, through veterans for freedom,

00:54:12.060 like the community was talking, we found out that in places like Petawawa and Edmonton,

00:54:17.100 if you were not vaccinated, you were being put in the pipeline for a five F, uh, release from the

00:54:24.780 military, you're being kicked out. And these are combat veterans being kicked out. And they made 0.99

00:54:30.380 those soldiers in the wintertime last year, stand out modular tents. And in Edmonton, they were making

00:54:36.620 them wear their DEUs, their dress uniforms, and then they took away the heaters. It's blatant

00:54:41.580 harassment. And I think anybody who was involved in those decisions or in that chain of command that

00:54:46.300 was forcing their unvaccinated soldiers to stand out in the, in the cold winter in a tent and not

00:54:52.380 allow them inside the building with vaccinated soldiers. That is disgusting. That is absolutely 1.00

00:54:58.620 disloyal, disgusting, unbecoming behavior of any commanding officer of a unit that would do that to

00:55:04.060 their, to their soldiers. And as far as I'm concerned, that to me is, is something that 0.84

00:55:09.340 they should be brought up on charges and relieved of command. But you know, the organization has grown,

00:55:16.060 uh, exponentially and we're, we, we work with lawyers all the time. We're trying to assist,

00:55:21.580 uh, Canadian forces members in their fight to be kicked out of the military. So we work with lawyers,

00:55:28.220 we talk to lawyers all the time, not just the ones here for the commission, but there's a phenomenal

00:55:32.940 lawyer out in, um, Alberta, uh, that we've been working with. She's been suing the government for, 0.67

00:55:39.820 for all these COVID restrictions for quite some time on behalf of soldiers. Right. And so when I

00:55:46.460 listened today to the minister of national defense, uh, get up on there in, in, in talk today, a lot of

00:55:52.780 this, these memories had been coming back. Like, you know, one of the reasons why, um, you know,

00:55:58.380 veterans got involved. It was because of the deliberate steps of the federal government

00:56:03.420 who mandated a forced medical experiment against their own people again, again. And a lot of people

00:56:13.020 pushed back, a lot of people pushed back and said, no. And so their, their reaction was to take a

00:56:19.740 punitive step. So now you're looking at soldiers that I, for example, one highly trained, a helicopter

00:56:26.620 pilot who's a member of a V for F to get her a pension. You got to have 25 years. He had over

00:56:33.020 21 years and now he's being forced out forfeiture of a, of a pension, no more benefits for the rest of

00:56:39.820 his life. Why? Why? Because the Canadian military failed to respect informed consent or bodily autonomy

00:56:47.740 on something that has not yet passed phase three clinical trials and is under an interim order. So,

00:56:54.620 you know, we, I just listening to the minister of national defense today, it, it, it sickens me.

00:57:00.940 It absolutely sickens me to, to listen to the, the demeanor, the attitude, but I will say, I give

00:57:07.980 her a couple of points on some of the things that I believe were in alignment with, with, you know,

00:57:13.180 what happened during the convoy, which kind of goes back to the original point of your question.

00:57:17.900 And maybe is why didn't you get charged, which was because there was, you know, and I'm trying to

00:57:24.780 complete the circle here and I might've, I may have turned it into a, a Pentagon. I'm sorry.

00:57:29.420 You took the long way. You took the long way around.

00:57:33.260 60% chance of getting there. Uh, if you ask the OPP. Um, so, so the, the issue really is, um,

00:57:40.540 um, now I lost my train of thought. That's okay. Uh, maybe I'll come back to it. I'll let,

00:57:45.420 I'll let my co-host say something. Well, speaking of Anita Anand, speaking of the, uh,

00:57:49.660 defense minister, I'd like to throw to clip seven, if we can get that going. And that was when, um,

00:57:55.660 she comments on minister Lamedi and minister Mendicino's, those text messages where they're

00:58:00.460 joking about bringing in a tank into Ottawa. Okay. Let's stop here. Maybe we can find my tweet.

00:58:06.540 It might even be my twin, my pin tweet. Uh, and I do, I have quit using the word snake

00:58:14.540 in my tweets. I've used the shorthand of just the snake emoji because it's snake week down at the

00:58:21.220 public order emergency commission. These two snakes, the justice minister and the public safety minister,

00:58:27.140 they say it's a joke, but even if it were a joke, there's the snake emojis. Uh, we've got David Lamedi.

00:58:35.060 And Marco Mendicino, the public safety minister, these two snakes, maniacs, wouldn't give Alberta 0.59

00:58:45.620 CAF heavy haul equipment, which you, we know is stationed at CFB Edmonton. Anand said, oh,

00:58:52.060 maybe there wasn't enough equipment to give them what they just needed it for an afternoon. But

00:58:58.700 that we know that's not true. You can go to the base and look at it right now. You could just go

00:59:03.060 look at the equipment. It's there. I'm from the area. We see it driving around all the time. It

00:59:08.140 goes between Wainwright and Edmonton constantly. But anyways, these two snakes, um, they won't give

00:59:14.480 Alberta heavy haul equipment from the CAF, but they were going to deploy tanks or joked about it,

00:59:19.980 whatever you, however you read this, but I think it's atrocious to joke about doing the old maple

00:59:25.000 syrup Tiananmen Square treatment in Ottawa. Um, they were going to deploy tanks as early as February

00:59:32.600 2nd to deal with the traffic snarl in Ottawa. Um, one of them says you need to get the police to move.

00:59:38.060 I don't think that they can do that. You're not supposed to direct the police government

00:59:41.620 and the CAF if necessary. Too many people are being seriously adversely impacted by what is an

00:59:47.280 occupation. I'm getting out as soon as I can. So he's not even sticking around to put up with it.

00:59:52.400 He's like, the traffic's bad. I'm going to Montreal. Um, and then he continues to say,

00:59:57.940 people are looking to us, you for leadership and not stupid people. Now I'm not sure. Um, 0.99

01:00:04.800 I think he's calling Mark Carney stupid and possibly Catherine McKenna. I think 0.99

01:00:08.960 Cath is Catherine McKenna, who's an Ottawa resident, but I, I'm not sure. I mean, naturally when somebody

01:00:15.820 says there's a, I'm not a very smart Catherine around, I'm just going to assume it's her. 0.63

01:00:19.540 And then he says my team and then, um, to wit, the other, um, Google responds, how many tanks are

01:00:26.600 you asking for? I just want to ask Anita, how many we've got on hand? And he says, I reckon one

01:00:31.080 will do now. Maybe they're serious. Maybe they're not after, I mean, they invoked the emergencies

01:00:36.980 act, which would allow them to do these things. So to say, chalk this up as a joke. I mean, you

01:00:43.040 literally just invoke the emergencies act. So I'm not sure you were joking, but even if you were,

01:00:47.120 I'm not sure I want two ministers of the crown joking about having their own little Tiananmen

01:00:52.440 square in Ottawa because they don't like the bouncy castles. Yeah. I never took that, uh,

01:00:59.060 that text to be a joke at all. Uh, there's just, there's no tone of a, of a joke within that. I think

01:01:05.540 that they were doing actually serious staff checks with each other. Like, is this something possible

01:01:11.340 as early as February 2nd? Right. Yeah. That is, that's a little bit, um, that's like three,

01:01:18.380 four days into the convoy. They're like, you know, we should probably tank man these people.

01:01:23.080 Yeah. And, and I, I, I read that and I'm sorry, but I, I, I see where their mind automatically went

01:01:31.300 and Celine and I were sitting in the audience and I think, um, around four o'clock ish, I couldn't

01:01:38.080 take it anymore. I could not take, uh, the, the, uh, extreme arrogance, uh, that just evaporates off

01:01:47.540 of the attorney general. And, uh, to, to see some of the comments was unbelievably frustrating and

01:01:56.180 disturbing to, to, to hear him again, again, just like we talked about with Mendocino yesterday,

01:02:01.780 like, is he talking about Canadians or is he talking about the Taliban? I can't tell.

01:02:08.140 I think he talked more politely about the Taliban.

01:02:11.400 Yeah. There are brothers. If you ask, uh, that not very bright lady who used to be the MP in

01:02:17.300 Peterborough, whose name escapes me right now, thank God she's no longer an MP. She called them

01:02:21.440 her brothers. Um, but you know, it is true. That has been one of the reoccurring themes here

01:02:28.160 that our fellow Canadians who took to our nation's Capitol to protest because no one would listen to

01:02:35.300 them for two years. They left their lives behind and drove all the way to the nation's Capitol to

01:02:40.840 protest in the middle of winter. And they are treated like foreign invaders instead of just

01:02:48.460 Canadians who have a right to be there. Like everybody else who might be a little rough around 1.00

01:02:53.560 the edges, but that's how I am too. So I don't care, but that's how they're treated. Like they're

01:02:57.980 just treated like they're, they may, they're like the Mongolian hordes coming into China and we need 1.00

01:03:04.960 to build a wall to keep them out in perpetuity. That's how they're being treated. And I find it

01:03:09.640 just so offensive and I don't like to be offended by anything. Cause that means you can't keep control

01:03:14.260 of your emotions, but that really, really bothers me. Um, sorry, Celine, I took this over from you and

01:03:19.400 you were throwing to clip seven, I think. Sorry. I'll shut up. I'll shut up. No, you're good. You're

01:03:25.200 good. That was made in jest. Second, I have already provided my comments relating to the fact that the

01:03:38.180 Canadian Armed Forces is the force of last resort. Therefore, we were not considering deploying tanks

01:03:45.560 in any number. And, uh, minister Lamedi earlier on in testimony to this commission wrote the exchange

01:03:51.220 off as a joke between friends. Do you think this is a joke? I take no part of my role as minister of

01:04:01.760 national defense, uh, as something in jest. Obviously I am very concerned and was very concerned

01:04:11.100 not only about the situation in Canada, but about the global strategic situation that we all find

01:04:16.440 ourselves in. And so I am very concerned to make sure that we are making decisions, uh, with full

01:04:24.820 information. And I know that's the case with minister Lamedi, as well as, uh, the other colleagues around

01:04:30.520 the table. This was a very difficult time and we were all doing our very best in our respective

01:04:36.720 portfolios. Right. Um, but at the same time on February 2nd, just a few days after the arrival of the

01:04:43.300 protesters in Ottawa, this was the sort of joke that was considered funny among your cabinet

01:04:48.020 colleagues, wasn't it? I was actually not in Canada at the time. I was in Europe as previously,

01:04:56.280 uh, indicated trying to launch Canada's response, uh, to a potential further invasion of Ukraine by

01:05:04.660 Russia. I will say that I know that my colleagues take their work extremely seriously. Does cabinet, uh,

01:05:13.160 solidarity require you to find this joke funny?

01:05:18.380 I'm sorry. That was a little frivolous.

01:05:22.500 I loved it.

01:05:23.220 There was one other part. There was one other part of that exchange where Kittredge says,

01:05:27.960 that's Kittredge with the JCCF for those of you at home.

01:05:30.300 Rob Kittredge.

01:05:31.040 Um, Rob Kittredge. And he says, do you agree with Lamedi that just one tank would have been enough

01:05:37.380 to deal with the Canadians gathered in their nation's capital to express their discontent

01:05:41.140 with the government? And she says, Oh, it wasn't just, and then he asked, was this the kind of

01:05:47.820 joke that your cabinet colleagues found funny? And then she says, well, we take our job seriously.

01:05:52.160 So she's saying like literally in the same breath, it was a joke, but this is no joke.

01:05:57.880 So which one is it lady? Are you joking about running over Canadians? Are you serious about 1.00

01:06:02.780 running over Canadians? Both are bad. Both are bad. Just pick one, please. 1.00

01:06:07.980 Well, I mean, in truth, she, she hasn't, she hasn't necessarily been operationally focused,

01:06:14.860 especially if, uh, she has allowed the prime minister and, you know, the rest of the cabinet

01:06:20.120 to systematically eject Canadian forces members who are fully trained and will not partake in,

01:06:31.860 uh, the violation of informed consent. And yet now they're critically short in the middle of a

01:06:38.980 situation that they're facing overseas. Right. So that's an interesting thing, but you know,

01:06:44.340 a lot, I listened to her testimony quite closely today and, uh, she had rehearsed, she had rehearsed

01:06:51.920 quite a lot of, um, a lot of talking points. So when Rob asked those questions, she was actually

01:06:58.140 regurgitating a talking point, uh, almost verbatim of what she had previously stated early on.

01:07:05.260 Yeah. I just want to actually include something in there because I wasn't even the only person that

01:07:09.820 openly exclaimed this in the audience. It's like, I'm explaining this, like I'm watching a circus and

01:07:14.900 it feels like that at this point, but she literally had her phone in one hand and she was just scrolling

01:07:19.400 and you could just see her eyes darting back and forth. And, and, um, there was only a couple of times

01:07:24.500 where you could tell that her answers actually weren't that put together. And that's actually

01:07:27.680 the only times that she didn't have her phone in her hand. She was very scripted in her response.

01:07:32.760 And, um, I don't know, that's, that's tough to watch because it just shows me like, there's no

01:07:37.260 fairness. I would assume that phones usually wouldn't be allowed in court proceedings. If you're

01:07:41.220 up on the stand, giving a testimony, you know, it's like taking a test and you have notes, I get it,

01:07:46.240 but you're not allowed to bring your phone with you. So I don't care if you have notes or

01:07:50.640 who needs a phone when you can just say, I don't think that question's relevant. So I'm not answering

01:07:55.700 it. She did to the government of Alberta lawyer, like what the hell is going on here? Can you do

01:08:00.500 that? I guess so. Cause she did. Yeah, it was, it was really difficult to watch that exchange. And I

01:08:06.600 have to say, I think that's the best cross that I've seen, uh, from Rob Kittredge. Like he was right

01:08:11.740 on the money with that cross exam, uh, and the way he was making the eye contact, uh, in a very assertive

01:08:19.440 way, you could tell she was highly uncomfortable with, uh, the, the question itself. And she couldn't

01:08:26.700 answer the question from her own words. She had to revert to talking points because she was very

01:08:32.420 nervous about the answer she was about to get. Cause they knew that they got caught. They tried

01:08:37.520 to brush it off like a joke, but everybody in the room knew that it wasn't the joke. It was a staff

01:08:42.760 check to see if they could actually pull off what, what was being suggested. Well, you know,

01:08:47.060 it's speaking of a really good cross from Rob Kittredge. I don't think that we have the clip

01:08:50.820 actually lined up, but when he asked her, uh, more or less to agree or disagree with the fact

01:08:56.020 that if she didn't support the invocation, uh, the, the invocation of the emergencies act,

01:09:01.560 then she more or less would have to voluntarily step down from her position as minister.

01:09:06.320 Cabinet solidarity. So that concept is called cabinet solidarity. So not only have they not waived

01:09:13.440 cabinet confidence, which means the communications, which ministers are privileged and no one will

01:09:18.620 hear about them, but cabinet solidarity has not been waived either, which means that you

01:09:23.880 can't break ranks with cabinet. And if you do, you sort of have to voluntarily step down from

01:09:30.200 your role. And I think Anita Anand likes being a female defense leader. It makes her, you know,

01:09:37.640 he's checking a lot of, um, social justice boxes by being there.

01:09:42.100 Certainly is like, I I'd like to know how she's qualified to do that job. And I'll give you an 1.00

01:09:47.020 example. Why, um, the last minister of national defense, uh, was actually a reserve Lieutenant

01:09:53.740 Colonel and, you know, infantry reserve, uh, soldier who had multiple overseas deployments.

01:09:59.460 And he was also a police officer in, in his, his former career, but inside the Justin Trudeau's,

01:10:06.140 uh, own party, you've got a member of parliament. His name is Andrew Leslie. He was the commander of

01:10:12.840 the Canadian army. So how is it that Andrew Leslie is just basically this guy with, with hardly any

01:10:20.020 portfolio at all. And she is now running the military when her focus is to put pronouns on 1.00

01:10:25.640 people's signature blocks, uh, in their emails, as opposed to making sure that Canada has a fighting

01:10:32.080 force that is ready to meet, you know, international challenges in terms of defense. She's not, 0.95

01:10:38.920 she can't even talk her way through a public inquiry without talking points. 0.99

01:10:43.580 Well, it goes without saying that this is Justin, Justin Trudeau's Canada. And, um, even if she did

01:10:48.620 or didn't disagree, I kind of, I, I have the suspicion. I have intuition. If, if I may just say,

01:10:54.960 um, that not all the ministers obviously fully agreed, actually, it was revealed that during

01:11:00.240 her statement, she didn't even specify if she agreed with the invocation of the emergency act.

01:11:04.380 Of course that changed today, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, um, go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. I was,

01:11:12.380 I was just going to touch on Leslie for a second there. In fairness, Andrew Leslie was unelected in

01:11:18.040 2019. Um, after he announced that he would support, uh, vice Admiral Normans, he would testify for the

01:11:25.820 defense in that breach of trust trial. So he was, uh, turfed. I thought I saw him sitting in the

01:11:33.420 audience. I could have swore. I saw him sitting in the audience recently when that one, uh, liberal

01:11:38.020 MP passed out. Remember two weeks ago, she passed out in, uh, the comments. Oh, he could have been,

01:11:43.100 he could have been sitting there right in front of her. Yeah. I don't know. Hey, you know, the Admiral

01:11:50.660 was actually vindicated. Uh, he beat those, uh, those allegations, uh, and was offered a full

01:11:57.360 reinstatement, but I think he took his retirement. And by the way, many, many members of the Canadian

01:12:02.980 military, uh, helped the Admiral, uh, crowdfund for his legal defense, which he won and then turn

01:12:11.100 around and reimbursed or offered reimbursement to all the soldiers, airmen, and sailors that

01:12:16.540 supported his legal defense. He asked them if they would like to be reimbursed or where their money

01:12:21.160 would he'd like to donate it. Right. But this is somebody who Justin Trudeau took off the chessboard

01:12:27.380 in the Canadian military. Why? Because of another ethics deal involving ships and Justin Trudeau's

01:12:34.480 friends and he won. Yeah. But you know, to, um, to, to kind of, uh, circle back to my, the original

01:12:43.380 question, I'm, I'm really sorry. I thought I, I take the long way around. I took the long way around.

01:12:51.260 Uh, and this is the important point. If the emergencies, if the commission comes back and says,

01:12:57.880 hey, uh, the emergency act was, was necessary. It was, if, if the commission comes back and says,

01:13:05.800 yeah, it's valid, it should have been invoked. Uh, there's a good chance I could still be charged

01:13:10.820 and I'm not the only one. There's a possibility, right? Uh, and, and this is a, this is a,

01:13:17.960 I think a valid concern of mine and some of the others like Danny, I would assume I haven't talked

01:13:23.500 to Danny, but if they come back and say, yeah, the emergency act was warranted next thing, you know,

01:13:29.480 Tom and Danny and other people are going to get paraded around this country, like public enemy

01:13:34.020 number one. Why? Because they've got to put a cherry on top of their big heap of cake. And so,

01:13:41.640 you know, obviously we're not stupid. We've been preparing for this for quite some time. We're not 0.90

01:13:46.400 going to go down without a fight. We're, we're aware of the play. Um, so I I'm, I'm not overly worried.

01:13:52.820 I mean, it's a, it's a long shot, but you know, we know what we're doing. Um, we played the long

01:13:58.780 game just as much as other, other opponents, right? This is what the government has trained us

01:14:03.960 to do. So I'm not really worried about it overall. I'll cover your trial. Like it's the OJ trial.

01:14:11.540 Perfect. Yeah. Yeah. We'll take turns. Exactly. Uh, but I mean, is it going to happen? No,

01:14:19.300 it's, I don't think it's going to happen, but it's inside the realm of, uh, possibility with this

01:14:24.680 current government that nobody even recognizes as, as left, right, center, anything. It's just

01:14:30.500 its own government beast on its own. It doesn't fit into a political spectrum. They're just doing

01:14:35.040 their own thing. In this century, in this century, maybe, you know, uh, 80 years past, it might fit

01:14:40.540 into a government model of the past. Uh, but you know, nothing would surprise me with these guys.

01:14:47.380 The only ideology, the only ideology is power at all costs, whatever that looks like.

01:14:54.620 They don't care. Well, it's, it's done through, it's done through talking points in media and

01:14:58.360 narrative. Um, that's the most effective tool, you know, and during, during the, um, during the

01:15:04.900 convoy, I had made mention actually on a, I think the final live stream event that I had done

01:15:10.460 on the 19th. And I mentioned, you know, Justin Trudeau, you just got your, your Tiananmen square

01:15:15.620 moment. That's what you wanted. You just got the moment. Uh, and, and now there, we find out that

01:15:22.520 they were actually joking about it, making reference to it. Joking. If they were joking.

01:15:27.400 If, yeah, if it was actually, yeah, they weren't joking. They weren't joking. Now, uh, I think it is,

01:15:34.860 it's 917 where you guys are at. It's been a very long day for you. And I know that there's a case

01:15:39.780 of beer that I bought sitting in the fridge for you guys to drink after a very long day. Um, so I

01:15:46.820 want to thank you guys for the hard work that you're putting in, in, uh, the commission, Tom,

01:15:50.880 I know this is probably difficult for you to relive at some points. Yeah, I imagine. So, yeah. Uh,

01:15:57.440 what frustrates me, sorry. What frustrates me is that six weeks ago, we heard all these,

01:16:02.240 this testimony from Lamenti and Mendocino that was proven false six weeks ago, but they're still

01:16:08.200 talking about it. Like it's fact. Surprise. It's very government. They're gaslighting us. They

01:16:15.080 think we're all hard of remembering. Anyway, I was trying to wrap up the stream so that you guys

01:16:19.760 could go and have a beer. Um, so I will let you go, Celine. Thank you. You've got a very busy day

01:16:26.000 tomorrow. We've got PMO staffers and, and, uh, Krista Freeland. So very busy, uh, day full of

01:16:34.580 lies. I imagine a lot of turd polishing, I bet going on tomorrow. Um, and Tom, I'm sure you're

01:16:41.600 going to be sitting there. Sorry. I didn't mean to make you cough. Um, and I know you're fighting,

01:16:44.960 uh, a bit of a bug this whole time and you're in the, you know, you're in the audience just as

01:16:50.240 much as our team is. And you're, I mean, I think at this point, we just consider you part of the

01:16:55.220 crew. Um, you come to the live stream probably four nights out of five. So thanks for doing that.

01:17:00.840 Um, I, I look forward to seeing what is going on tomorrow. I may or may not be the lead journalist.

01:17:07.480 I bet I'm going to get roped into it. So that's okay too. Cause I get to talk to you guys. Uh,

01:17:11.800 thanks to everybody behind the board there in the Airbnb. Thanks to everybody in the studio in Toronto,

01:17:18.660 who's also working hard. Efron, Olivia, I know you're there. Um, thanks to everybody who tunes

01:17:24.080 in every week. Um, and every night, by the way, to, uh, watch the breakdown. We know that you're

01:17:30.700 looking to us to give you truthful analysis because we are not politically contaminated by

01:17:36.300 Justin Trudeau's money. So I appreciate the trust that you put in us. And as David Menzies always says,

01:17:42.140 stay sane.

01:17:48.660 Freedom in the year 2022 for me, folks, it means the return of Rebel Live. Now Rebel Live is an

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01:18:18.140 The Toronto event is on November 19th. That's a Saturday. And it will feature the likes of Dr.

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01:19:20.780 don't you dare miss it. Don't you dare miss this one.

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Rebel News Podcast - November 23, 2022

BREAKDOWN： Trucker Commission Day 29 ｜ Justice, Defence, Transport ministers testify

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