Rebel News Podcast - DAVID MENZIES ｜ Why now？ Questions mount over police's sudden show of force

00:00:00.000 Tonight, are the Toronto police finally getting tough on terrorist supporters,

00:00:05.440 or is there something else at play here? It's Wednesday, April 8th, 2026.

00:00:12.800 I'm David Menzies, and this is the Ezra Levent Show.

00:00:19.820 Shame on you, you sensorism bug.

00:00:30.000 For two and a half years now, the pro-Hamas reprobates have taken over the streets of

00:00:37.360 Toronto. They chant for genocide against the Jewish people. They display swastikas. They

00:00:43.100 carry replica hand grenades. At least let us hope those grenades are harmless replicas.

00:00:49.480 And they even cosplay Asinwar, the terrorist mastermind of October 7th, 2023, as they invade

00:00:57.460 Jewish neighborhoods. But folks, what is more gross, the odious behavior of the Hamas holes

00:01:05.720 or the fact that law enforcement and the political class can't seem to be bothered to do anything

00:01:14.060 about it? The double standard is uncanny. Imagine if dozens of members of the Ku Klux Klan marched

00:01:21.060 into a predominantly black neighborhood in Toronto. Would that be tolerated? Would Mayor

00:01:27.160 Olivia Chow and Police Chief Myron Demke spout nonsense along the lines of how we need to be,

00:01:33.800 you know, reasonable in terms of accommodating diverse viewpoints? No! A KKK demonstration

00:01:41.860 would be shut down in a New York minute with the cops going into whack-em and stack-em mode.

00:01:48.480 Yet for 30 months now, the police and the politicians have merely shrugged when it comes to all the Jew hatred.

00:01:56.180 They look the other way. They turn a blind eye. They hold their nose.

00:02:00.340 They've even delivered coffee and timbits to the Hamasals.

00:02:03.960 Yeah, I guess chanting genocide in January can be somewhat taxing.

00:02:09.720 And we wouldn't want these Islamists to do without and go on an empty stomach now, would we?

00:02:15.980 But recently, there seems to be a change in direction in terms of law enforcement when it comes to these despicable demonstrators.

00:02:26.340 Case in point, on April 2nd, the Toronto Police Service issued a media release making the public aware of an arrest for public incitement of hatred at a demonstration.

00:02:40.940 Here's what the release stated verbatim.

00:02:43.280 On Sunday, March 15, 2026, at approximately 1.15 p.m., protesters and counter-protesters attended a demonstration at the intersection of Bathurst Street and Shepherd Avenue West.

00:02:59.200 It is alleged that the accused attended the demonstration with other protesters and displayed an anti-Semitic sign.

00:03:10.220 He marched with the sign toward a group of pro-Israeli supporters while shouting derogatory slurs.

00:03:18.500 The accused was later identified through investigation.

00:03:22.740 on april 2nd 2026 members of the hate crime unit executed a criminal code search warrant

00:03:30.120 and located the accused muhammad anus cl 33 of toronto was arrested and charged with

00:03:39.080 public incitement of hate wow talk about the passover miracle the abominable anus was finally

00:03:46.880 charged with something and i'm sure that must have come as a complete shock to anus you see

00:03:54.220 back in january 2024 anus was one of the recipients of coffee and timbits delivered by

00:04:01.660 law enforcement at the time anus and the other reprobate colleagues of his were occupying a bridge

00:04:09.660 over highway 401 near a predominantly jewish neighborhood must have been a coincidence i

00:04:16.520 suppose. And at the time, the attitude of law enforcement was this. But on April 2nd,

00:04:30.040 handcuffs replaced Timbits for Anus. He must still be uttering the immortal Fred Willard

00:04:36.560 quotation from A Mighty Wind. Yeah, indeed. Hey, what happened? As well, in recent days,

00:04:47.260 the Toronto police have made their presence highly visible around town. Heavily armed police officers

00:04:53.660 resembling combat troops have been spotted at subway stations, the Sky Dome when the Blue Jays

00:05:00.200 are in town and at certain synagogues. Now, speculation was that law enforcement had

00:05:07.040 intercepted chatter that Toronto's version of Bondi Beach was indeed a clear and present danger

00:05:13.700 and the cops weren't taking any chances. Then again, what's that old saying, folks?

00:05:21.120 Appearances can be deceiving. You see, I spoke with my police sources who told me

00:05:26.960 that what's been playing out on the mean streets of Hogtown recently, from the arrest of Anus

00:05:33.760 to the show of force in public, is really akin to the law enforcement version of street theater.

00:05:41.340 My sources say the real reason for this show of force is all about the police creating an

00:05:49.160 amped up atmosphere of dread and despair. Now, why would they want to do that, you ask? Well,

00:05:57.720 great question. Apparently, this would give the Mark Carney liberals a convenient excuse to

00:06:05.580 justify their various censorship bills. This would also give the liberals an excuse to further

00:06:11.740 justify that gross gun grab. The messaging would be this. You see, folks, there's just way too much

00:06:20.060 hatred out there. There's just way too much danger. And we must enforce our liberal legislation

00:06:27.100 in order to make Canada safe again. I know this sounds preposterous, but really in this day and

00:06:35.200 age, is it? And consider back when Justin Trudeau was prime minister, we know he had at least one

00:06:43.100 confidential meeting with chief Demke. But why the chief doesn't take his orders from the prime

00:06:50.160 minister? What was said in that meeting? Well, we reached out to the cop shop and basically the

00:06:56.960 response from police headquarters was this. I'm not kidding, folks. We even filed an access to

00:07:09.560 information request pertaining to this meeting and the cops rejected our FOI. But again, why?

00:07:17.180 What was so secretive about that meeting? I guess we're never going to know, but I think it's clear

00:07:24.680 that under Chief Dem Q, the Toronto cops serve as puppets for the federal liberal government.

00:07:32.620 Meanwhile, when it comes to certain independent media outlets, the Toronto police are still in

00:07:38.780 vendetta mode. I was arrested five times by police in 2024 for simply practicing journalism in a

00:07:47.360 public place. Three of those arrests came via the Toronto Police Service. And get this folks,

00:07:54.020 last sunday they still targeted me as chants for genocide filled the air at bathers and shepherd

00:08:02.060 i was given a 615 dollar ticket for filming the police from my vehicle i'm in need your driver's

00:08:10.700 license and uh why is that officer because you had your handheld communication device in your hand

00:08:15.200 but i had my vehicle in park i was just filming you're driving there sir you can argue this in

00:08:20.300 court i need your driver's license wait so wait a minute you're allowing people to chant for

00:08:23.960 genocide and you're apples and oranges right now i need you no it's not you you you are purposely

00:08:29.060 targeting me are you gonna give me your driver's license unbelievable here's the skinny i was in

00:08:35.600 a left turn lane the light was red my vehicle was in park other motorists were also filming

00:08:42.340 but along came officer ian gillespie who is allegedly a good friend of the infamous officer

00:08:49.500 Bubbles. Oh, by the way, he was also there that day to give me a Highway Traffic Act ticket.

00:08:56.440 Yes, that was the real crime occurring at Bathurst and Shepherd on Sunday.

00:09:02.100 An alleged traffic violation, not calls for genocide. Pathetic. Or do you think that maybe

00:09:11.660 this was yet another example of a personal vendetta against yours truly and Rebel News?

00:09:18.420 well, I'll let you be the judge. But in the meantime, the Toronto police want you to think

00:09:25.480 they're getting tough on antisemitism. Nice try. Nice try because the scuttlebutt is,

00:09:33.000 is that the Toronto police brass are just so many minions carrying out a Liberal Party of Canada

00:09:41.680 objective. So much for to serve and protect. That's because the politicized Toronto Police

00:09:50.680 Service brass and the Mark Carney liberals both subscribe to that old political chestnut.

00:09:58.420 Never let a good crisis go to waste.

00:10:11.680 Hi, everybody. Can you hear me? Oh, great. It's great to have you here. Ezra Levant's my name.

00:10:16.360 I'm the president of Rebel News. And it's great to have you here. You know, I am overwhelmed by

00:10:24.520 the feeling of nostalgia and nervous sickness from being back in this room. It was in this

00:10:31.580 very room that I was taught calculus. I was taught it, which is very different than me learning it.

00:10:38.040 And it was so I have scars from more than 30 years ago. So much of USC is the same as when I was here. And, you know, although I'm filled and overwhelmed with dread now, I also remember with great fondness the crucible for freedom and political activism that it was.

00:10:59.120 where I met so many other interesting people, some of whom have gone on to be rivals. Nahid

00:11:05.360 Nenshi was my classmate and my debating partner, Danielle Smith, who I was the head of the Young

00:11:12.700 Reformers. She was the head of the Young Conservatives. There was so many. So it wasn't

00:11:16.760 just school that we did here. It was preparing for a life of ideas. And I was very lucky to have

00:11:23.840 had some professors like Dr. Tom Flanagan who allowed that to flourish. And our host tonight,

00:11:29.400 I'm not sure if Dr. Barry Cooper is here in the room. I haven't seen him. Is Dr. Cooper in the

00:11:34.000 room? No? Well, he is certainly one of the freedom or if he comes in, we'll have to give him a

00:11:39.920 recognition. He's certainly one of the freedom professors who has been fighting for freedom

00:11:44.280 and has made you see that kind of place since I was here many years ago. So it's not just full of

00:11:50.640 a student's dread for not having done its homework. It's actually full of fond memories too.

00:11:56.460 And I think that Calgary, the U of C, of course it's got its wokeness, but it is as free

00:12:04.380 compared to other universities as Calgary is to other cities. So it's a great place and a very

00:12:10.000 fitting place for our guest speaker tonight, who I'm about to introduce. I didn't meet Tamera Leach

00:12:18.540 until after the trucker convoy was over. I was only in Ottawa for a couple of days.

00:12:24.100 Our team was on the ground filming as everything that moved. I remember our young reporters,

00:12:31.020 Alexa Lavois and Lincoln Jay, were there 23 days straight. And really, they just turned

00:12:36.520 their cameras on and just pointed and narrated what they saw. And the world was so hungry for

00:12:42.500 that honest information. It was incredible to me that amateur citizen journalists like Alexa

00:12:48.260 and Lincoln got so much attention and so many foreign networks from Germany and Australia

00:12:54.580 and the UK and, of course, from the US wanted to talk to our, I'm not going to call them kids,

00:13:01.740 but they were really young greenhorns because they knew we were on the street and trustworthy.

00:13:07.960 And it was interesting which foreign networks chose instead to talk to the CBC, people who

00:13:13.600 are afraid to go out even amongst the truckers and i let me just brag for 30 seconds in the month of

00:13:20.320 february 2022 which was the month of the trucker our little website our little citizen website

00:13:27.840 got over 400 million views and impressions whereas the cbc

00:13:33.040 their own, you know, promotional material says on an average month, they get 360 million. So I mean,

00:13:45.420 they may have been larger that month, too. But our little ragtag band, no government subsidies,

00:13:51.220 just telling the other side of the story, just follow the facts, point the camera,

00:13:54.900 was larger than the regime media, which gets a billion and a half dollars a year because people

00:14:01.760 simply wanted the truth. And Rebel News, you know, we're famous for telling the other side of the

00:14:08.040 story. That's our official motto. But we do something that I think is pretty unique. Every

00:14:13.400 once in a while, we don't just talk about a problem. We're not just voyeurs to a problem.

00:14:19.480 Every once in a while, we stop and say, well, we got to do something about this problem. And that's

00:14:24.140 what makes us a little unusual, a little bit of a hybrid operation, because every once in a while,

00:14:29.520 we do something like the project that was started right here in Calgary. We called it Fight the

00:14:33.960 Fines. Has anyone heard of Fight the Fines? Remember that? That was, and client number one

00:14:39.400 was Arthur Pavlovsky, that street pastor who was feeding the homeless. And if you remember the

00:14:49.680 video, the police went up to him and pushed him around, literally, and said, this is an illegal

00:14:56.360 gathering he said it's not a gathering i'm feeding the homeless and these are were the lowest the

00:15:00.900 lowliest of the low these were the people who might get kicked out of a homeless shelter because

00:15:05.340 they had certain problems they were they were nobody's nothings as morrissey might say and for

00:15:12.020 arthur they were his mission and we took his case we called him client number one client number two

00:15:18.180 was Derek Reimer, also of this city, also a pastor.

00:15:25.620 And before you knew it, we had 50 people. And I just blurted out in the office one day,

00:15:31.500 we're going to take a thousand. And everyone said, oh, good, you're going to bankrupt the company.

00:15:35.400 How are you going to run a thousand cases? Well, I didn't know the answer, but I knew we had to do

00:15:40.480 it. And over the course of duration of the whole pandemic, we actually wound up taking

00:15:45.900 3,000 cases. And the foolishness of saying, we'll take them all. We literally took every case.

00:15:58.160 The only case I can recall we turned away was a biker gang that wanted us to represent them.

00:16:05.320 And I just thought I'm not going to raise money from rebel viewers to spend on a biker gang.

00:16:10.600 Not that I'm against them having civil liberties, but that was the only case we turned away.

00:16:15.200 we didn't ask any other questions of anyone. And the folly of fighting 3,000 cases, as opposed to

00:16:22.500 taking, say, 30 strategic cases, the folly actually became the wisdom of it, in that put yourself in

00:16:28.860 the shoes of the prosecutors. You're going to run 3,000 cases? Really? You got 3,000 prosecutors,

00:16:34.660 you got 3,000 courtrooms, you got 3,000 judges, you better start building some new courtrooms

00:16:38.580 if you're going to do that. And by the way, so it it jammed up the system. And so we had so many

00:16:44.980 cases being dropped, but the government wanted to make an example out of some people. Because

00:16:50.400 they hate being defied, don't they? In Toronto, you might remember that there was Adamson's

00:16:57.680 barbecue. Adam Skelly refused to shut down his little barbecue place. The police sent more than

00:17:02.500 100 officers, a dozen horseback troops, because they wanted to encourage les autres, as they'd say

00:17:11.640 in Quebec, to make an example. Don't you dare defy us or we'll stomp on you. And when, if I

00:17:17.920 fought nothing, grandma, from the prairies, led the truckers with such a spiritually positive message

00:17:25.260 of love and positivity and became a symbol. They wanted this symbol to be an angry, militant,

00:17:33.780 off-putting person. But instead, the nicest, kindest Canadian was the face. And instead of

00:17:41.480 rambunctiousness, and they wanted a January 6th narrative. Instead, they got bouncy castles and

00:17:47.980 hot tubs. They got people shoveling the snow. They got crime in Ottawa actually falling because

00:17:54.440 everyone was doing good things. There was no parliament that was stormed. Parliament was

00:17:58.140 closed. They were renovating and there was nothing to a storm. And so they knew they had to destroy

00:18:03.640 the woman who became the symbol of the peaceful, positive protest. They knew they had to do that.

00:18:11.060 And so they went after Tamera Leach in a way that is beyond understanding. If you think the justice

00:18:18.460 system is rational and designed to have a positive public outcome, they put Tamera Leach

00:18:24.140 through the longest mischief trial in Canadian history. And I checked with your lawyer. And as

00:18:31.540 far as we both know, it was the longest mischief trial in the history of the Commonwealth, the UK,

00:18:36.520 Australia, the longest. Mischief is the lowest species of crime in the criminal code. Mischief

00:18:42.200 is the kind of thing, if there was some graffiti or if you shoplifted, you'll get a mischief charge

00:18:47.280 and the judge will look at you and say, I don't want to see you in this courtroom again. Now go

00:18:50.840 out and fly straight. That's what mischief is. The lowest crime there is. But they had, that was a

00:18:57.280 two, over two years. And they had so many prosecutorial resources. And just even having

00:19:04.320 the judge and the courtroom and the clerks. And I couldn't help but think how many serious crimes,

00:19:10.620 violent crimes, home invasions, rapes, were let free because they didn't have a speedy trial,

00:19:17.480 because all the resources were being put on Tamara Leach.

00:19:21.660 And I watched the trial, and there was nothing there.

00:19:26.600 There was no there there.

00:19:27.680 Not a single witness actually interacted with Tamara Leach.

00:19:33.060 There was no one that testified that said, oh, she said this, I heard it.

00:19:37.460 Or she told me that, or she said, not one.

00:19:41.400 And there was one day, I didn't quite understand it at first,

00:19:45.080 they showed five little video clips where Tamera Leach is like standing in the corner it's like

00:19:50.580 where's Waldo and I'm thinking this is the prosecutor I think and I'm thinking I forget

00:19:55.660 which team put these I think the five videos and I was thinking what what's that like she doesn't

00:20:00.900 even say anything she's sort of standing like you can bear that was the totality of anyone who even

00:20:07.580 saw her. No speaking. They had bureaucrat after bureaucrat sort of give a dear diary. Here's how

00:20:16.060 I felt when I saw the trucker. It wasn't evidence. There was a therapy session and the judge allowed

00:20:22.600 it. And I was there in the courtroom and I was certain that Tamara would have been acquitted,

00:20:27.380 but alas, she was not. I was shocked. And Rebel News crowd through our friends at the Democracy

00:20:33.600 fund. And I'm sure people in this room helped chip in. We paid for actually an outstanding

00:20:38.540 legal team. The lawyer, the lead lawyer, Lawrence Greenspan, universally respected.

00:20:45.680 It was amazing to me even see the CBC stop and listen to him when he spoke, because he spoke

00:20:51.460 with such authority about freedom. In fact, he had litigated some of the key cases. I was shocked,

00:20:56.660 as was the legal team, when Tamera was convicted. And I was in the court when they gave her a

00:21:02.400 sentence. And remember, she had spent a month and a half in prison already pre-trial, much of it in

00:21:06.860 solitary confinement, which is outrageous under the pretext of COVID safety. Already a month and

00:21:12.640 a half in prison. And imagine giving her a sentence on top of that. But I was in court when the judge

00:21:18.440 said, and I thought, oh my God, what's she going to say? A year in house arrest? Now, my first reaction

00:21:25.140 was, okay, good. I'm glad it's not actual prison time. But imagine a year locked in your house.

00:21:31.180 i mean you might love your house but part of the reason you love your house is you know you can

00:21:36.300 leave if you're compelled to stay within your house and you only have minor exemptions five

00:21:42.780 hours a week for groceries and other necessities doctor or appointment or legal appointment

00:21:48.540 you can go to church and that's about it for a year and clearly not only designed to break

00:21:56.620 someone's spirit, but to shut them up and stop them from going out and about. But I remember

00:22:01.240 something from my law school days. I remembered that there was another exemption, too. And that

00:22:07.800 exemption, believe it or not, is for work. So I called up my friend Tamara, and I said,

00:22:15.580 you've worked with Rebel News before, not as an official employee, but you've done a book with us,

00:22:21.900 this book, which I really recommend if you haven't read it yet. It's a great book.

00:22:25.120 and you went on tour and you did that. And so I said, can I offer you a job?

00:22:31.180 And we ran it by you and we ran it by your lawyer.

00:22:38.560 And then I took my mean pills and I called up your probation officer and I went through it

00:22:45.200 line by line, including the expectation that you would be expected to travel as often as once a

00:22:52.620 week. And wouldn't you know it, the law is the law. What a delight that the newest rebel

00:22:59.340 is our friend Tamara Leach. We busted her out. It was a jailbreak.

00:23:09.680 I love telling that story. But mainly it's my sense of pride and admiration. Because I didn't

00:23:17.760 actually meet you until after you were released. And I got to know you a little bit during the

00:23:22.380 trial. And I thought I knew you until I read the book and I learned so much more about you. And I'm

00:23:27.300 delighted to say, by the way, I don't want to, but Tamara is doing a sequel because this book does

00:23:33.340 not take us up to the present day. This book does not include the conviction. Am I right? So volume

00:23:39.860 two is coming out and this was such a bestseller. It's going to be amazing. But I am so proud that

00:23:46.440 in the couple of months that Tamara has been a rebel, she has lived up to all that we aim to be.

00:23:54.920 She's been a journalist telling the other side of the story. She's crisscrossed not only Alberta,

00:23:59.860 but other provinces too. We even had her out there in Toronto in young Dundas Square, one of the

00:24:05.300 busiest places in the country talking about freedom of speech. That was a very interesting

00:24:09.300 visit. So she too is living up to the rebel way of telling the other side of the story,

00:24:15.880 giving a voice to people who are otherwise ignored, going and platforming people that

00:24:21.940 the regime media would ignore. And I think her personal example of fighting for freedom,

00:24:30.760 you know, I'm not, I don't have a strong background in theology, but I know enough

00:24:35.220 that when someone sacrifices their own self, when someone with great dignity agrees to go to prison

00:24:44.580 defiantly, but with their head held up high, when she does that for us, there's something almost,

00:24:53.920 I don't want to say holy, I don't want to overstep, but there's something so deeply admirable and

00:24:59.800 moving about someone who would sacrifice her personal self to force the freedom agenda in

00:25:09.380 this country. And of course, such a person could only work with Rebel News. And what a delight.

00:25:15.580 May I, would you please join with me in welcoming my friend, Tamara Leach.

00:25:22.620 Thank you. Thank you, Ezra. Thank you. Thank you, everybody.

00:25:29.800 You guys know how to make a girl blush.

00:25:50.480 Can you hear me okay?

00:25:51.560 All right.

00:25:53.620 Thank you for that lovely introduction, Ezra.

00:25:55.620 Ezra Levant.

00:25:56.620 We flew in from Toronto today just to be here for this, so thank you so much for that, Ezra.

00:26:04.580 And of course, Sheila made it this evening, Sheila Gunn-Reed.

00:26:12.360 And I don't believe Dr. Cooper is here yet, but I obviously want to say a huge thank you to, is he?

00:26:17.820 Oh, great. Where is he, Dr. Cooper?

00:26:20.660 Oh, there he is. Thank you, Dr. Cooper.

00:26:26.620 I mean, with the state of some of the universities in Canada today, and, you know, we're seeing

00:26:33.620 Dr. Francis Whittowson having some issues, you know, this gentleman sort of went out

00:26:39.900 on a limb to help us organize this event here tonight.

00:26:42.400 So thank you so much, Dr. Cooper, for being so brave.

00:26:50.920 And I also have to thank my producer, Tasha, who flew in from B.C. this morning or this

00:26:55.700 afternoon who helped put this presentation together. And my final thank you is to my

00:27:03.260 husband, Dwayne Leach. He is the manager of all this mischief. And make sure I get where you should

00:27:08.580 be. So tonight, I want to talk to you a little bit about democracy. And I want to talk to you

00:27:18.200 a little bit how grassroots movements work, at least in my experience. Now, before I think we

00:27:24.900 can pretty much all agree in this room what the current state of democracy is like in Canada. And

00:27:29.200 I think if you look at myself and Chris Barber and a lot of the other truckers and supporters that

00:27:34.460 have been persecuted, it's very telling where we're at in this country, especially when you're

00:27:39.980 looking at different cases being thrown out, charges being dropped for more serious and

00:27:46.340 violent crimes than mischief. I had six charges total. Two of them were intimidation, which is

00:27:53.800 hilarious because as people have noted here, I'm clearly not very intimidating. But obviously I

00:28:01.660 was acquitted. We were both acquitted on our intimidation charges. And thankfully the judge

00:28:05.540 said intimidation usually includes threats of violence. As you saw, if you watched any of my

00:28:11.120 videos throughout the whole convoy period, not once were we advocating for violence. As a matter

00:28:15.700 of fact, we were encouraging people to call the police if they had any indication of that type

00:28:21.360 of behavior, because that is not what we were going to do. We simply wanted to go and have

00:28:25.660 a conversation with our elected officials, who are supposed to be giving us a voice in the House

00:28:32.380 of Commons. So I want to give you a little bit of background about me, because grassroots movements

00:28:40.260 typically start with people that aren't activists or advocates. They're not really political in any

00:28:45.440 way. I'm just going to try and turn this down a little bit. I hear a bit of an echo.

00:28:51.360 See if that's okay.

00:28:55.420 So there's me as a baby.

00:28:58.360 I was born September 19th, 1972 to a young single Métis woman from Cold Lake.

00:29:04.920 Her family was from Cold Lake.

00:29:06.840 She was going to the university in Saskatoon.

00:29:09.520 And she wanted me to have a good life with a loving two-parent family.

00:29:15.280 And so she gave me up for adoption, much to the sadness I found out much later from my grandparents.

00:29:23.620 My grandmother was a Cree lady.

00:29:25.480 My grandfather was Métis.

00:29:27.240 I've never met my birth father.

00:29:29.120 He was a Scottish gentleman who was in the Canadian military.

00:29:32.140 And when she told him she was pregnant, he never called her again.

00:29:36.380 But that's okay.

00:29:37.760 I ended up in a great family with, well, actually, my mother and father adopted me.

00:29:43.500 They were told they would never have children of their own.

00:29:45.940 So my mother had three miscarriages.

00:29:47.880 They adopted me, and then they had five more children.

00:29:53.020 So I think I'm a bit of a good luck charm.

00:29:55.300 At least that's what I try to tell myself anyways.

00:29:59.100 I grew up in Saskatchewan, all across the southern part of Saskatchewan.

00:30:03.840 My dad worked for the wheat pool.

00:30:05.520 He had a trucking company for a while.

00:30:07.960 Then he worked in the oil patch.

00:30:09.440 So pretty much every little teeny dinky town in southern Saskatchewan I have lived in,

00:30:13.580 we've lived in towns where when my family moved in, the population doubled.

00:30:18.860 One place we moved in in Horizon, Saskatchewan, didn't even have any plumbing.

00:30:22.560 So that was interesting.

00:30:24.100 It was a two-bedroom house with a family of six.

00:30:27.740 So my career has primarily been in oil and gas since I moved to Alberta in the late 90s.

00:30:34.820 And that's sort of where my journey here sort of started.

00:30:39.440 It was during 2019, I believe it was, when C-69 and C-48 came in, and I was seeing people that I cared about and people that were working in my industry losing their jobs and losing their homes, and, you know, men were coming into my office handing me their resume with tears in their eyes because they were going to lose their house or they didn't know what they were going to do.

00:31:05.660 And now, of course, being in the Alberta oil patch,

00:31:08.540 I know that we have one of the safest, most environmentally friendly

00:31:14.780 and efficient oil and gas industries in the world.

00:31:20.200 And I couldn't figure out for the life of me why we were being punished for it.

00:31:28.620 I couldn't figure out for the life of me why all of our politicians

00:31:31.500 weren't traveling all over the world shouting this from the rooftops

00:31:34.800 and trying to sell our products around the world.

00:31:38.820 And instead, we were being vilified and shamed for it.

00:31:43.260 So I joined a little group.

00:31:45.620 I sought out a little group in Medicine Hat,

00:31:47.980 and we became the Yellow Vestors,

00:31:49.880 and we went to 13th Avenue by Tim Hortons

00:31:52.200 and held signs up once a week.

00:31:55.880 Yeah, so I joined a little local group in town.

00:31:58.280 We called ourselves the Yellow Vestors,

00:32:00.140 and we went out and protested on 13th Avenue every week

00:32:04.280 holding signs. Sometimes we get honks. Sometimes people would join us. Sometimes we'd get the old

00:32:09.520 Trudeau salute. And that's okay. I mean, everybody, everybody is entitled to their opinion. We're all

00:32:14.800 about free speech. So, so that was sort of my journey in beginning this whole thing and start

00:32:21.660 and starting to follow politics a little bit more and a little bit more. It was about the time of

00:32:27.200 the sponsorship scandal when I personally woke up to some of the stuff that was going on in our

00:32:32.640 country because I didn't care until then. I mean, politics is boring. I thought it was hard to

00:32:39.760 understand. And I just didn't care. I just assumed that the government was there to look after me and

00:32:44.400 my family like I would have brought up to believe they were. And of course, you know, the fallout

00:32:50.300 of the sponsorship scandal was sort of really eye-opening for me because nobody's gone to jail

00:32:54.740 yet. And they won't. We've also watched the Trudeau government go through scandal after scandal

00:33:01.000 laughter scandal with absolutely zero accountability. So I have to put that picture of Jason Kenney

00:33:08.720 in there. So he's going to hate that one day when he sees it. And it was also in 2019 during our

00:33:17.400 provincial election when I decided to stop complaining and do something about it and get

00:33:21.280 involved. So I joined my local MLA's campaign team and I went door knocking and helped out in the

00:33:28.080 office where I could. And obviously, that was also supporting Jason Kenney. And I didn't really know

00:33:35.040 what to think of Jason Kenney. Personally, I thought it was really strange that this MP from

00:33:40.540 Ottawa was just going to give up everything and race back here and save Alberta from Rachel Notley.

00:33:45.760 And I mean, I make this joke a lot, but we literally could have ran a cardboard box in

00:33:49.960 that election and it would have won because we needed to get rid of Rachel Notley.

00:33:53.540 But anyways, I thought that was a little bit suspect.

00:33:58.080 Um, but you know, as time went on and I was working on a campaign, I wanted to believe him.

00:34:04.580 He came to Medicine Hat. I met him. He shook my hand and I listened to what he had to say.

00:34:10.460 And I wanted to believe him so badly that he was going to fight for Albertans finally and put his

00:34:16.180 foot down. Um, I just didn't know that that meant harshly worded letters every other week to the

00:34:21.600 prime minister with absolutely little to no action. And then of course we saw how, how that

00:34:27.520 all turned out in the end also. So what is democracy? It is a system of government by the

00:34:38.260 whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives.

00:34:44.620 Governments by the people, for the people, representing the people. We elect the person

00:34:49.760 that we think best represents our values, and we expect that they're going to go to Ottawa,

00:34:53.920 and that they're going to give us a voice and voice our concerns and make sure that our rights

00:34:58.980 are protected. Now, I am concerned, obviously, about the state of democracy in Canada because

00:35:08.240 from what I'm seeing every day, there's not a lot left of it. I don't feel like I'm represented

00:35:13.860 personally. I mean, there's not too many people in Ottawa, and there was some, and we found out

00:35:18.880 even since the convoy, that there was some MPs advocating for us behind closed doors.

00:35:24.120 But they sure weren't racing up to talk to us on the street. And I will give my MP, Glenn Motts,

00:35:30.380 a lot of credit. He visited me at my home before the convoy started. He came over a couple of

00:35:34.320 times, brought me coffee. And he worked really hard once we got there to try and organize meetings

00:35:40.100 with Omar Al-Ghabra, who was the transport minister, and some of the other ministers,

00:35:46.200 There's Marco Mendicino, yeah, I'd love to meet that guy one day if I'm being honest.

00:35:56.340 But they just, they refused.

00:35:58.120 And you know, here again is the system that I believed in, that why wouldn't they come

00:36:04.640 and talk to us?

00:36:05.640 I mean, literally they were treating us like suspects or the enemy before we even got there.

00:36:11.660 And all of us were just regular Canadian citizens.

00:36:15.140 just want to add to that you know ezra introduces me and i it's the sweetest thing but it wasn't just

00:36:20.820 me this was truckers supporters and we would never have been as wildly successful as i believe we

00:36:27.780 were if it wasn't for you guys if it wasn't for the canadians that came out and supported us so yes

00:36:36.420 you made that happen

00:36:37.540 So what is a grassroots movement? A grassroots movement is a locally driven bottom-up effort

00:36:48.860 where community members organize to influence social or political change, typically focusing

00:36:54.620 on issues affecting their immediate lives. And so that's how that started, obviously. The pandemic

00:37:02.940 was affecting everybody's life. The mandates were affecting everybody's life. The vaccine

00:37:09.020 passports were affecting everybody's life. And it was very dark times. And, you know,

00:37:15.580 I remember my prime minister on an interview questioning whether people like me should

00:37:20.880 even be tolerated. And he never did finish that. I would really like to know what comes

00:37:27.480 after that. Because that was probably one of the most concerning, disappointing, shocking

00:37:32.180 things I've ever heard a political leader say, at least in Canada. Grassroots movements are

00:37:40.700 organized locally just by everyday people like me who are not typically activists. They're not

00:37:47.840 politically involved. They don't normally do this stuff. They leave protesting up to other people

00:37:53.240 until it actually affects you personally. Anyone that was expressing concern during that period

00:38:01.600 of time was cancelled. They were smeared. Some of them lost their jobs, as these ladies

00:38:06.060 in the front were just telling me here. Twenty years. She lost her job for twenty years.

00:38:12.380 Of twenty years, because obviously she made a choice.

00:38:19.720 I've met doctors, nurses, lawyers, waitresses, mechanics, lots of people who have lost their

00:38:30.080 jobs over that. And, you know, there's still no accountability. There's absolutely no accountability

00:38:35.560 happening. And so also remember during this time period, there was some other movements that were

00:38:40.880 happening. I wouldn't necessarily call them grassroots. They were highly organized and

00:38:46.280 very well funded, which we were not. Like Black Lives Matter, for example, or the coastal gas

00:38:54.320 link pipeline, Wet'suwet'en protests that were happening, where there was actual criminal activity

00:38:59.940 and violence occurring. And what did our prime minister say? It's important to maintain dialogue.

00:39:08.560 We need to keep talking to these people. We're not going to arrest them. We're just going to

00:39:12.040 listen to what they have to say. They were burning railway tires and causing vandalism to

00:39:17.640 rail lines. The coastal gas link pipeline was actually even worse.

00:39:24.500 and here we have a photo of our prime minister you know taking a knee um in the middle of the

00:39:32.640 pandemic when we weren't supposed to be gathering it was okay for them to gather for black lives

00:39:36.560 matter not okay for everyday canadian citizens to gather to protest uh the removal of their

00:39:43.720 charter rights and freedoms and that is how they position themselves they were not willing to talk

00:39:53.320 anybody that had a differing opinion than them. They belittled us. They called us misogynistic.

00:39:59.600 They called us racists. They called us people that didn't believe in science. And then again,

00:40:03.760 it was the, should we tolerate these people? Should we tolerate these people?

00:40:13.260 So for me, during the pandemic, my husband and I actually, at the very early onset, we both

00:40:20.420 were laid off of our jobs on the same day. And we'd planned a trip out to Manitoba to go see my

00:40:25.220 daughter, who we got there and found out she was pregnant. So we spent most of the pandemic out in

00:40:30.220 Manitoba because we weren't going to sit in the middle of Medicine Hat and do nothing. At least

00:40:35.780 on the farm, we could go be productive. We helped on the farm. Obviously, I helped with my

00:40:39.920 grandchildren. I helped my daughter. And we lived there primarily through most of the pandemic

00:40:44.480 until we were offered our jobs back in October of 2021.

00:40:50.500 We both were offered our jobs back

00:40:52.080 and we made this decision to come back to Alberta.

00:40:55.500 And it's funny because that's literally what we did.

00:40:59.220 We moved back at the beginning of November,

00:41:01.060 I think lived with my parents for a few weeks,

00:41:03.460 moved into our house a week before Christmas,

00:41:06.940 and then the convoy started two weeks later.

00:41:09.860 So even when I got home from the convoy,

00:41:11.800 my house still looked like two college kids

00:41:13.520 had just moved in and dropped all their boxes and left them on, left them all over the place.

00:41:17.900 We hadn't even got settled in yet. Um, but I got back to work and, uh, started at, uh, back at

00:41:24.300 Step Energy, which is where I was working prior to all of this. And throughout this whole thing,

00:41:30.340 you know, this was the problem. People couldn't talk openly about it. I mean, you could, you would

00:41:34.840 only know how other people felt if you read their body language or if you were very close with them.

00:41:39.700 So, I mean, we know that this tore families apart.

00:41:42.460 It tore relationships apart, friendships apart.

00:41:45.400 So we had to be very careful during this time,

00:41:48.280 feeling people out as to who we could talk to

00:41:50.580 and who we couldn't talk to about this, you know,

00:41:53.660 about how we really felt about it.

00:41:55.620 I know I worked in an office that was very vaccine-friendly

00:41:59.440 and actually very vaccine-friendly.

00:42:05.180 The lady that was my co-worker was very much a CBC-watching,

00:42:09.700 lady that believed all of that stuff. Then I remember the CEO or the CAO and the Reeve came

00:42:16.140 in one day because I was very honest. I've tried to always be respectful, but I was very honest

00:42:20.760 about my stance on what was going to happen. And the CAO and the Reeve came in one day and Jason

00:42:25.660 says, so Tamara, about that vaccine? And I said, I'm not getting it. And he said, well, that's okay.

00:42:31.600 I look at this time they were talking about mandating them for all the municipalities in

00:42:34.680 Manitoba. And he said, well, that's okay. You can probably just do a test. And I said, I ain't doing

00:42:40.220 that either, because I'm not sick. And the CAO, assistant CAO, laughed, and she's like, are you

00:42:46.040 going to quit? Does that mean you'll quit? And I said, no, you're going to have to fire me.

00:42:49.700 I was not playing that game. Absolutely not. And my husband and I decided very early on that we

00:42:54.900 were not participating in that program.

00:43:04.680 Transcription by CastingWords

Rebel News Podcast - April 08, 2026

DAVID MENZIES ｜ Why now？ Questions mount over police's sudden show of force

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