Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Amish farmers fined for not using COVID-era ArriveCan app as legal battle over religious freedom continues

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00:00:30.000 Tonight, an update on the case of the Provincial Government of Ontario

00:00:43.500 persecuting Amish farmers because they didn't fill out the Arrive Can app.

00:00:48.720 You're fighting for freedom! 0.98

00:00:51.760 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:00.000 Ezra Levant here. I am in Amish country, about two and a half hours west of Toronto. It's so 0.79

00:01:09.920 gorgeous here. As you can see, one of the things the Amish do is they make their own food and they

00:01:15.720 sell it for cash. But the way they go about it is very old-fashioned. Amish, if you don't know, 0.83

00:01:22.140 is not just an ethnicity. It's a religious approach. It's a form of Christianity, but

00:01:28.000 they hold that they should not use modern appliances, no electricity, no automobiles.

00:01:35.600 From the outside, their houses look the same as any other farmhouse on this country road,

00:01:40.640 but you'll notice that there's no electricity to it. They have outhouses. They live as they

00:01:46.460 would have lived 250 years ago. Another thing about the Amish is that they're pacifist. They

00:01:52.280 take literally the commandment to turn the other cheek. The Amish have a low profile because of 0.99

00:02:00.200 this. And they, in my view, live a simple life. And I would even say economically, we would call

00:02:07.260 them poor because they only use animal power or human power for their farming, unlike other 1.00

00:02:12.940 Christian farmers like the Hutterites of Alberta, which are fully industrialized. So the Amish have 1.00

00:02:18.020 a low profile. And frankly, I've never heard of anyone having a problem with the Amish people

00:02:23.080 ever, other than I suppose in times of conscription, the Amish being pacifists would

00:02:28.220 have resisted being compelled to fight in a war. But they're completely unobjectionable people. 0.61

00:02:35.700 And so when the COVID affliction hit, the Amish, for personal reasons, for religious reasons, 0.99

00:02:42.880 and frankly, for dating reasons, crossed the border from Ontario into the United States all 0.51

00:02:49.020 the time. You probably know there's Amish in places like Pennsylvania. And so when they would

00:02:53.800 cross the border and come back, they were asked the absurd question that all Canadians were asked

00:02:58.500 during COVID, have you downloaded the Arrive Can app on your smartphone? Well, none of those words

00:03:04.680 make any sense in Amish culture. They don't have smartphones as any border guard should have known. 0.51

00:03:09.360 the Amish just went through and unbeknownst to them they were fined hundreds of thousands of

00:03:15.640 dollars in this community and you know they're not they don't have emails they don't have phones

00:03:20.640 so it was only when one of them discovered that there was a lien put on their farm that they 0.80

00:03:26.500 realized something was terribly amiss and through a bit of a miracle a friend of the Amish who

00:03:31.380 himself is not Amish was a follower of Rebel News and heard about our love for crowdfunding

00:03:37.180 civil liberties lawyers at the Democracy Fund. And so a couple of years ago, we started

00:03:41.120 working very carefully with the Amish because they're not belligerent. They, like I said,

00:03:46.860 turn the other cheek. And so the idea of fighting something in court was quite alien to them.

00:03:52.400 But we said, look, we'll be doing the fighting. You will just be yourself. And they accepted this

00:03:58.220 rather carefully at first. But and I'll bring in our lawyer, Mark Joseph, in a moment to give an

00:04:02.640 update uh we discovered that there were about 40 different farms that were hit this way and imagine

00:04:10.600 all the different people who were involved from the first instance border guard to their managers

00:04:16.800 to the people uh prosecuting them and the judge convicting them and then tagging their homes with

00:04:24.640 a lien for about 40 or so farms to be hit that way would have had an enormous number of people

00:04:31.060 in the heartless, cruel bureaucracy.

00:04:33.460 And don't tell me that religion wasn't part of it. 1.00

00:04:37.060 You have a low-key Christian denomination 1.00

00:04:40.220 minding their own business, 1.00

00:04:41.600 and part of their religious observance

00:04:43.980 is not to use modern equipment,

00:04:46.060 and you're going after them with a vengeance

00:04:47.840 not seen for anyone else.

00:04:50.140 Oh, I've seen the persecution of other people

00:04:52.200 in Canada during COVID.

00:04:53.400 But for simply not filling out the Arrive Canada app,

00:04:56.160 to have their land tagged with a lien

00:04:59.020 that would require them to perhaps sell to pay it off atrocious anyways we started to work with

00:05:06.080 them and we started to have some good luck let me bring in right now one of the two lawyers who's

00:05:11.460 been on this case mark joseph he's the head of litigation for the democracy fund and adam blake

00:05:16.400 gallup who's not here now has been doing a lot of the work as well come on in mark uh first of all

00:05:22.500 thanks very much for coming out here it's about a two and a half hour drive from toronto i appreciate

00:05:26.840 you doing that but that's how you that's how you have a meeting with the Amish they don't do zoom

00:05:30.800 calls they don't do phone calls typically that's right yeah we've we've had to come to them because 0.99

00:05:36.400 as you say they don't use technology and then obviously we had to communicate the case because

00:05:41.720 they're not familiar with legal terms but we've done that and now we're you know we've had some

00:05:45.520 success reopening the initial tickets but about eight families were denied not sure why and we

00:05:52.380 are going to appeal those and I want to talk a lot more about that but first let's just talk a little

00:05:56.080 bit more about the Amish. I mean, it's hard to deal with them in a modern system that relies on 1.00

00:06:03.520 emails and faxes and things that they just don't have here. So meetings have to be planned in

00:06:08.820 advance. They have to come by mail. They have to attend here by horse and carriage. But I mentioned

00:06:15.480 before, they're so modest, they do not want to appear on camera, not even their voice. And the

00:06:20.020 head of their steering committee, who's sort of like the local mayor, I might say, he doesn't even

00:06:23.980 want his real name used. So these are extremely modest, shy, humble people. And it was actually,

00:06:31.920 I think, a bit of a miracle that we managed to connect with them. But you and Adam Blake Gallup

00:06:35.620 from the Democracy Fund had a, it wasn't just fight the case. You had to reopen cold cases

00:06:44.240 that had hardened like concrete. Like these were not alive. These people were tried in absentia,

00:06:50.940 convicted and a lien put on their homes. That is a hard thing to, and this all happened four or five

00:06:57.240 years ago. That is a hard egg to unscramble. Yeah. We didn't know exactly how we were going

00:07:03.940 to do this before we got involved. We just knew that we had to try. And then it turned out as the

00:07:09.520 facts disclosed that these community members didn't know that they had a trial. They weren't

00:07:16.280 informed. They didn't know they were convicted. And as you say, they found out when they had

00:07:19.240 liens appeared on their property which made transferring the property difficult so then

00:07:24.120 they had to call a committee with their elders and the community had to had to figure out how

00:07:29.780 they were going to deal with this because as you say they avoid conflict and just engaging with

00:07:34.940 the legal system is is adversarial so they had to overcome that religiously and then they had to

00:07:40.480 reach out and by the time we got involved as you say these tickets were stale so we had to apply

00:07:46.360 of the court explain all that uh and in a lot of cases the court agreed 24 families we got the

00:07:52.580 tickets reopened and and stayed or or zeroed out uh but eight families uh were denied that is

00:08:00.260 curious to me as i'm sure it's in fact i was in the meeting with the amish community with you for

00:08:07.080 maybe half an hour and everyone was perplexed as you and i are how come eight people their

00:08:15.720 conviction stand but the rest how many people have you been successful for was it 22 24 so so

00:08:22.100 for 24 farms for 24 families it was a justice of the peace you say that opened it up and then

00:08:28.600 usually a deal with the prosecutor realizing this is ridiculous and i remember in one case they

00:08:33.960 donated some jams and quilts to a local food bank and just as a small symbol but they were all

00:08:41.820 freed from the like these are five or six thousand dollar fines right well in this case it's thirteen

00:08:46.900 thousand dollars plus interest right because the husband and wife and what you know what that's

00:08:51.020 that that is a family breaking fine i mean just i'd like our view and and these are poor people 0.99

00:08:57.720 let's not beat around the bush the amish do not live an expensive lifestyle there's not enough 0.97

00:09:03.420 economic power in a animal driven farm these are not wealthy people and by the way they don't spend 0.98

00:09:10.940 money on computers and TVs and think about all the things that we spend our money on, new cars,

00:09:15.020 stuff like that. To have someone, and I'm going to just say they're poor, to have a poor Christian 1.00

00:09:20.840 farmer hit with a $13,000 fine, I can just tell you they do not have that money. They just do not 0.87

00:09:26.420 have that money. That would be like $100,000 to a non-Amish home. Right. I mean, they're 1.00

00:09:32.160 subsistence farmers um you know they don't use electricity so you they sell their excess produce

00:09:39.300 for 10 20 dollars yeah like like seriously we're going to buy some pickles and pies and jams today

00:09:44.080 and that's going to be an economic boom to this farm it's just that's they're not rich people

00:09:50.060 right so as you say the these fines would be crippling they can't transfer their farms

00:09:55.460 they can't get the loans to to buy the minimal equipment they need it freezes the community and

00:10:01.200 it's very disruptive and it's stressful because i can assure you these people are not legally

00:10:06.120 sophisticated no one here is running to court to settle this quarrel of that and and the idea of

00:10:11.920 being taken to going and by the way even getting to the court even getting to the court get me

00:10:17.560 ready for a horse and carriage ride um help me understand this and this is what we were talking

00:10:22.360 about a little bit in the meeting there why are 24 families free to go but but eight not is there

00:10:29.920 any indication? Like they're, in my mind, they're cookie cutter cases. They're identical.

00:10:34.980 Amish people not filling out the arrive can app when crossing the border. There is no material 1.00

00:10:39.320 difference whatsoever. In fact, the government doesn't know any more than that. Why are 24

00:10:44.000 families, why were you able to free 24 families, but eight, the justice of the peace refused?

00:10:49.940 That's something that we're not clear on because there weren't a lot of substantive reasons in

00:10:55.040 the denials that we received for these eight individuals.

00:10:58.640 So we're a little bit in the dark here, but we have some arguments to make at the Ontario

00:11:04.960 Court of Justice during the appeal.

00:11:06.880 And one of those is going to be that there's a parity principle here, that the like cases

00:11:11.040 should be treated alike.

00:11:12.880 That's another way of saying what's good for the goose is good for the gander.

00:11:15.320 Sure.

00:11:15.720 Everyone should receive the same standard or be judged by the same standard.

00:11:18.900 So that's troubling.

00:11:20.540 We're not sure why.

00:11:21.580 Some were reopened and some were not, but we'll, we'll see what the, you know, the, the judge does in any car report.

00:11:29.520 Now we were talking there and, and every, every battle, it's so much more logistically challenging.

00:11:37.800 The, the family involved had to show up in person, review the document, sign it by hand.

00:11:44.280 Like just even to arrange today's meeting, something that would, you know, you would do in a zoom call these days.

00:11:49.840 And like I say, if they have to physically get to the courthouse, depending on which courthouse, that could be a major journey.

00:11:57.600 Just the process is so much more punishing for these folks, even the process of digging them out.

00:12:04.360 And there could be a lot of steps.

00:12:06.240 So eight cases at the lowest court failed.

00:12:10.620 Today, you were signing documents to appeal those to the, what's the name of the court you're appealing?

00:12:15.740 Interior Court of Justice.

00:12:16.740 And God forbid that fails.

00:12:18.440 There's the Superior Court on top of that.

00:12:22.340 That's right, yeah.

00:12:22.980 And then, God forbid, that fails.

00:12:24.440 I think that would be an appeal to the Court of Appeal.

00:12:27.020 I'm not sure.

00:12:27.600 We think the Court of Appeal, yeah.

00:12:29.420 And then, God forbid, may it never happen, that that's a loss.

00:12:34.100 You could seek leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.

00:12:37.200 So there's actually a lot of opportunities to win.

00:12:42.080 But it's insane that you have to go through this for these families.

00:12:47.660 It's insane that Ontario's attorney general is opposing you every step of the way.

00:12:54.320 You would think that the crown would do this by consent, like a kind of plea bargain.

00:12:59.760 They'll do a plea bargain for violent criminals, but they're holding these Amish farmers to some extreme standard.

00:13:09.640 And I, this is what I said in the meeting there.

00:13:11.600 I said to them, I'm having some very non-Amish thoughts.

00:13:15.560 i said i didn't say those things out loud because i didn't want because these are peaceful people

00:13:19.860 but lord thunder and jesus was i getting angry just thinking about this well i i mean i'm a

00:13:26.440 lawyer so i have to be diplomatic about it and that the process here is opaque to lawyers we're

00:13:31.160 not sitting in the crown's office we're not sitting in the jp's office so we don't know why

00:13:35.040 these decisions are made but there are some judicial resources that are spent pursuing

00:13:39.600 these cases where there's some violent crime that goes unpunished or uninvestigated well that's the

00:13:44.520 So there's 24 cases that you've succeeded and eight that you're dealing with that are still to fight.

00:13:49.540 Is my math right?

00:13:50.860 That's right, yeah.

00:13:51.360 Okay, so 32 cases.

00:13:54.240 You and Adam Blake Gallupo work for the Democracy Fund.

00:13:56.460 That's why we're crowdfunding.

00:13:57.700 And by the way, if you haven't chipped in yet, this is a good time.

00:14:00.400 Go to helptheamish.com.

00:14:03.360 You've got a charitable tax receipt.

00:14:06.480 So, you know, you're not billing these folks, obviously, which is, I mean, they wouldn't need that.

00:14:11.800 That's an alien concept to them.

00:14:14.520 but you and I and everyone else are actually paying for the bad guys here, too.

00:14:18.740 We're paying for the prosecutors.

00:14:19.880 We're paying for the process that is the punishment.

00:14:23.480 I just got to think, you're a prosecutor.

00:14:26.800 Would you rather fight a home invasion crime?

00:14:29.320 Would you rather fight a gangland crime? 1.00

00:14:31.140 Or are you getting some sort of sick thrill going after these 18th century style Christian recluses? 1.00

00:14:39.860 Well, look, I don't know why this is happening. 0.99

00:14:42.100 I can only take a legal position when I'm in court, and our donors have generously donated to help us in this fight, and that's what we're going to do.

00:14:51.000 We're going to appeal it as much as we can until we're told no.

00:14:55.940 Well, that's the right answer, and I'm just mad, because I am mad. 0.70

00:15:00.360 Let me tell you one of the things I like about the Amish, and it hit me when I was in there, so there was about a half dozen folks in the meeting there.

00:15:08.220 and um i go to a lot of meetings and in all the meetings i go everyone's checking their phone

00:15:15.700 everyone's attention span is shut everyone is thinking about 10 other things when you're 0.82

00:15:21.820 talking to the amish no one's got their cell phone out because they don't have cell phones 1.00

00:15:25.320 they're very present and they think about things and you know they talk maybe 10 more slowly than

00:15:31.160 you do in toronto because they're not in a race they're not rushing to get out of there and you

00:15:36.640 know, the whole family came with the horse and carriage and the kids and even there was a little

00:15:41.700 baby and they were so impossibly cute. The little boys are wearing the Amish hats and the little

00:15:48.320 girls with the kerchiefs. I wish we could have shown those pictures, but we promised them as per

00:15:54.000 their wishes that we would not show. So life is different. The Amish life is different. I don't

00:15:58.920 think it's life for me, but I can see why they want to keep it. And I can see what a dangerous

00:16:04.040 threat this prosecution is i think one of the first cases that detected like how do you detect

00:16:10.460 there's a lien on your property someone puts a lien on your property maybe you're not going to

00:16:13.740 know until you try and bequeath the farm from someone who passes away father to son and that

00:16:20.480 was one of the that was one imagine you have a death in the family you're passing on the farm

00:16:26.240 to father and son you got the funeral there's the sorrow and the loss and the personal loss

00:16:30.560 And then you discover the government has a lien on your home.

00:16:34.120 This is when you learn about it.

00:16:36.760 I mean, adding a layer of stress and fear to these folks, it is un-Canadian. 0.95

00:16:45.880 Yeah.

00:16:46.740 Look, these are lawyers dealing with black and white legal laws.

00:16:52.300 And sometimes we've got the real people behind this.

00:16:54.680 They have beautiful families.

00:16:56.020 They live a beautiful lifestyle.

00:16:57.180 And you get to see that and you realize it's worth fighting for.

00:17:01.560 And as you say, they can't exist with liens on their properties and fines in this amount.

00:17:07.500 Well, I told the boss of the steering committee, who I've gotten to know a little bit in my various visits here,

00:17:13.020 that I want him to keep spreading the word amongst the other Amish communities.

00:17:17.860 Because, you know, every neighborhood in Canada has a Facebook page for this neighborhood,

00:17:22.120 that neighborhood where typically the moms share the updates of what's going on.

00:17:26.300 And, you know, where I come from, this house was broken into, this car was stolen.

00:17:31.000 Like, it's all bad news.

00:17:32.080 But there's no Amish Facebook page.

00:17:34.140 They're not on Facebook.

00:17:35.280 So it's people meeting people at events.

00:17:38.500 Church, of course, is the center of the week.

00:17:41.260 And everybody obviously goes to church.

00:17:43.200 So it's really word of mouth or writing letters by hand.

00:17:47.360 And so as far as we know, there may be many more cases out there besides the 30 or so, the 38, 32 that you've detected.

00:17:56.620 There may be more cases out there.

00:17:58.400 One of the cases you're dealing with, the Amish is from Ohio. 1.00

00:18:01.260 He was hit with this fine when he came up here. 0.98

00:18:03.180 So there may be Amish on the other side of the border who, when they try and come into Canada, are told you can't come until you pay a $7,000 fine. 1.00

00:18:10.640 Yeah, I mean, you might be right. 0.98

00:18:11.540 It might turn out that an Amish community member goes to a bank, tries to get a loan, sees the lien, realizes they're fine, and then hopefully they come to us and we'll have to take on the case. 0.97

00:18:22.400 And that was another one of the cases a guy tries to get a loan to buy livestock. 0.95

00:18:27.080 He's done it before the bank says, sure, we'll just attach it to your house as collateral.

00:18:31.360 Oh, we can't do that.

00:18:32.420 Like, imagine the shock.

00:18:34.220 Well, listen, Mark, I'm glad that you and Adam are fighting this.

00:18:36.980 And by the way, I was on my best behavior.

00:18:38.960 I did not swear in there.

00:18:40.460 I didn't even say even gentle swears because I'm on my best behavior here. 0.92

00:18:45.220 But I did tell them I was thinking very un-Amish thoughts when I was thinking about the government.

00:18:51.720 Listen, I'm joking around because what else are you going to do besides laugh, right?

00:18:56.320 How long have you been fighting this battle?

00:18:59.260 A year and a half, two years maybe?

00:19:00.820 Yeah.

00:19:01.440 I mean, that's a lot of cases.

00:19:02.960 You can see our past reports at helptheamish.com.

00:19:06.780 i can't get over the fact that the government still thinks this is a prosecutorial priority

00:19:12.440 literally on my street there are car suvs being stolen right off the lane and home invasions

00:19:21.140 and this is a prosecutorial priority uh i wouldn't do well as an amish i would have

00:19:27.520 anger issues if i were an amish that's what they would probably probably have they wouldn't use

00:19:32.180 that term they would probably say you need to do some more praying levant but the name ezra

00:19:36.200 would fit right in with the Amish community. 1.00

00:19:38.560 I'm making jokes because what else are you going to do?

00:19:40.380 I need your help.

00:19:41.180 Go to helptheamish.com. 0.63

00:19:43.080 This is a battle.

00:19:43.960 Let me tell you what I said to the head of the steering committee

00:19:46.100 who told me not to use his full name.

00:19:48.800 I said to him that we will be there with you as we appeal

00:19:52.100 to the Superior Court, as we appeal to the Court of Appeal,

00:19:54.920 as we appeal all the way up because we will not get tired.

00:19:59.640 In fact, God forbid, if we lose this round of appeal,

00:20:02.740 we'll get the opposite of tired.

00:20:04.080 We'll get angrier. 1.00

00:20:05.280 Again, an un-Amish feeling.

00:20:08.160 So Rebel News does the crowdfunding.

00:20:11.280 The Democracy Fund is the charity that issues the tax receipts and pays the lawyers, Mark here and Adam.

00:20:17.460 So we're going to keep this up.

00:20:18.320 Thanks for inviting me out here.

00:20:19.700 Every time I come out, I made the mistake once of buying every pickle jar that they had, like every one of them.

00:20:26.520 So now whenever they hear I'm coming, they spend the month pickling, pickling, pickling, pickling, make a jam, make a pie, make a...

00:20:33.640 because they sort of know here comes the sucker here comes the guy who buys all the stuff in our

00:20:38.860 cellar so it's sort of i mean i like coming here but it it's a 250 touch every time i come out here

00:20:44.580 just buying pickles yeah look the stuff is good it's worthwhile i've got some in my fridge so

00:20:50.160 i'll be getting more yeah well i'm not going to eat all the pickles myself i'm going to bring

00:20:53.140 them back to the office but it's uh it's the least i can do and i hope you'll help me help

00:20:58.100 the amish.com i love coming out here but it's i'm coming out here for because something bad

00:21:03.280 happened. So help me fix it. Thanks very much. Last week, the Edmonton Police Service posted

00:21:13.760 a video. It was chock full of dramatic music with censored comments flashing across the screen.

00:21:20.040 Send them back home. Canada needs deportation. Hang him. Their message from the now deleted post 0.94

00:21:26.500 was that, quote, online hate isn't just a comment. It hurts real people and harms real communities.

00:21:33.840 Hate has no home here, end quote. And that included a link to report this supposed hate.

00:21:56.500 Now, all of this comes on the heels of Liberal Legislation Bill C-9.

00:22:00.960 That's the recently adopted Combating Hate Act, which amended the criminal code regarding

00:22:06.880 so-called hate propaganda, hate crimes, and access to religious or cultural places.

00:22:13.240 It strengthens criminal code provisions on hate-motivated offenses, defines hatred more

00:22:18.660 explicitly as an emotion of intense and extreme nature that is clearly associated with vilification

00:22:25.140 and detestation, and it creates a new fifth hate propaganda offense for willfully promoting hatred

00:22:31.720 against an identifiable group by publicly displaying certain terrorism or hate symbols

00:22:36.960 said to be principally used by or associated with listed terrorist entities under the criminal code

00:22:42.640 to Nazi symbols or a noose. Bill C-9 also further establishes a standalone hate crime offense

00:22:49.760 and criminalizes intimidation or obstruction of access to places of worship,

00:22:55.760 schools, community centers, and other specified cultural or religious sites.

00:23:00.200 It received royal assent on June 18th this year,

00:23:03.300 with the key provisions having come into force on July 18th, 2026.

00:23:08.400 And it looks like the Edmonton police wasted exactly no time

00:23:11.600 jumping on the new laws bandwagon,

00:23:14.840 producing that dramatic video equating everyday online comments,

00:23:18.340 including calls for deportation, with real harm, and actively soliciting reports of non-criminal

00:23:24.080 hate-motivated incidents, which I might add is defined differently than an actual hate crime,

00:23:30.300 until public backlash forced them to delete the post completely. One such example of that public

00:23:35.720 backlash came from conservative MP and lawyer Roman Baber. His post went viral for a reason.

00:23:41.840 No Edmonton police, you have no jurisdiction to limit online speech unless a criminal law is

00:23:47.180 broken. The criminal offense of hate speech is limited to the definition articulated by the

00:23:52.920 Supreme Court almost 40 years ago, not what others find offensive, he wrote. And he's referring to

00:23:59.660 section 319 of the criminal code that requires willful promotion of hatred that is extreme,

00:24:06.200 detestation, and vilification to be a crime. It doesn't pertain to mean, insensitive, or otherwise

00:24:12.560 offensive tweets, and it certainly doesn't include legitimate political arguments about Canada's 0.70

00:24:17.400 broken, wide-open immigration floodgates that have allowed in countless illegal entrants,

00:24:23.460 people with serious criminal records and public health threats, while straining housing,

00:24:27.960 healthcare, and social services. It's important to note that since 2023, the Edmonton police

00:24:32.960 have been collecting reports of hate-motivated incidents, which, in their own words, are

00:24:38.460 non-criminal actions motivated by bias.

00:24:42.060 A hate incident can have a similar effect on an individual as a hate crime.

00:24:45.860 Tracking hate incidents helps the EPS gather information and document those responsible

00:24:50.420 who may later escalate their behavior.

00:24:53.200 It also offers us an opportunity for intervention and education of the person exhibiting hate.

00:24:58.540 An example of a hate incident could include the uttering of racial slurs or displays of symbols

00:25:03.800 during a demonstration that we all recognize are unacceptable in our society,

00:25:07.940 but nevertheless not criminal.

00:25:10.280 The motivation, however, is often the same.

00:25:12.840 Alberta even has its own hate crime committee.

00:25:15.500 Yep, such a thing exists.

00:25:17.200 And it's funded by your tax dollars.

00:25:19.300 And the police liaison, Stephen Cramp, had this to say at the time.

00:25:23.780 There's a lot of incidents that are being reported that will progress into hate crime.

00:25:27.800 There is constant demand from the committee, and rightfully so,

00:25:30.900 that these events be taken seriously.

00:25:33.300 Yes, this is for verbal insults, name-calling, offensive jokes.

00:25:37.000 hey, maybe even slurs, it now gets a police file number. The hate crimes unit reviews it and

00:25:43.360 there's a permanent record of speech that is not a crime. In 2025, they logged 227 of these

00:25:51.980 non-criminal incidents up almost 80%. Meanwhile, actual hate crimes dropped. This is the UK model

00:26:00.320 creeping here into Canada. Non-crime hate incidents and police databases of lawful speech.

00:26:07.000 It's future crime and pre-crime policing.

00:26:37.000 We're arresting you to prevent it from you doing something wrong.

00:26:42.580 We're not going to leave you to carry on winding people up.

00:26:45.060 What is this, like, a minority report, like, a crime that might happen in the future? 0.64

00:26:49.460 You're going to prevent it?

00:26:50.320 Yeah, you can prevent the breach of it. Have you heard of that one?

00:26:52.680 Why don't you just tell people to mind their own effing business?

00:26:57.180 Well, I wouldn't recommend that you do that.

00:26:59.240 Why?

00:27:00.300 Because you're going to cause issues.

00:27:01.960 We are here to stop anyone attacking anyone or anyone getting angry

00:27:05.500 because your behavior, if you carry on with some of these people,

00:27:08.440 someone might be with their gender.

00:27:10.000 Yeah. 1.00

00:27:10.600 And then that's going to cause a breach of peace, isn't it?

00:27:12.980 Oh, God, I should have just stayed in bed this morning, shouldn't I?

00:27:15.440 Maybe you should have.

00:27:16.480 Here in Canada, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith already warned against it.

00:27:20.340 Well, I can tell you our approach in Alberta

00:27:23.260 is that the federal government does have the power of criminal law.

00:27:27.840 Yeah.

00:27:28.000 We have the power of non-enforcement.

00:27:29.400 And what that means is we choose our policing priorities and we choose our Crown prosecution priorities.

00:27:38.660 And I can tell you, if the intention behind it is to do what we're seeing in the UK, where regular citizens are getting hauled off to prison because they post something online that hurts someone's feelings, we are just not enforcing that.

00:27:52.820 There's no way.

00:27:54.000 That's not the culture in Alberta.

00:27:55.740 We reaffirmed in our Alberta Bill of Rights that free speech is protected and we just don't, we think that's a government overreach.

00:28:05.360 Alberta will not enforce laws that police hurt feelings. Yet here we are, city police putting report hate ads on the side of buses, asking citizens to snitch on differing opinions.

00:28:18.060 Now in 2026, we have to ask, when certain communities are repeatedly linked to specific

00:28:24.000 crimes, trafficking, extortion, riots, are Canadians not allowed to talk about things

00:28:29.420 like deportation? National Post columnist Jamie Sarkonic put it plainly, deportation

00:28:35.180 is a valid democratic conversation. It's not a hate incident, and it's certainly not something

00:28:40.540 like genocide. But under the Edmonton Police's surveillance system, the conversation itself

00:28:46.240 becomes the target. Who benefits exactly when police spend resources building files on social

00:28:52.220 media comments while real crime continues? Who decides which opinions are considered hate?

00:28:57.860 It's the very same institutions that cannot keep our streets safe now claiming the authority to

00:29:04.000 police what free citizens think and say. This isn't protection, it's the expansion of state

00:29:09.920 power into private minds of individuals, exactly the danger that George Orwell warned about in

00:29:16.140 1984, his dystopian novel about totalitarianism and state surveillance. Freedom of expression

00:29:21.800 under the charter does not stop at the edge of someone's feelings. It exists precisely for the

00:29:27.480 speech that offends. Roman Baber is correct. The Supreme Court is clear. The Edmonton police, 0.99

00:29:33.400 they're way over the line on this. If we let them redefine hate as anything that makes someone so

00:29:38.820 much as uncomfortable, the next target won't be a mean post or comment about deportation.

00:29:44.820 It will be whatever the state decides is no longer allowed.

00:29:48.840 So please share this, talk about it, and remember,

00:29:52.100 the only thing that keeps free speech and free expression alive

00:29:55.440 is people who refuse to self-censor.

00:29:58.680 For Rebel News, I'm Tamara Ugolini.

00:30:02.680 Have you ever read George Orwell's 1984?

00:30:05.740 It's the classic dystopian warning about surveillance, censorship, and government control.

00:30:10.620 And you can find a beautifully reimagined illustrated edition at our online store.

00:30:16.600 Visit rebelnewsstore.com to pick up your copy and browse our other swag.

00:30:22.020 Don't forget to use code TAMARA10, that's T-A-M-A-R-A-10, to save 10% at checkout.

00:30:28.840 All of that and more at the rebelnewsstore.com.

Rebel News Podcast - August 04, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Amish farmers fined for not using COVID-era ArriveCan app as legal battle over religious freedom continues

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