Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Behind bars, but not forgotten： The Coutts conspiracy saga continues

00:00:00.000 Tonight, a bail review hearing for one of the four Kutzmen charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

00:00:21.560 It's November 8th, and this is the Ezra Vance Show.

00:00:24.180 You're fighting for freedom!

00:00:25.640 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:00:39.320 Ezra Levant here. It is windy and frosty. That's what it's like these days.

00:00:44.120 In southern Alberta behind me, you can see the courthouse in Lethbridge.

00:00:47.540 I've probably been here 20 times now for various hearings related to that incredibly momentous blocking.

00:00:54.340 In February of 2022, we're in Lethbridge, but not far away from here at the Kutz Sweetgrass Border Crossing between Alberta and the state of Montana.

00:01:06.380 A bunch of truckers and farmers and basically local folk decided they were done with Justin Trudeau's bigoted and civil liberties-destroying lockdowns and vaccine panics.

00:01:19.860 And inspired by the main drugger convoy in Ottawa, they had their own blockade, but the difference was Kutz, Alberta, is far away from large population centers with large police forces and manpower.

00:01:36.800 Ottawa is a city of around a million, and it's not far away from Toronto and Montreal.

00:01:41.440 So, it was very soon that large police and paramilitary forces could be dispatched.

00:01:47.940 Not so in Kutz, Alberta.

00:01:50.340 There were some RCMP that showed up in force.

00:01:54.200 They were vastly outnumbered.

00:01:56.320 In fact, there was this one showdown where the police came and looked impressive, but the truckers and farmers and others did not bend.

00:02:04.920 And the RCMP simply retreated.

00:02:08.520 Do you remember this incredible scene?

00:02:09.860 Oh, God, we stand on earth for Thee.

00:02:18.760 Oh, God, we stand on earth for Thee.

00:02:37.360 Oh, God, we stand on earth for Thee.

00:02:47.460 Freedom!

00:03:13.540 Well, you might remember that Rebel News was paying very close attention.

00:03:30.800 And we dispatched two of our journalists to be embedded with the truckers.

00:03:35.580 In fact, they stayed there nine days straight, which makes me chuckle every time I say that,

00:03:40.360 because, of course, they didn't bring a change of clothes.

00:03:42.740 They had to go back to Calgary to get fresh undies.

00:03:46.360 But we owned the coverage of that.

00:03:48.740 We got to know a lot of the men.

00:03:50.140 We were in that saloon where the men spent much of their evenings.

00:03:53.640 It was so bitter cold.

00:03:55.560 You might recall that Rebel News did something else during that occasion.

00:04:00.180 We dispatched a lawyer and sued a team of lawyers to go down to the men to be amongst them for two reasons.

00:04:09.580 First of all, to give them legal advice on what not to do and what they could do and what the risks are.

00:04:15.140 And basically to give them legal resources on how to handle some of this obedience in a manner they didn't get out of hand.

00:04:23.020 And the second related reason was that they would be a liaison with the police and the police negotiators.

00:04:30.480 Because I spoke to a couple of the truckers directly myself and our people reported that the truckers were being tricked and dealt with in bad faith by police negotiators.

00:04:41.400 I absolutely believe that.

00:04:43.260 So we dispatched the great Chad Williamson, one of the winningest lawyers we're affiliated with.

00:04:49.040 He went down there and not only did he give good advice to all the truckers and give them their card in case they were arrested, he did some journalism there too.

00:04:58.200 Here, take a quick look at some of what Chad said when he was on location.

00:05:02.480 From my reputation, I do as well.

00:05:06.160 First of all, I just want to commend you guys and congratulate you for taking a stand for our constitutional rights, our charter rights and for exercising your right to peaceful protest.

00:05:18.620 So on behalf of Albertans and Canadians in general, I thank you for what you've done.

00:05:25.340 It's going to be a trying process and frankly I can't promise you guys that we're going to be able to fudge the government on this stuff.

00:05:34.880 But we've got, I mean, you know, we're the people and we've got the power, right?

00:05:39.100 So give yourselves a round of applause just for...

00:05:41.620 And as I've told everybody, this is pretty serious business and obviously you guys are aware of that, what you're doing, what's on the line and what's at risk.

00:05:55.680 So if you need Marty or me, we're here to help you.

00:06:00.120 The legal fees are being crowdfunded so that's great and you guys will have representation, okay?

00:06:06.860 So thank you guys again.

00:06:08.560 We're not going to be going anywhere, so we'll be floating around all day if you have any questions.

00:06:13.560 We are going to be dealing with a couple folks that hopefully will be representing the majority of interests here.

00:06:20.180 And once we have a little bit of a meeting downstairs, we'll be establishing our connection with the authorities to start negotiations.

00:06:28.900 So thank you guys again.

00:06:29.940 Again, big round of applause for everybody.

00:06:32.580 This isn't easy and, you know, my family arrived in Alberta at the turn of the 20th century over 100 years ago.

00:06:45.640 And I'm about as Albertan as they come, but I still don't think that that even measures up to what you guys are doing no matter when your family's arrived in this province.

00:06:55.400 So my hat's off to you, okay?

00:06:57.960 And thanks to you as well.

00:06:59.600 Thank you very much.

00:07:00.880 Well, Rebel News knew that this was an important event.

00:07:05.040 And we also knew that it was, in some ways, against the law.

00:07:09.860 But it wasn't violence.

00:07:11.040 It was classic civil disobedience of the nature that Tamara Leach engaged in on the Ottawa and National Sea. 1.00

00:07:17.960 So Rebel News crowdfunded the Legal Defense Fund.

00:07:21.360 And in fact, to date, we've helped over 30 truckers in Alberta who received charges emanating from the convoy of Lockheed and from Goetz.

00:07:30.120 In fact, we're representing a number of them.

00:07:33.680 However, four men were charged not with civil disobedience or mischief or obstruction or minor things like that,

00:07:41.280 and not charged, as Arthur Pawlowski was, for giving a sermon that, quote, incited mischief.

00:07:48.580 We'll use this crowdfunded the Legal Defense Fund too.

00:07:51.820 Some men were charged with conspiracy to commit an urn.

00:07:56.000 It was not civil disobedience, which is an extremely serious crime.

00:08:00.560 And the urn that they were accused of conspiring to do was actually against police.

00:08:06.960 Those men are in prison to this day, more than 600 days after their arrest.

00:08:16.560 Now, people sometimes say, Ezra, why is Rebel News not crowdfunding for those men?

00:08:22.400 And as I've said before, the main reason is that Rebel News and our donors gave money for civil liberties defenses,

00:08:29.760 for peaceful civil disobedience, for Mahatma Gandhi-style stuff, for Tamara Leach-style stuff.

00:08:37.680 And conspiracy to commit murder is not that.

00:08:41.680 And our donors gave money for the Tamara Leaches of the world, not for people who allegedly talked about killing cops.

00:08:50.260 That's not what our donors wanted.

00:08:51.920 That said, because our lawyers were on the seat and had given out their cards, Rebel News did pay for the first instance.

00:09:02.140 We did actually represent three out of the four men.

00:09:06.240 And the reason for that is because we didn't know if the charges were full of hot air.

00:09:14.320 We didn't know enough, and these men needed help right away.

00:09:17.540 So we actually dispatched our Rebel News to help three out of the four men in their bail hearing.

00:09:24.840 We didn't help the fourth men.

00:09:26.620 There were four men, like I say, Chris Carbert, Chris Lysak, Anthony Olenek.

00:09:32.160 And then a fourth man named Jerry Moran, who was actually never at Coats, according to our two journalists in chat.

00:09:38.760 They never saw him at Coats.

00:09:40.500 See, he's being lumped in with the other three men.

00:09:43.460 I don't know what his connection to them was, was not at that saloon or at that block.

00:09:50.080 So we actually didn't know about him.

00:09:52.200 Well, Rebel News did actually represent the three men at the bail hearing.

00:09:55.880 And obviously, that bail hearing was unsuccessful.

00:09:59.540 I spoke to a number of senior lawyers about it who said, look, if you have the kind of evidence against you that the police claim to have against these men,

00:10:07.560 about what they said, what they were recorded as saying, about what they would do.

00:10:13.020 There's no judge in the country that would let them out of custody.

00:10:17.920 That's the opinion of two lawyers I spoke with.

00:10:20.960 But apparently, the three men were unsatisfied with the legal representation that Chad Ryan fired.

00:10:28.160 So I've gone on to a series of lawyers, and I'm not judging them.

00:10:32.280 I mean, you have to trust your lawyer and like your lawyer.

00:10:34.680 But I think that I don't think even the best lawyer in the country would have got those men out on bail.

00:10:41.660 And frankly, we don't know the depth of the case against these men.

00:10:46.400 Which brings me to why I'm in the frosty Lethbridge today.

00:10:50.180 You can see the way I think those flags are out.

00:10:52.300 That's another Alberta for you. 1.00

00:10:53.660 I'm wearing my mask to keep warm.

00:10:55.320 As I mentioned, the four men, the coups four, are in jail.

00:11:02.400 And it's been almost two years.

00:11:04.920 It'll be two years in February.

00:11:07.300 And the trial of this man is not even scheduled until May, which will be more than two years after their arrest.

00:11:14.420 So that you would know, under the Charter of Rights and Freedom and under common law before that, you're entitled to a society trial.

00:11:23.740 Especially given the stigma that is attached to being charged with the crime.

00:11:27.720 And all the more so when you are actually in jail.

00:11:32.320 Every day you're in jail for a crime that has not yet been proven against you.

00:11:39.860 So what happens in Lethbridge today is one of the four men, Chris Carbert is his name, applied to the court to review his bail hearing.

00:11:49.280 Basically review his bail conditions.

00:11:50.540 In other words, he wants to get out of jail now, and he's willing to put up certain conditions and promises so that he's allowed to get out of jail now.

00:11:59.520 I'm a former lawyer myself, and you probably know this, that the main purposes of bail are, number one, to ensure that the accused don't flee the jurisdiction before trial, that they don't run away.

00:12:10.900 And this is often found by taking away the passport of the accused, having ties to the community, having sureties, people willing to post a bond or post money, having people watch over him.

00:12:24.300 The second bail condition, a reason for giving or denying someone bail, is are they a risk to the community?

00:12:32.000 Are they a danger to the community?

00:12:33.940 For example, if it is a serially violent person, are they at risk of harming the community if they let go?

00:12:40.160 So those are the primary and secondary considerations for bail.

00:12:44.020 There's also another one, basically, is it's sort of a more general catch-all of justice being seen to be done.

00:12:53.840 But Chris Carbert and his lawyer argued today that there were sufficient new facts that he should have a new bail hearing.

00:13:03.120 One of the facts being the extremely slow progress of this case, and another fact being new disclosure from the Crown that the accused did not have in their hands for that first bail application.

00:13:15.900 So I came to Lethbridge today, and I was actually the only person in the entire court.

00:13:21.120 It was me, a clerk, and a sheriff.

00:13:24.000 The judge was joining by video camera.

00:13:28.400 The accused, Chris Carbert, was in a cell somewhere.

00:13:30.640 I'm not sure if that was in the courthouse or in jail.

00:13:33.080 There were actually two other journalists on the call, Global News and the Lethbridge Herald, and the lawyers.

00:13:38.440 And the judge gave Chris Carbert a victory and said that he has met the threshold test.

00:13:47.440 Sufficient things had changed since his first bail hearing that he will be given another bail hearing,

00:13:54.660 a chance to present his case, his new plan, his new facts to a judge.

00:14:00.940 And he might actually have a chance to be released.

00:14:05.260 So it was not the main hearing today.

00:14:07.940 That is yet to come.

00:14:09.720 But what this was was a judge saying, yes, I accept that things may have changed significantly enough

00:14:15.840 that we ought to have a bail hearing and that Chris Carbert, one of the four accused, should make his case.

00:14:21.620 So that's an interesting development.

00:14:24.100 Of course, that is the big battle.

00:14:25.660 Today was more a procedural blockade that had to be overcome.

00:14:29.240 Now, I know I'm going pretty deep into the details here, but this case has animated a lot of people.

00:14:35.520 I can understand why.

00:14:37.340 Tamara Leach was put in jail for 49 days, and it was an outrage, but finally she was sprung. 0.99

00:14:43.760 Arthur Pavlovsky was put in jail for 52 days, and finally he was sprung.

00:14:49.440 But in the case of these four men, they've been in jail for more than 600 days.

00:14:55.040 And if their bail is not reviewed, they'll likely be in jail for hundreds more.

00:14:59.560 Like I say, a trial won't start till May, and it's surely going to go on into the summer.

00:15:08.060 So naturally, people sense the enormity of pre-trial, pre-conviction custody.

00:15:15.720 These men are presumed innocent until they're found guilty.

00:15:22.080 So you have men with the legal presumption of innocence who are serving hard time.

00:15:28.000 They are not in gentle jails.

00:15:30.860 And so, naturally, the political nature of the blockade, plus the enormous pre-trial custody, has people quite had to do.

00:15:40.340 And it is quite remarkable.

00:15:43.880 And the judge acknowledged that that's an issue, although she said that a May hearing, in her mind, was not a civil liberties disaster.

00:15:53.660 People can agree or disagree.

00:15:54.980 On my way down to Lethbridge today, I saw that there are crowdfunding campaigns for the four men that are not being done by Rebel News.

00:16:05.900 And I think that's good, because people who want to support these four men and knowingly do so, knowingly chip in to find lawyers for men charged with conspiracies to commit murder, of course they should be able to do that.

00:16:20.020 And, of course, these men deserve lawyers, and they have lawyers.

00:16:24.580 And I think that's a more appropriate legal finance solution than a donor pool for donors who wanted to chip in for the likes of Tamara Leach or Arthur Pavlovsky,

00:16:36.300 or the 3,000 other cases that Rebel News is crowdfunded for that involve civil disobedience, not accusations of serious crime.

00:16:44.280 You can let me know what you think about that.

00:16:46.280 But that's a decision that I've explained to you.

00:16:48.040 Although, as I mentioned today, Rebel News did actually, in fact, provide lawyers in the first instance for these men until they fired them,

00:16:57.240 presumably thinking that they could get lawyers to spring them on the way all faster.

00:17:01.420 So that's my report.

00:17:02.960 A somewhat unsatisfied day in that the main result is still weeks away.

00:17:09.200 The main hearing is still weeks away, and the verdict in that is perhaps weeks later.

00:17:14.220 Justice turns very slowly, and if you're in prison, it must be an eternity.

00:17:20.480 But I'm glad I was here to cover it.

00:17:22.780 I was the only one in court.

00:17:24.200 There were two mainstream journalists attending via video camera, Global News and Lethbridge-Herald, and you have to give them credit.

00:17:32.440 I'll try and come back for the actual main application itself.

00:17:36.460 You might think this is an obscure issue, but I don't think so.

00:17:40.760 I think it's interesting that in Canada, accused murderers, even accused terrorists, are often set free into the community.

00:17:49.620 But these men are behind bars.

00:17:52.600 As I said the last time I was down here, there is another factor that we have to discuss, and it is that group called the Diagalon.

00:18:04.740 I'm not sure if you've heard of that.

00:18:06.160 It's sort of a made-up, paramilitary, malicious-style, right-wing, jokey group.

00:18:14.100 But the joke suddenly turned real.

00:18:17.880 The men who were accused here showed some sort of affiliation with Diagalon online.

00:18:26.280 One of them, Chris Lysak, was dubbed the chief of security for Diagalon, what I think started out as an online joke.

00:18:33.760 Well, these men, I think, took a little too seriously, and they started acting it out at a time when there were dozens of police in town looking for a way to prosecute and to charge.

00:18:44.700 And Diagalon provided that glue, that narrative for both the media, politicians, and, well, at least to say, uh-huh, these aren't just ordinary people who are frustrated with Trudeau.

00:18:57.100 So, this is a conspiracy, uh, that have dark, uh, I see, it's a conspiracy to commit murder, and that was a charge they laid.

00:19:08.880 It'll be very interesting to see what happens.

00:19:10.720 I obviously do not know if these men are guilty or innocent, and I'll keep coming back as we find out.

00:19:16.400 I think this is an interesting case, and it's a case that Rebel News will cover.

00:19:21.420 So, that's my report from Lethbridge.

00:19:23.360 Now, back to the studio for an interview with our friend, Andy Lee.

00:19:35.200 You know, Justin Trudeau famously said China was the country he most admires.

00:19:44.560 And as I like to point out, he didn't stop the quote there.

00:19:47.380 He gave his reason.

00:19:48.820 Now, I admire many things about China, as you can tell just by looking at me.

00:19:52.820 I admire Chinese cuisine.

00:19:54.580 I find the language interesting, the culture, the archaeology, the history.

00:20:00.120 There's many things to admire about China.

00:20:03.080 But Trudeau went on and expressly said it was the basic dictatorship that he most admired.

00:20:09.840 Here, just refresh your memory.

00:20:11.180 Here's the full clip.

00:20:12.160 There's a level of admiration I actually have for China, because their basic dictatorship

00:20:21.920 is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say, we need to go green

00:20:27.420 as fast as we need to start investing in solar.

00:20:30.320 I mean, there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about, of having a dictatorship

00:20:35.180 that he could do everything he wanted, that I find quite interesting.

00:20:39.800 And the trouble with that is that China is very outward-looking now, what was for many

00:20:45.560 centuries a more inward-looking place.

00:20:47.620 And technology, well, in many ways, China rivals or even exceeds North American technology.

00:20:54.640 I think, for example, of the social media app called TikTok.

00:20:58.540 A lot of journalists and politicians love Twitter, and that probably is the dominant public square

00:21:05.700 for people talking politics and things like that.

00:21:08.940 But for younger Canadians, for teenagers, TikTok is indeed dominant.

00:21:15.720 TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Chinese company.

00:21:19.180 And I'm on TikTok, which is probably a bad idea, because it's obviously malware and spyware.

00:21:25.240 But it gives me a window into the propaganda that is pumped out relentlessly on that app,

00:21:32.040 which surely serves the masters of TikTok, which, at the end of the day, is the Chinese government.

00:21:39.460 There have been discussions in both Canada and the United States to ban TikTok.

00:21:43.580 But I was startled and pleased and surprised to learn that the government of Canada

00:21:52.140 recently announced a ban of another Chinese app on government devices.

00:22:00.100 I did not know this, but it was a story written by our friend Andy Lee,

00:22:06.320 the special rebel reporter and investigative journalist.

00:22:09.860 What a delight to have her on the show. 0.99

00:22:11.440 Andy, great to see you again, and good work here.

00:22:14.380 You really cover a beat that so few Canadian journalists do.

00:22:18.240 Thanks for doing it.

00:22:19.080 Let's go through this article, and welcome back, by the way.

00:22:22.620 Yeah, we haven't seen each other in a while.

00:22:24.320 You've been very busy.

00:22:25.340 So, yeah, let's dig into it.

00:22:27.460 This is really good news for us.

00:22:29.020 It's a good step.

00:22:29.960 It's an important step.

00:22:31.460 It brings us more into line with our allies, which is really, really important right now,

00:22:35.960 when we've maybe lost some confidence.

00:22:37.220 So, the federal government moved to ban WeChat from federal devices,

00:22:42.120 and this follows on something that they did earlier on in the year when they did do a TikTok ban as well

00:22:47.540 on federal government devices and things like that.

00:22:49.820 So, we know that both are, you know, used by ByteDance is one of the, you know, the parent company of TikTok,

00:23:00.360 and there's huge concerns that, and you touched upon that.

00:23:03.720 So, but Tencent is, you know, the big fish kind of, and Tencent runs WeChat.

00:23:09.260 And, you know, it sort of runs a vast surveillance network of all kinds of applications.

00:23:17.000 It doesn't just do WeChat.

00:23:18.200 It's a massive entity.

00:23:19.920 It's one that we've invested heavily into, and that was something I need to look into more,

00:23:24.220 is at one point, I believe it was last year,

00:23:27.780 it was our largest private equity foreign holding in the candidate pension plan.

00:23:34.160 Really?

00:23:35.180 Largest.

00:23:36.240 I didn't know that.

00:23:37.260 Yeah, fascinating.

00:23:38.980 So, I'll have to dig that up.

00:23:40.180 That's on my list of things to do and to write about is why.

00:23:43.200 And it dwarfed all others.

00:23:44.920 It wasn't even close.

00:23:46.140 It was our largest foreign private equity business.

00:23:48.800 Hey, before we go any further, I think many of our viewers know about TikTok,

00:23:53.360 even if they're not on it.

00:23:54.840 And I deleted it, and then I went back to it,

00:23:58.140 because I actually want to know what the other side is saying.

00:24:01.700 Even though I'm sure it's spying on me,

00:24:03.860 I actually learned things from TikTok about what the other half of the world is saying.

00:24:09.260 That's why I'm on it.

00:24:09.960 At least that's my excuse for being on it.

00:24:12.220 But I don't think many Canadians who are not Chinese Canadians know what WeChat is.

00:24:17.880 Can you explain for our viewers who have maybe never heard of WeChat?

00:24:21.740 What is it?

00:24:22.600 It's sort of an everything app, isn't it?

00:24:24.840 It's not just social media.

00:24:26.180 It's commerce.

00:24:27.200 It's money.

00:24:28.100 It's banking.

00:24:30.080 I've never had an account on WeChat.

00:24:32.340 What is it like?

00:24:33.440 And by the way, can non-Chinese people make use of it, 0.65

00:24:36.440 or is it basically a Chinese language app?

00:24:40.220 It is.

00:24:41.100 So WeChat was a new tool for me to use.

00:24:44.000 And yes, I do realize that it's probably collecting information and privacy data

00:24:48.260 and things like that.

00:24:48.920 So I was really, really reluctant to install it, but I did.

00:24:52.920 So it's a vast network of all kinds of things.

00:24:57.820 Yes, it's social media.

00:24:59.380 Yes, it's news.

00:25:00.640 Yes, it's commerce and marketplace.

00:25:04.800 And you can do payments through WeChat and things like that.

00:25:10.100 So it's a vast network.

00:25:14.380 Fascinating the things that you can find there that you can't find anything else.

00:25:18.440 And yes, absolutely.

00:25:19.700 If you want a WeChat account, you can start a WeChat account.

00:25:24.240 You need to send a QR code to somebody else who's on there,

00:25:27.880 and they will sort of get you in.

00:25:30.340 And so this is what we've done is we've created our own WeChat network

00:25:33.440 within this ecosystem.

00:25:34.700 And we go in and we look for things and we find things.

00:25:37.360 We get into people's chats and stuff like that.

00:25:40.060 We get a lot of information on the foreign agent registry protest through WeChat.

00:25:45.240 You know, it's very interesting you say that.

00:25:46.640 We had a Chinese-Canadian staffer at Rebel News for whom WeChat was their

00:25:51.960 number one source of news, which is interesting to me.

00:25:55.560 So including news about Canada.

00:26:00.060 And what I thought was interesting about that is imagine getting your news

00:26:04.460 about Canada filtered through China.

00:26:07.440 Canada, I think there's a lot of Canadians who that's how they live.

00:26:12.640 And that's another concern there.

00:26:15.160 But it was a spyware malware issue that made the Canadian government ban it.

00:26:20.260 Am I right?

00:26:21.180 So, yeah.

00:26:22.060 So the exact statement was WeChat's application data collection methods provide

00:26:26.040 considerable access to the device's contents.

00:26:28.920 So I think that the worry is that maybe they could backdoor their way into federal devices

00:26:35.340 where they might be able to pull other information or sensitive information off of the government

00:26:40.940 devices.

00:26:41.580 So a very, very good news banning it.

00:26:44.140 Not really sure why it was on there in the first place.

00:26:47.420 Although another thing most people probably don't know is one of Justin Trudeau's election

00:26:51.620 pledges after he won the election back in 2016 and he was doing his China tours and things.

00:26:58.320 He said that one of the main things that he wanted to do was increase his presence on

00:27:02.240 WeChat to connect with the Chinese people.

00:27:06.280 That was and I've got that article and I thought, well, wow, that's a fascinating thing.

00:27:10.080 And I never knew that.

00:27:11.480 So, yeah, our politicians have been using it and some of them have got busted doing some

00:27:15.420 some strange things on there, like Joyce Murray.

00:27:17.420 She was our digital minister and it ended up that some of her posts had advertisements

00:27:22.660 that were collecting funds for a lawsuit to try to sue Global News, who's the forefront

00:27:29.340 of breaking a lot of foreign interference stories.

00:27:31.260 It's so clearly an instrument of foreign policy for the government here.

00:27:34.580 Let me quote from your article.

00:27:35.560 By the way, you had a great article about this a few days ago on the Rebel News website.

00:27:39.100 The headline is China protests Canadian WeChat ban on government devices.

00:27:44.020 So it's not just the company.

00:27:45.300 Let me read what the government of China said so you know they're mad because they're

00:27:50.480 weighing in on behalf of the of the company, which is just obviously fused and connected

00:27:57.640 to the government.

00:27:58.420 China strongly opposes Canada's latest ban on China's social media app WeChat and urges

00:28:05.320 the Canadian side to discard ideological prejudice, abide by economic principles and provide fair,

00:28:11.940 just a non-discriminative business environment for Chinese companies, foreign ministry spokesman

00:28:18.400 Wang Wenbin said.

00:28:20.760 So this so you know what?

00:28:23.000 I I'm sort of surprised to read this, Andy, because everything I've seen from Justin Trudeau

00:28:28.080 has been to capitulate to the People's Republic of China.

00:28:32.000 Maybe this was just too far.

00:28:34.320 And maybe our Five Eyes allies said, look, we're not going to we just cannot abide the

00:28:39.340 government of Canada, letting the Chinese government spy on all your bureaucrats. 0.93

00:28:43.600 Maybe a decision as wise as this was not made in Ottawa.

00:28:48.080 Maybe it was made in Washington or London.

00:28:49.960 Yeah, well, I think that that was part of it was it was trying to bring us more into into

00:28:57.820 line with our allies and make sure that we're safeguarding national security and things like

00:29:02.460 that.

00:29:03.160 So a good move on their part, a little bit too little too late.

00:29:07.640 I think, too, that there's just been too much questions raised about how the application

00:29:12.340 has been used in interference.

00:29:13.360 There are definite indications that WeChat was used for foreign election interference.

00:29:20.040 That was thesis docs and memos.

00:29:22.900 Do we know how many writings they interfered in?

00:29:25.580 Not exactly.

00:29:26.700 But there there's no doubt that there was interference.

00:29:29.160 And we were able to trace that back to certain state actors.

00:29:34.940 It's hard because you don't want to stifle free speech.

00:29:38.460 And we have a huge Chinese Canadian population.

00:29:40.560 Yes, they do use this as a resource, and a lot of them probably aren't using it for

00:29:44.740 nefarious purposes, right?

00:29:46.700 They're going there to get their news and things like that.

00:29:50.020 The issue comes when you have state sponsored campaigns.

00:29:53.640 And that's what we've seen.

00:29:54.540 And that's what the problem came in.

00:29:56.880 So this actually this report, this condemnation that was put out by the foreign minister of

00:30:02.600 China, it went through Global Times.

00:30:05.420 So we did some work earlier on Global Times.

00:30:09.580 So Global Times operates under the umbrella of the People's Daily Press.

00:30:14.660 And so that's the official news outlet of the central party of the Chinese Communist Party.

00:30:19.420 So this is their their sort of official state propaganda mouthpiece.

00:30:25.000 Back when earlier on in the year, we had an alert put out by Global Affairs Canada saying

00:30:31.920 that they had detected a disinformation campaign that they believed originated from the Chinese

00:30:37.660 Communist Party.

00:30:38.400 They didn't say what state actors, but they felt fairly confident that it was state actors

00:30:43.640 and it was a disinformation campaign against Michael Chong.

00:30:46.540 Of course, Michael Chong has been the victim of many of these disinformation campaigns.

00:30:50.380 But they didn't say who actually did it, but we were able to find out pretty quickly who did it through WeChat.

00:30:58.320 So I went on WeChat and trace back where these articles were coming from.

00:31:03.380 And they were coming from something called Global People magazine.

00:31:07.940 And that is also a part of the Global Times, People Daily Press, Ministry of Propaganda sort of ecosystem.

00:31:16.900 That was one of the sources that was putting out things about Michael Chong.

00:31:20.920 What did they say?

00:31:21.840 They lied about his background and things like this.

00:31:25.180 Right.

00:31:25.380 So to try to create fear and mistrust of him saying he's not a real Chinese, talking about how he's hawkish on China and things like that.

00:31:35.220 So this is a concern is, and how do you balance free speech rights when you know that you've got, it's one thing for there to be an organic campaign, right?

00:31:46.660 We can't stifle that.

00:31:47.820 That's not really fair to our Chinese Canadians to say, you can't post bad things about politicians if you want on WeChat.

00:31:54.660 But this is a totally different situation.

00:31:58.800 We have state-sponsored campaigns doing it. 0.84

00:32:01.720 The government of China doesn't have charter rights in our country.

00:32:06.160 They don't have the right of freedom.

00:32:08.220 It's not free speech when it's a foreign sovereign. 0.81

00:32:12.580 Yeah, yeah.

00:32:13.300 That's the whole problem.

00:32:14.660 And the other problem, too, is that we don't have reciprocity.

00:32:17.820 So Global Times and People's Daily Press, so they're designated as foreign missions in the United States, along with a lot of the official state propaganda accounts like Xinhua and China News Service.

00:32:31.320 So what that means is that the United States has acknowledged that they're largely controlled by a different government outside of the United States, and they are acting on behalf of a foreign government.

00:32:42.860 We don't sort of have that in Canada.

00:32:45.800 So we've got, you know, People's Daily and Global Times have got domestic bureaus in Canada, and they go around, they do whatever they want.

00:32:56.260 You know, they even get private FaceTime with some of our politicians.

00:33:00.300 Right, right.

00:33:00.960 And what was the last...

00:33:02.240 Go ahead, sir.

00:33:02.860 I didn't mean to interrupt you.

00:33:03.580 Keep going.

00:33:03.940 Yeah, so you see these sort of, you know, these closed-door foreign media events where mainstream media isn't permitted to go, and, you know, they get personal interviews with candidates, usually liberal candidates.

00:33:19.020 I did point this out, and Handong sort of gave Xinhua a special interview after his election night win, and I was kind of like, ooh, okay.

00:33:30.520 So this is a foreign mission in the U.S., and it's not here, and they get to go around and get FaceTime.

00:33:35.760 So they have very, very free reign, and this is why it's so important that we bring in a registry type of legislation.

00:33:41.300 And we know that some people are stalling on it, for obvious reasons.

00:33:46.580 You're talking about registering the foreign agencies.

00:33:48.920 You're so right.

00:33:49.840 And it's a great point about reciprocity.

00:33:51.560 Canadian journalists cannot just have free access in China.

00:33:54.700 And by the way, they don't allow Facebook and Twitter in China, if I'm not mistaken.

00:34:01.000 So why would we...

00:34:03.160 And the chutzpah of the Chinese government to complain about economic principles while banning our social media.

00:34:09.140 Andy, I'm so glad you're on this beat, and I want you to keep on it, because this is journalism that very few reporters in Canada know how to do and are motivated to do.

00:34:21.020 And this is exactly what Rebel News is all about, and I'm so glad that you're writing and expressing your investigative research through our pages.

00:34:31.220 So please keep it up, and please keep it coming.

00:34:34.040 This was a small bit of good news, but it revealed a terrible fountain of propaganda and foreign influence.

00:34:43.640 So keep at it, my friend.

00:34:45.780 Yeah, I will.

00:34:46.380 It's going to be really fascinating to see how these...

00:34:50.120 Because we know that they ran influence operations just in closing, you know, before the last election and the election preceding it.

00:34:57.780 And they threw their weight behind certain candidates.

00:35:00.980 And now we've got, you know, it's one thing to say vaguely, oh, there's a CSIS memo saying that China's interfering in our elections.

00:35:07.200 It's a little bit different when you actually find it and track it down to the source, like we've been doing, like getting it down to the IP address, originating outside of our country somewhere in China, right?

00:35:18.200 Be it in Henan or Fujian or Beijing or Shanghai or wherever.

00:35:21.760 So it's fascinating, but it'll be really, really interesting now that we've got some of those core networks pinned down to see how they react in the next election.

00:35:29.880 You know, throw their weight behind the same candidates that they did last time.

00:35:34.380 Are they going to flip and try to, you know, influence conservative candidates?

00:35:39.680 Or are they going to, you know, stick with, you know, the horse that's going to come and likely last in the race?

00:35:44.880 And how are they going to try to get in and influence those politicians now that we've been able to identify some of these actors?

00:35:52.300 And again, these aren't everyday Canadian citizens.

00:35:54.320 These are Chinese businessmen.

00:35:55.960 They're United Front.

00:35:57.120 They go overseas.

00:35:58.340 They shake hands with Xi Jinping.

00:36:00.660 You know, they go to the political conferences and all the United Front conferences.

00:36:04.180 I actually found one of Justin Trudeau's volunteers.

00:36:07.220 And there's, there's a hall and his, his photo is up in there as one of the most, you know, successful overseas, I guess, influencers.

00:36:20.040 Yeah.

00:36:20.540 You could say.

00:36:22.120 Yeah.

00:36:22.580 And that's another article I've got to write up.

00:36:24.180 I was like, oh my gosh, he's got like a whole, you know, a whole sort of display dedicated to his work that he's done in Canada.

00:36:31.180 And most of that work was done, cozying up to certain politicians and trying to influence them.

00:36:36.120 And he was, happened to be really involved in the protests against the agent registry.

00:36:40.940 Go figure.

00:36:42.060 So, yeah.

00:36:42.800 So fascinating.

00:36:43.640 It'll be really, really neat to watch.

00:36:45.280 It's really, really great.

00:36:46.160 I don't do this alone.

00:36:47.120 So I want to take a moment to thank everybody that are in those little WeChat channels with me and sending me stuff.

00:36:53.180 And, you know, get in and dig in and pray for information and help, help us do this really, really important work.

00:37:00.400 And it'll be, it'll be good to continue on with it.

00:37:03.040 Yeah, it is important work and we're grateful for it.

00:37:05.220 Again, I just want to read the headline out.

00:37:06.640 If folks missed it on our website, China protests, Canadian WeChat ban on government devices.

00:37:11.860 And one of my favorite things about your articles, Andy, is you have links to the primary sources.

00:37:16.660 So thank you for that.

00:37:17.960 We got to wrap it up there.

00:37:19.080 Great to see you.

00:37:19.800 Keep up the fight.

00:37:20.520 You're very brave for doing this and we're grateful to you.

00:37:22.460 There you have it.

00:37:23.460 Andy Lee, the special rebel rapporteur.

00:37:26.700 Stay with us.

00:37:28.240 My final thoughts are next.

00:37:42.100 Hi there.

00:37:42.720 I got into my car.

00:37:43.540 It was just a little too cold for me out there on the street, but that's the show for today.

00:37:48.800 I'd like your thoughts on how to handle the four men in coots charged with conspiracy to

00:37:53.820 commit murder.

00:37:54.720 Obviously, I hope they didn't do it.

00:37:56.080 Obviously, I hope that the judicial process speeds them through to acquittal on the basis

00:38:03.560 that they didn't do it because I would hate to hate to know that they did it.

00:38:07.680 But that is a heavy criminal law matter that is outside the scope, in my opinion, of the

00:38:15.100 civil liberties work that we've become famous for over the course of our life at Rebel News.

00:38:19.840 We take cases for people whose freedom of speech and freedom of association, freedom of religion

00:38:25.600 is transgressed.

00:38:26.780 People who engage in peaceful civil disobedience.

00:38:29.540 That's why we support Arthur Pawlowski.

00:38:31.480 He may be noisy, he may be aggressive in some ways to some people's minds, but he's nonviolent

00:38:37.760 completely, and he preaches nonviolence, and that's our kind of guy.

00:38:41.020 Same with Tamara Leach. 1.00

00:38:42.040 You couldn't have a more wonderful lady, and frankly, I think the judicial action against

00:38:46.380 her is a national shame. 0.97

00:38:48.380 But I just simply don't believe that our donors money at Rebel News was given to us to support

00:38:53.600 a general serious criminal matter as this.

00:38:57.020 But like I said, I'm glad to know that there are people who are crowdfunding for them, and

00:39:00.800 they do have lawyers.

00:39:02.340 So I'll keep you posted, because I think it's a very interesting case, and people being

00:39:05.700 in jail for 600 days before trial is an anomaly.

00:39:10.080 And, you know, it's not a personal affiliation I have with any of these men.

00:39:15.680 I've never met any of them, and one of them wasn't even down there at Cooge.

00:39:18.940 But if you compare the treatment of terrorists or drug dealers or rapists to the treatment

00:39:27.540 of them, in Canada, accused terrorists often get bail, which is incredible.

00:39:32.700 Well, I'm glad I came down here, and I'll do my best to cover the actual substantive

00:39:37.480 bail hearing, too.

00:39:39.220 Let me know what you think, what you think about my coverage, if you think it's an important

00:39:42.420 case to cover.

00:39:43.300 By the way, we are representing other men who have been charged with minor crimes at

00:39:48.000 the Coutts blockade.

00:39:49.060 And, in fact, we have something called Trucker Defense Fund that we're crowdfunding for those

00:39:54.440 men, because we think those fit within our civil liberties mandate.

00:39:58.600 Well, that's my report from southern Alberta.

00:40:01.320 It's frosty down here.

00:40:03.260 Even though there's no snow on the ground and it's sunny, it is cold.

00:40:07.420 I'm back to Toronto tonight, to our world headquarters, and I'll talk to you then.

00:40:11.840 Until next time, on behalf of all of us at Rebel, to you, wherever you are in the world, goodbye

00:40:18.140 and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - November 08, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Behind bars, but not forgotten： The Coutts conspiracy saga continues

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