Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Carney continues Trudeau’s war on free speech in Canada

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. It's become a signature move of the Mark Carney liberals, censorship in one

00:00:05.600 or many ways. Unfortunately, they've revived one of the worst censorship bills from the Trudeau

00:00:10.780 era to make it their own. I'll go through it with Andrew Lawton, a conservative critic who's been

00:00:15.740 fighting for free speech. I'll also show you what happened today when the regulator of the Federal

00:00:21.220 Debates Commission appeared before Parliament to answer questions. But first, let me invite you to

00:00:26.300 get what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast. Just go to

00:00:30.800 rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. And not only do you get great

00:00:35.480 video content, you support Rebel News. And we take no money from the government. And it shows,

00:00:40.780 especially in stories like today, where we're talking about censorship and freedom of the

00:00:45.640 press. So that's rebelnewsplus.com. One more thing. Hey, before we dive in, a quick thank you

00:00:52.860 to our listeners who support our work through the Rebel Store. Every purchase helps fund the

00:00:58.140 journalism that you won't find anywhere else, whether it's field reporting, investigations,

00:01:03.500 or holding the powerful to account. If you want to wear your values and support independent media

00:01:11.500 at the same time, check out the Rebel Store at rebelnewsstore.com. The link is always in the

00:01:18.420 description, and you can also use code TAMARA10, that's T-A-M-A-R-A-10, to save 10% off of your

00:01:27.860 total purchase at checkout. Now, let's get into it. Tonight, Mark Carney picks up where Trudeau

00:01:34.500 left off as a censor. It's March 12th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:42.660 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:48.420 I think there's a theme to today's show, and it's freedom of speech.

00:01:58.100 Later on in the program, we're going to talk to our old friend, Andrew Lawton.

00:02:01.740 We got to know him as a journalist and an activist, and he was one of the few journalists

00:02:05.640 who would go to Davos, Switzerland, with Juneau News, and we were there with Rebel News,

00:02:11.380 and we were allies in scrumming the VVIPs who go there to be unaccountable as they become the 0.60

00:02:19.300 masters of the universe and issue proclamations about the way the rest of us should live. Andrew

00:02:24.260 was great to work with as a journalist now that he's an MP in the Conservative Party representing

00:02:29.780 a London, Ontario area district. I'm pleased to say he's kept that same free speech spirit alive.

00:02:37.560 In fact, I should just tell you that in 2019, Andrew and True North, as it was then known, and us at Rebel News went to court together to fight against the federal government's Leadership Debate Commission attempt to ban independent journalists.

00:02:55.820 Andrew was banned and Rebel News was banned.

00:02:59.000 We were in court together as the underdogs, and it really felt like a miracle.

00:03:02.980 I've had some amazing days in my life.

00:03:04.940 But to go into federal court in Toronto and to try and get a judge to overturn the Trudeau regime's ban on us,

00:03:13.440 I just thought that was such an uphill battle.

00:03:15.660 I remember our lawyers saying, you're not going to win.

00:03:18.140 Please pay in advance.

00:03:20.860 Hey, I don't blame them.

00:03:22.580 And we won.

00:03:23.800 And that really gave me hope.

00:03:25.120 And I don't know, maybe you don't want too many hopeful things because it's just going to set you up for a letdown.

00:03:29.600 But actually, the hope was well placed.

00:03:31.460 And we went there. And then in 2021, the debates commission banned us again. But this time they had spent two years sort of reverse engineering how to ban us by studying that first court ruling. You've probably heard me say this before. The first court ruling said they didn't ban us legally because they didn't give us proper reasons. They didn't have proper rules. The wrong person banned us, etc.

00:03:55.460 So they had two years to study that and reverse engineer a way to ban us that complied with

00:04:00.480 those standards, an 11-page detailed explanation of why we were banned, lots of rules, an official

00:04:07.020 government.

00:04:07.620 So all the little objections made by that first judge, they fixed them.

00:04:12.680 So by the time we were banned in 2021, well, our lawyer said, Ezra, just so you know, it's

00:04:19.200 hopeless, happy to do it for you, but really want your expectations to be at zero.

00:04:24.460 And they sort of were, and then it truly was a miracle when the second time around the court says, no, you guys can get in.

00:04:30.620 I tell you all this because we have been fighting for freedom of speech since we were born 11 years ago.

00:04:36.120 And we love working with civil liberties groups.

00:04:38.960 Of course, we helped create the Democracy Fund by getting our Rebel News viewers to donate to it.

00:04:45.860 We admire other civil liberties groups like my friend John Carpe at the Justice Center.

00:04:50.760 But Rebel News itself has taken on a big burden of fighting for freedom of speech.

00:04:55.000 And yes, we are often the party involved, the plaintiff involved, but that's because we're on the front line of the freedom battle.

00:05:00.580 I mean, there's a reason why Rebel News is fighting to be accredited and more bland regime vanilla journalists aren't, because they're not being banned, because they're not pushing the envelope.

00:05:13.700 When we went after cabinet ministers banning conservatives from following them on Twitter,

00:05:18.760 of course it happened to us.

00:05:20.760 We're the pointy edge of the spear.

00:05:22.720 We're the first one, you know, into the fray.

00:05:26.460 So it is going to happen to us disproportionately.

00:05:28.740 It's a battle I love because I enjoy reporting the news and telling the other side of the story.

00:05:33.000 But you know us.

00:05:34.460 At Rebel News, every once in a while we stop and get involved.

00:05:37.800 We don't just report as outsiders.

00:05:39.780 So today, in addition to an interview with my friend Andrew Lawton about Bill C-9, a censorship bill, and we'll get into that discussion with him, I want to show you an extract from our live stream that we had today when the head of the Debates Commission, Michelle Cormier is his name, testified before a committee in Parliament.

00:06:00.520 And I'm not going to show you all of it because it was too long and a lot of it was boring and frankly, I think uninteresting to our viewers. But I want to show you some clips that were very interesting. There's some great questions put to him by one particular conservative MP who sort of blasted Cormier in a diplomatic way for having opinions on which questions from the media were allowed or not.

00:06:24.220 There were some questions that were, what was the phrase he used, that they were, you'll see the exact phrase that Michel Cormier used, that they were basically irrelevant or outside the mainstream.

00:06:35.940 Who the heck is he to say that?

00:06:39.360 There were other questions about what's the point of having a debates commission if you're not allowing a journalist to scrum.

00:06:45.840 Oh, that's the word he used was peripheral, that Rebel News was asking peripheral questions.

00:06:51.060 Says who? 0.65

00:06:51.980 Are you the adjudicator of what an interesting question or not is?

00:06:55.040 Anyways, so Cormier, the head of the debates commission, was before parliament today.

00:06:59.240 And there's strange questions from the Bloc Québécois who were saying that rebels' presence, there was a security threat.

00:07:06.640 It was a lot of weirdness, but the weirdest part of all was what everyone seemed to accept, which was that the government is in charge of these debates.

00:07:14.180 And by the way, they get paid millions to do it.

00:07:16.020 Anyway, without further ado, here are some extracts from the live stream from Parliament

00:07:22.020 where I was sort of giving a bit of a running commentary.

00:07:24.800 Hey, take a look.

00:07:30.420 I want to return to something that came up for discussion the last time you were here

00:07:34.660 and you made mention of it, and that is the post-debate media scrum, which I think a lot

00:07:42.420 of Canadians would agree with this statement that that's the best part.

00:07:44.840 yeah and now and and it became for who well for the maybe not for the participants but certainly

00:07:52.020 for Canadians tuning in maybe because that's when they really see the rough and tumble of

00:07:56.620 the media and how the prospective leaders uh although ratings are not to that scrutiny but

00:08:04.320 now you're cancelling it all together I understand yeah well we seems a bit defeatist it's a it's a

00:08:09.880 recommendation for the next commissioner at this point it's not official policy now

00:08:14.920 and yes we are recommending that the that the debate that the commission not organize scrums

00:08:20.980 because we're in a media environment where you have a lot of different media actors that don't

00:08:30.520 fit into any categories and that has caused some tension and confusion in the accreditation process

00:08:37.840 and the uh and the scrums afterward the management of the scrums just so just so i have clarity on

00:08:42.880 this you're saying that uh you don't want to manage the scrum does that mean that there will

00:08:47.300 be no scrum or will it still go ahead we will not organize the scrum if if the parties want to

00:08:53.160 actually scrum after the debates they're free to do it you know our position is that the the campaign

00:08:59.700 begins again after the debates are over so three million dollars and they can't have a scrum

00:09:06.140 because it's confusing with these new journalists we feel it um we feel that's the best solution for

00:09:13.900 um to make sure that the attention is also on the debates and not on the on other peripheral issues

00:09:21.100 peripheral issues and it's not in the in the mandate of the commission to do so so i'm just

00:09:26.100 going to interrupt you the scrum isn't isn't peripheral issues those are the issues that

00:09:30.340 media think we're important and well i see i think they're all they are important issues

00:09:39.860 but i think the the the commission is in a position where it's it's difficult to actually

00:09:47.700 assure that there's a an environment that actually goes well for everybody in that case

00:09:53.860 goes well for everybody does that mean so we've we've made that recommendation and we'll see

00:09:58.500 whether the next commissioner agrees with it or not what does that even thank you so much i don't

00:10:03.940 think these are the questions that you put to the head of the debates commission who just announced

00:10:07.860 he's shutting down the scrum because he wants all the politicians to be happy with the outcome and

00:10:13.860 he doesn't want confusion with peripheral questions what why who cares about staff

00:10:21.220 one or staff two i mean the whole thing is illegitimate to have a government agency running

00:10:26.100 it but what a laugh to focus on this rather than the censorship so just to be clear in your

00:10:32.600 recommendations there's one that states that the commission will no longer be organizing media

00:10:38.060 scrums but if i understood correctly you would like for the commission to continue accrediting

00:10:43.960 journalists yes we will that raises a few questions

00:10:49.820 there had been issues with the media scrum last time because five journalists from rebel news 0.97

00:11:00.400 had been accredited and that raised security concerns and security concerns you weird liar 0.73

00:11:07.240 is this not a way of shifting blame if you're responsible for journalist accreditations

00:11:14.360 and if there are five or six from verbal news who are accredited well then if they

00:11:20.920 want to participate in a press conference organized by somebody else

00:11:27.620 with different accreditation criteria that will lead to issues there are

00:11:38.260 accreditation requests that are refused given the criteria set by different

00:11:45.860 political parties as well so this raises an issue that goes beyond the

00:11:50.480 Commission what or who makes up a journalist some have told us that we

00:11:58.780 don't have the authority to decide and so we have a very large definition of a

00:12:06.360 a journalist, and we include different models of journalism. But during the last election,

00:12:13.980 it created a problematic environment for a lot of journalists. And it also raised issues with

00:12:21.980 press conferences that were counterproductive.

00:12:26.320 Counterproductive?

00:12:27.480 They were not productive for anyone.

00:12:29.420 Really? Who decides that? How do you decide that?

00:12:34.540 So we, and I was a journalist for a large part of my career, so we did not do this happily.

00:12:43.140 It's not because we don't want journalists to have access to the leaders.

00:12:47.100 They'll have better quality access to the leaders if the different parties' campaigns are responsible for these scrums,

00:12:56.300 or they can choose to accredit the journalists that they would like to see.

00:13:00.740 we have to accept journalists who focus on issues that impact society and so that opens the door

00:13:11.440 to actors who are not necessarily traditional journalists and that can lead to tensions and

00:13:19.920 situations that are problematic for debates. Problematic for the debates? Perhaps I can ask

00:13:25.320 you to clarify during a campaign parliamentarians can accredit journalists and choose who follows

00:13:32.680 them into scrums and all of that and from the answers that you gave to mr wilkinson there's

00:13:39.080 funding for accreditation and badges but if journalists after the fact don't have access

00:13:43.820 to those leaders under the commission why accredit journalists at all

00:13:53.760 exactly

00:13:55.980 it's for the event

00:13:59.340 we're talking about the debates

00:14:00.680 we're saying that

00:14:05.560 parties can organize

00:14:07.880 scrums and press conferences

00:14:09.720 as they do during the campaign

00:14:11.140 but they could accredit

00:14:12.520 journalists so why would the commission

00:14:15.880 need to accredit

00:14:17.960 journalists if they are

00:14:19.920 not getting access to a scrum after the debates

00:14:22.080 A lot of journalists don't follow the campaign, but would want to follow the debates.

00:14:26.920 We had 60 organizations last time, media organizations, including 200 journalists.

00:14:31.940 So there's a lot of interest in participating in the debates.

00:14:37.800 Participating? He's just canceled the participating party.

00:14:41.140 And so we give the opportunity for them to have use of certain elements from the debates and give them a space.

00:14:48.700 A space for what? We're not allowed to ask questions now.

00:14:52.080 There's something else that I don't understand.

00:14:55.020 Journalists who are on site, how do they have increased access with an accreditation?

00:15:02.780 How would their access be increased versus someone who's watching from home?

00:15:06.920 Exactly.

00:15:07.600 If the debates are canceled, if the scrums are canceled.

00:15:10.080 What is the main benefit of having that physical access to debates?

00:15:13.740 This lady's with the Bloc Québécois, by the way.

00:15:15.640 Well, they can have a quality recording.

00:15:19.900 A quality recording?

00:15:21.320 from these media rooms, these work rooms.

00:15:25.300 What?

00:15:26.360 The quality recording?

00:15:27.520 That's what you're doing.

00:15:29.200 So that's the first thing.

00:15:31.680 Journalists also have access to party staff

00:15:35.480 because they are also in that debate environment.

00:15:39.420 They can do interviews for meetings.

00:15:44.020 So they have access to that environment of the debates,

00:15:48.680 which is an interesting environment for journalists.

00:15:52.460 We're not actually allowed in the room with the debate itself.

00:15:55.380 He's stretching.

00:16:01.560 Were the former accreditations given because journalists had an expectation

00:16:06.700 to be able to participate in a media scrum?

00:16:09.800 In 2020-2021, the debates were here in Ottawa.

00:16:12.360 There were very few journalists who went to the media scrums after debates.

00:16:18.680 because they were already working on their media reports.

00:16:23.700 And that's a fact.

00:16:29.140 And so I think that journalists are interested in covering the debates in person.

00:16:36.140 So for matters such as this, I think it's helpful to look at other countries and what they do

00:16:42.620 and learn from best practices from other countries.

00:16:45.460 So I looked up what they do in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and France.

00:16:51.980 They all have elections.

00:16:54.300 They all have leaders' debates.

00:16:56.680 But none of them has a government-run debates commission.

00:16:59.680 They're all done by the networks or the private sector, all at no cost to taxpayers.

00:17:04.940 So I'm wondering why does Canada need any of this?

00:17:09.200 Why don't we hand the entire matter over to the private sector and save the taxpayers $3 million?

00:17:15.460 Well, in the case of the United States, there is a commission on presidential debates

00:17:21.520 that organizes the debates that is not organized by the networks.

00:17:26.980 But it's not funded by the government?

00:17:29.800 No, it's funded privately and run by the two main parties, Republicans and the Democrats.

00:17:40.580 Other G7 countries, the ones you name, don't have a commission.

00:17:45.460 but there was a discussion after the British election

00:17:50.440 that maybe a commission wouldn't be a bad idea.

00:17:52.980 And it was also considered in Australia.

00:17:56.060 So that's always a project that's there.

00:17:59.180 Mexico has a commission, a full-time commission, to run debates.

00:18:04.740 There are other, you know, smaller countries who do that.

00:18:07.900 But, you know, like I said,

00:18:10.000 maybe you should take that question up with the minister.

00:18:12.300 I mean, I was hired to do the job.

00:18:15.020 I do the job, and I can't opine on whether this is...

00:18:19.340 That's a good point.

00:18:20.020 He was appointed by the Liberal politicians.

00:18:23.340 He didn't create his own job.

00:18:25.140 Justin Trudeau did, and Mark Carney's keeping it.

00:18:27.700 Yes, and that's fair.

00:18:28.980 If you've been hired to do the job,

00:18:30.920 perhaps it's not your place to decide

00:18:33.280 whether the job should exist in the first place.

00:18:35.400 But I was wondering if you've ever studied

00:18:38.340 and made recommendations to the Minister

00:18:40.440 about what would happen if the Debates Commission

00:18:43.320 did not exist in the first place.

00:18:45.020 Well, we haven't given a lot of thought to that because, you know, in 2015, I was organizing the debates for Radio Canada when there was no English debate, national English debate.

00:18:55.820 They were small debates and, you know, there was it was very, very unstable in terms of environment.

00:19:02.560 That's why the commission was created to stabilize the environment.

00:19:06.740 And I think we've managed to do that.

00:19:09.100 I mean, debates now are expected.

00:19:10.680 There is no speculation whether that will happen or not.

00:19:15.560 They're kind of a fixture of the campaigns.

00:19:18.240 They're becoming even a more important event in the campaign because we see the ratings go up.

00:19:25.220 So we also provide the debate experience to communities that may not be touched by network-run debates

00:19:34.240 because they wouldn't have access to all these languages, including Indigenous communities.

00:19:39.860 I think that's very important if you want to grow democracy and access to actually political participation.

00:19:46.980 So these are maybe intangibles in your mind, but I think there are important aspects,

00:19:52.580 and I think that's what drives also the Commission.

00:19:55.240 Plus, we do study the best practices.

00:20:00.340 I think we've improved on what is the best format for debates,

00:20:05.240 which is not a panel of journalists, which was a tradition here.

00:20:08.840 It ends up being leaders grilled by journalists as to what we prefer is one moderator that actually encourages debates among the leaders, which is the nature of a political debate in the first place.

00:20:26.360 So I think that is very important. And they provide, you know, in this world of misinformation, of manipulation of AI, it's one of the few, if not the only occasion that people have to see their leaders live in an unedited fashion where they can actually believe what they see on the screen and they see them interact.

00:20:51.600 He's been told to mention AI just to seem hip, but he's not an AI man.

00:20:56.580 There's really nothing AI about any of this.

00:20:58.580 Now that this structure is in place and these best practices are in place,

00:21:03.660 could this all be transitioned to a group of networks and done at no cost to the taxpayers?

00:21:12.340 Of course, that's how it was for the last hundred years.

00:21:14.240 I don't think it would be done in this format.

00:21:17.400 I mean, you know, as you well know, media organizations have very severe financial problems, given the new environment of, you know, advertising.

00:21:30.020 So, and even in Quebec last time, TVA, that organizes a separate French debate, did not manage to put one on, mainly, according to them, for financial reasons.

00:21:40.940 So I don't think that, I'm not sure that the financial environment is conducive to such a transfer that you're talking about.

00:21:53.420 I think, you know, but like I say, maybe it's a question for Parliament to decide.

00:22:01.360 Okay.

00:22:02.260 Well, very disappointing in so many ways.

00:22:04.740 I think some of the most interesting parts were Michel Cormier admitting that the reason they have banned the after debate scrum with the candidates is because they can't control the questions that are asked.

00:22:17.680 He called the questions asked by independent media like Rebel News, and there were more independent media there this year, last year, called those questions peripheral.

00:22:27.400 So you see the government is choosing what the topics are that you're allowed to think about or not.

00:22:32.460 um it was interesting that he said some regime journalists have as many as 20 different journalists

00:22:39.620 accredited for this event when there was all sorts of squawking about the fact that rebel news had

00:22:43.820 five journalists accredited which is a fraction of what the large i mean the cbc probably had

00:22:49.360 100 people there let's be honest um the questioning by almost all the mps was useless i was embarrassed

00:22:56.700 for the bloc québécois uh who you would think would be supportive of alternative or dissident

00:23:02.120 voices, no. They actually had, I mean, I'm sure that MP had no idea what she was talking about,

00:23:08.600 where she implied that Rebel News was somehow to blame. Yeah, to blame for asking questions.

00:23:13.760 Let me show you one of the questions that Drea Humphrey asked of Jagmeet Singh. If you don't

00:23:18.760 remember who Jagmeet Singh is, don't worry, no one else does. Most people didn't remember him when

00:23:22.560 he was actually still the NDP leader, but it was an excellent question that an enormous number of

00:23:28.080 Canadians care about and Jagmeet Singh said basically no I'm not going to answer that

00:23:33.200 and then the CBC came into white night for Jagmeet Singh saying uh that Drea was a liar here I want 0.81

00:23:42.920 to play for you Drea's um question which you'll see is an excellent question but this is what

00:23:48.000 Michelle Cormier and the cool kids say no this is a peripheral question and then I want to show you

00:23:52.240 the freak out by the CBC here's Drea Humphrey take a look hello Mr. Singh Drea Humphrey with

00:23:57.840 Rebel News. Your party takes

00:23:59.780 great pride in standing against hate 0.74

00:24:01.760 such as white supremacy, Islamophobia

00:24:03.760 and online... Sorry, I didn't get your outlet.

00:24:06.440 Drea Humphrey with Rebel News.

00:24:07.860 Okay. You know where I'm going

00:24:09.840 to go with this, though, right?

00:24:11.740 Can I speak? Yeah, you can. I'm just going to say

00:24:13.720 you know where I'm going to go with it, though.

00:24:15.200 Your party takes pride in standing against hate

00:24:17.800 such as white supremacy, Islamophobia

00:24:19.960 and online hate speech.

00:24:22.060 Yet you stay silent about

00:24:23.720 ongoing attacks against Christians

00:24:25.660 even after Conservative MP

00:24:27.700 Jamil Giovanni's order paper question revealed that over 200 churches have been targeted by

00:24:33.460 arson and vandalism since claims of remains being discovered at former residential schools swept

00:24:39.300 the nation in 2021. These claims have been disproven by bans that excavated and remain

00:24:46.260 unproven by those that have not. Will you condemn the rise in acts of hate against Christians today

00:24:53.220 and explain what your party will do moving forward

00:24:56.860 to keep Christians safe from hate in Canada.

00:25:00.780 Again, thank you, but I'm not going to respond to an organization

00:25:03.300 that promotes misinformation and disinformation like Rebel News,

00:25:07.300 so no, I'm not going to respond to your question.

00:25:08.720 So that answer was appalling.

00:25:11.340 I mean, Jagmeet Singh is not the sharpest knife in the drawer,

00:25:14.800 and he didn't know how to answer the question,

00:25:17.140 so just saying, oh, that's misinformation, I'm not going to talk to you,

00:25:20.120 is his way out of answering a good question.

00:25:23.220 You couldn't hear it there because the mic didn't pick it up.

00:25:25.760 Other journalists started screaming or hollering or heckling at Drea.

00:25:29.580 I was right there. I heard the heckling. It was outrageous.

00:25:32.520 This was one of those peripheral questions that you're not allowed to ask.

00:25:36.820 Let me show you. It's so, so gross. 0.84

00:25:38.700 The CBC was watching this too, and they just couldn't stand the fact that Drea asked a question that they didn't approve of. 0.98

00:25:49.820 Here, take a quick look at Rose McBarton and the other gross, gross, gross liberals 1.00

00:25:55.160 who pretend to be journalists at the CBC. Take a look. 0.98

00:25:57.400 Okay, so that was NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.

00:25:59.940 Up next will be conservative leader Pierre Polyev.

00:26:02.740 But I think we have to sort of address the elephant in the room.

00:26:06.520 How are these people chosen to answer these questions?

00:26:10.020 And I don't know if either one of you have an answer for that,

00:26:12.200 but I think there will be people at home saying,

00:26:14.300 some of these seem like odd questions, some of them aren't getting answered.

00:26:17.040 how come we've heard so often from

00:26:19.100 this one particular outlet. Any idea

00:26:21.180 what's going on there? There's three

00:26:22.340 right-wing, very

00:26:25.100 right-wing media, we can

00:26:27.100 call them media, websites that are present

00:26:29.000 in there. They get in line to

00:26:31.080 ask a question like anybody else.

00:26:32.980 Their accreditation has been approved by the

00:26:34.940 Commission of Debates, and so

00:26:36.980 they get the right to stand in line and ask

00:26:38.940 a question that they choose to ask.

00:26:41.520 In this case, you saw Mr. Singh,

00:26:43.380 and this has been his position for some time,

00:26:45.400 to refuse to answer questions

00:26:46.980 Rebel news in particular, traffics in misinformation, facts, lack of facts, as you heard in that question, which was woven with some truth and some things that weren't true.

00:26:58.800 Yes, there have been burnings of Christian Catholic churches.

00:27:03.100 Yes, there have been remains of indigenous children found in various places around the country, which she misrepresented.

00:27:10.040 We'll see if Mr. Paulyev gets any questions from right wing organizations.

00:27:13.160 I would suspect no.

00:27:13.920 Well, first of all, I personally asked a question to Pierre, sorry, Sheila Gunn-Reed did. So Rosemary Barton is a foolish liar. But second of all, she got it wrong. And she actually had to, the CBC had to post a correction. Drea Humphrey had her facts right. That Rosemary Barton was a wicked liar. 1.00

00:27:29.520 but what's so incredible to me is you can see like 365 days a year the regime media have access 0.93

00:27:35.620 to the regime that's why they're called the regime media the cbc is literally the state

00:27:40.080 broadcaster so 365 days a year they lob softballs at the liberals and they get sort of their talking

00:27:46.640 points from the liberals the one day every four years where other journalists can ask a question

00:27:52.220 they just can't stand it they can't stand and by the way jagmeet singh took the question and he 0.97

00:27:58.660 answered it in whatever way he wanted to I think Jagmeet Singh looked stupid which he sort of is I 0.99

00:28:03.440 think um but that wasn't good enough Rose McBarton had to come in a white night for him and and save 0.98

00:28:09.360 him from the misinformation it's so gross but I think Dre did a great job and um they see we went

00:28:17.940 to court in 2009 and we won when they refused to accredit us so they changed how they did it and we

00:28:24.700 went and they refused to accredit us again in 2020 2019 was the first time they banned us we

00:28:31.080 won in court 2021 they tried to ban us again we went to court and won again so twice in a row the

00:28:36.800 federal court of canada said you can't keep rebel news out just because you don't like them and they

00:28:42.140 couldn't find a way to keep rebel out but not others we're too political yeah what do you think

00:28:47.660 the cbc and the toronto star are um we have too many reporters there no you just heard there's 20

00:28:53.780 for the CTV. We had five. So they really, well, what else could they possibly say? We're Canadian,

00:29:01.220 we cover the news, we have a large and growing viewership. They couldn't find a principle,

00:29:08.040 a rationale, a role, a rule to keep us out that also wouldn't keep the regime out. So

00:29:13.840 twice in a row, the federal court says, no, you got to let Rebel News in. So in 2025,

00:29:18.560 last year in the last election we applied and that michelle cormier who we were showing earlier

00:29:25.020 he correctly knew that if we had to take him to court a third time that they would lose and by

00:29:34.080 the way if judge number one says you're wrong you're violating their their constitutional rights

00:29:39.880 and judge number two says you're wrong you're violating their constitutional rights and you do

00:29:44.480 it a third time you know i i have an imagination but i cannot imagine what a third judge would do

00:29:53.340 if a government agency twice broke the law and came back a third time and had to be hauled into

00:30:00.820 court i you know hell hath no fury like a federal court that has been spurned three times i can so

00:30:08.560 michelle cormier very wisely said okay we're going to let rebel news in without having to go to court

00:30:13.060 and so they thought well how can we do this how can we stop rebel news from asking peripheral

00:30:19.420 questions without stopping everyone how how how how and they came up with only one idea which was

00:30:26.080 just shut down all the questions hey let me show you on the screen right now a weird thing happened

00:30:33.300 i was there and then i walked in and all the other journalists were so excited that it turned into a

00:30:38.500 little scrum can you play that can you uh go back in time 60 seconds and and play this with the

00:30:43.920 sound up i remember there was a funny moment i gave a bit of a speech because everyone started

00:30:48.000 swarming me take a look

00:30:49.100 Mr. Cormier, are you going to comment on what is that?

00:31:03.180 I had a heart-to-heart with Mr. Cormier, and I think we found common ground.

00:31:09.320 Mr. Cormier, what's the common ground?

00:31:13.620 Well, I'm kidding around.

00:31:15.520 We don't have common ground.

00:31:16.160 I don't know what is these guys.

00:31:17.720 Yesterday, I think the independent journalists were a little bit too independent, and the

00:31:23.080 regime journalists are too friendly with the regime, and I've seen a full pork press by 1.00

00:31:29.160 regime journalists over the last 24 hours to bring in limits to what independent journalists

00:31:34.960 can do.

00:31:35.960 You mean third party advertisers, Ezra?

00:31:36.960 Can you talk about the $180,000 you're spending to do advertising voter contact, both through

00:31:42.960 Poor Canada and into Rebel News Network Limited?

00:31:45.480 I see you're wrong on that. And that's what concerns me, is that Fort Canada is a different group. It was registered.

00:31:53.620 It paid $170,000 to Rebel News Network Limited. Is that not true?

00:31:57.960 You're getting your facts wrong, Justin. I want to make sure you're careful.

00:32:02.220 That guy, he was heckling me. I just forgot his name, but he was the same guy who was heckling Greya, literally trying to shout her down. It was really gross.

00:32:10.620 We're not leaving. The CBC were outraged that Mr. Cormier let us in.

00:32:16.360 The CBC had four questions yesterday.

00:32:20.120 Rebel News had four questions yesterday.

00:32:22.660 The CBC thinks that's normal and it's abnormal.

00:32:26.660 Was he talking to you about your application and asking questions, or was it about the internet hearing and the survey?

00:32:32.900 It was about neither. It was actually about, what's his name, the Bob Allen CBC?

00:32:38.220 anyways it was sort of fun that that the rebel news all those regime journalists just couldn't

00:32:44.620 believe that rebel news was allowed in there and they tried to kick us out and they tried to stop

00:32:48.920 us and they made mean complaints about us and and michelle cormier didn't block us but he did 0.92

00:32:55.280 something really weird he shut down the entire q a session for the second debate and that's his

00:33:00.980 recommendation going forward so you you were put in charge of the leaders debates by the government

00:33:05.880 to improve them and improve access to them and improve engagement by Canadians.

00:33:10.980 But you wind up shutting down the Q&A because one little media company,

00:33:17.600 once every election cycle, could ask a question or two you didn't like.

00:33:21.860 And so you're going to destroy the whole thing.

00:33:25.400 In Parliamentary Committee today, I was disappointed in all the MPs, really,

00:33:31.280 other than I think Taco Van Popta, the Conservative MP, had some good questions that he put.

00:33:35.880 about freedom and peripheral questions, not being peripheral, those were the best ones.

00:33:42.880 The Bloc was sort of embarrassing, the Liberals were just running out the clock.

00:33:47.880 And there were a couple other Conservatives that spoke there.

00:33:50.880 Blaine Calkins was one, and I think Michael Cram was the other.

00:33:54.880 And they were weak.

00:33:56.880 Like one of them was asking, what's it like in other countries?

00:33:59.880 And one was asking financial questions.

00:34:01.880 questions. I suppose that was technically the reason for this meeting. But you have one of

00:34:07.180 Trudeau's appointed censors whose proposal is to shut down any Q&A for the journalists at the

00:34:13.680 leaders debate. And you're not going to ask about that. I think the Conservative Party really dropped

00:34:18.420 the ball today. And I like Blaine Calkins, but I think he failed today. And I think Michael Cram

00:34:23.760 completely failed too. Taco Van Pappta, thumbs up. The Liberals, of course, were Liberaling. 0.57

00:34:29.540 they're just running out the clock for their friend the idea that we're spending $739,000 a

00:34:35.480 year just for the debates commission to hang around in non-election years that is a rounding

00:34:41.880 error in terms of the federal government but it's actually also insane that we're paying people

00:34:47.320 three quarters of a million dollars a year to do nothing all year unless there's an election

00:34:52.800 debate called and then they go into three million dollar mode why are we paying for having a debate

00:34:58.040 that first of all other media companies would do second of all other media companies would make

00:35:02.720 into a moneymaker if it was so popular on tv and by the way he's lying 19 million people did not

00:35:08.560 watch that on tv he's counting social media clips by companies like rebel news um why are we paying

00:35:17.080 any money at all to have the government take over our journalism and our our debates it's sort of

00:35:22.860 gross, but I think today it's a big fail for Parliament, including for the opposition parties

00:35:28.680 who I think can do better in the future. I don't know if they will.

00:35:36.420 Well, what do you think? I was actually a little disappointed in a couple of the Conservatives.

00:35:39.920 They didn't have sharp questions at all. They were asking irrelevancies. They didn't defend

00:35:44.040 freedom of speech. I felt like they were not prepared. Maybe it's just not important to them,

00:35:48.380 but I think it's important to Canadians. We have to push back on censorship and a lot of bad

00:35:52.760 things were done under Trudeau's administration, but they have continued on with their own inertia

00:35:58.020 and momentum into Carney's administration. I'm worried about it. And that brings us to our next

00:36:04.040 segment, my interview with my friend, MP Andrew Lund. Take a look.

00:36:12.780 As I've said on more than one occasion, Justin Trudeau brought in more bills designed to regulate

00:36:19.520 and censor the internet than any other subject more than about inflation more than about housing

00:36:25.920 more than about the ukraine russia war if you judge a man by what he spends his efforts to do

00:36:32.320 you would say justin trudeau's most important issue was censorship we have a new prime minister

00:36:37.280 he's been in office for a year and unfortunately he's chosen to revive justin trudeau's censorship

00:36:43.780 and regulation agenda. The bills have new numbers now because the old parliament was

00:36:49.900 dissolved. Bill C-9 is one that's particularly troublesome. Joining us now to talk about

00:36:55.460 it and analyze it is our friend and former journalist and current member of parliament

00:36:59.720 for the London, Ontario area, Andrew Lawton, who's been following this closely. Andrew,

00:37:03.760 great to see you again.

00:37:05.460 Hey, thanks for having me on, Ezra.

00:37:07.140 Andrew, what I like about you is you come from a journalistic background, and when you

00:37:11.200 were a journalist you were very sensitive to matters of censorship and you brought that

00:37:16.260 ethical concern with you to parliament so first of all thank you tell me the latest on bill c9

00:37:24.120 are there's so many numbers because the bills are changed and there's new ones maybe tell us what

00:37:30.800 the short you know english name of the bill is and give us a bit of a summary and then dive right

00:37:37.040 into it? Well, the Liberals call it the Combating Hate Act. Now, at committee yesterday, I tried to

00:37:43.260 amend the title to the Combating Freedom of Expression Act, but sadly, the Liberals did not

00:37:47.820 accept my proposed alternative, which would have been a heck of a lot more accurate. Now, look,

00:37:53.000 you and I know very well, Ezra, that over the last two and a half years, there's been a tremendous

00:37:57.100 unleashing of brazen, violent, anti-Semitic hate on streets. We've also seen hate and attacks against

00:38:05.000 Christian houses of worship, 123 churches burned or vandalized in the last five years. But no

00:38:11.820 community is going to be protected from hate by legislation that actually takes aim at their

00:38:17.280 fundamental religious freedoms and all free expression rights for Canadians. And that's

00:38:21.840 what Bill C-9 does. As presented by the Liberals, it changes the definition of hate, replacing the

00:38:26.980 one the Supreme Court has always held to with a definition that has a much lower bar and a lot

00:38:32.780 or ambiguity behind it the liberals tried to remove a critical safeguard against laying a

00:38:38.140 hate speech prosecution which was the requirement that the attorney general consent to a charge

00:38:43.060 we've also seen a bill that adds a new standalone hate offense right that can be tacked on to any

00:38:49.420 other federal law in canada is that c9 or is that a different bill this is bill c9 oh my it adds a

00:38:56.060 standalone hate offense that can be tacked on to any other federal law including non-criminal laws

00:39:02.500 like the Canadian Human Rights Act, which means you could have a criminal penalty attached to a

00:39:07.480 civil infraction. So these were some of the concerns. We were able to mitigate some of

00:39:12.640 these things through the committee process. Attorney General consent is still going to be

00:39:16.640 required. We were able to get an amendment passed yesterday that restores the definition of hate.

00:39:21.560 But a lot of the key concerns with the bill went unaddressed by the Liberals,

00:39:25.280 including the most egregious, which was the Liberal Block Amendment to remove longstanding

00:39:30.700 religious speech protections often called the religious defense from the criminal code this is

00:39:36.240 basically to go back to what mark miller has said on record the government wants the ability to

00:39:42.020 criminally charge you for quoting certain verses of scripture whether it's the bible or the torah

00:39:47.200 if the government views it as hateful and this is why so many people of faith across the country

00:39:52.740 rose up and the liberals didn't want to hear from them they didn't want to hear what they had to say

00:39:57.240 So they censored debate on the censorship bill this week, used parliamentary tricks to force this bill through the committee, which happened yesterday.

00:40:05.300 And it will be coming back to the House of Commons for a very abbreviated, quote unquote, debate that will last just a couple of days before the bill gets pushed through to the Senate.

00:40:15.160 And isn't that interesting? Because Justin Trudeau, I'm not going to say he slow walked the bills. Maybe he was just personally lazy. Maybe his government moved more slowly. But Trudeau was in office for about 10 years and he didn't manage to get out his, I think he called it C63, the online harms bill, which had some of the elements here.

00:40:36.080 It looks like Mark Carney is moving faster and using parliamentary tactics to hustle things along.

00:40:43.140 Can I ask you how have the NDP and Bloc Québécois responded?

00:40:48.220 Because I recall when Trudeau was bringing in censorship, they were totally supportive.

00:40:53.760 I assume that's the case now also.

00:40:55.980 So it depends on what you mean.

00:40:58.360 So on Bill C-9, at the beginning, every party but the Liberals were against it. The Conservatives were against it. The NDP were against it. The Bloc Québécois were against it. The Greens were, well, sorry, the Green was against it. And that was, I think, very important. And that was why the Liberals made this unholy alliance with the Bloc Québécois to remove religious freedoms in exchange for the Bloc support of the bill.

00:41:21.920 Bloc Québécois has long sought to push this very radical secularization of society.

00:41:28.780 The NDP has said they are against Bill C9 still.

00:41:31.860 So has the Green MP, Elizabeth May.

00:41:35.160 But the Liberal and the Bloc combined have enough.

00:41:37.520 Now, this is just on C9.

00:41:39.460 The Liberals have said that the Online Harms Act, which was C63 in the previous parliament, is going to be coming back.

00:41:46.580 We don't know in what form it will take.

00:41:48.360 We don't know if it's just going to be a cut and paste of what they tried before.

00:41:51.920 Or if they're going to acknowledge some of the freedom of speech concerns there. And that's an incredibly harmful piece of legislation as well. And you're right, the NDP previously was in lockstep with the liberals on.

00:42:02.600 Hmm. You know, I see in Toronto, there's been several synagogues that have been shot up in the last week. The U.S. consulate shot up a couple days later. I think it looks like it's more than a coincidence. It wouldn't surprise me that these are connected. There have been Jewish schools and other places that have been shot and vandalized and etc.

00:42:23.940 And the liberals seem to keep on saying, our answer is senile.

00:42:30.400 Our answer is to criminalize the feeling of hate, as opposed to going after the expression of hate through crime.

00:42:39.020 Like there's been an anti-Semitic crime wave.

00:42:41.120 And I'm not talking about feelings or that.

00:42:43.520 I'm talking about assault and trespass and harassment and vandalism and shooting and stalking of synagogues. 0.93

00:42:52.440 All these things are already on the books.

00:42:54.940 It seems to me that the liberals don't want to actually stop the actions of crime.

00:42:59.840 They won't deport the doers of crime.

00:43:03.140 They won't deport the 700 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Iranian terrorists.

00:43:08.940 They just want to go after feelings.

00:43:11.940 And I don't think that they mean to target anti-Semitic haters.

00:43:16.640 I think they actually mean to go after people like me and you, like truckers,

00:43:20.340 Like, you know, peaceful critics, people who, like, I think that they intend to go after street preachers on the corner.

00:43:27.580 I don't think they plan to use this to go after any anti-Semites.

00:43:30.800 By the way, they haven't even found those gunmen.

00:43:32.680 So I think that this is a bait and switch.

00:43:34.740 I think this is a misdirection.

00:43:36.780 That's my feeling about it.

00:43:38.160 It'll do not only do nothing to stop this real crime wave, but it'll give them the power in this.

00:43:45.500 So they're using the emergency of synagogues being shot up to ram through a bill that will allow them to go after their political enemies. 0.94

00:43:53.020 That's my hunch.

00:43:54.180 Call me a skeptic or even paranoid, but that's what I think.

00:43:57.700 What do you think?

00:43:59.260 Well, I think that we already have, as you've indicated there, issues with selective enforcement of existing laws.

00:44:06.080 So if existing laws are not being enforced fairly or effectively, then new laws are not going to solve this underlying problem.

00:44:14.620 And it was quite despicable for the Liberals to get up in the House of Commons and try to use these synagogue shootings this week as justification to pass Bill C-9.

00:44:24.260 Not a single Liberal, or anyone else for that matter, could point to a single line in Bill C-9 that if it were part of law now, would do anything about these acts and these brazen attacks.

00:44:37.280 And moreover, the people who are calling for violence, the people who are threatening violence, the people who are inciting and calling for genocide, already subject to criminal code prohibitions and not saved by the religious defense.

00:44:52.240 The religious defense only applies to hate speech. None of the sections dealing with violence. But the liberals are trying to hide behind their own inaction and failure to lead and failure to unite the country in the midst of this hate. And they're using that as justification to go after lawful and what should be free expression.

00:45:11.100 Yeah, I find it very troublesome. And I think that their answer is, here's a few million dollars more for a bulletproof glass. I think that signals that they're not doing anything proactively. They're just saying, oh, you got to brace yourselves. You will be shot in the future. Hopefully this will just stop the glass from shattering. It's not proactive. It's certainly not deporting foreign national agents provocateurs like the 700 terrorists I mentioned earlier.

00:45:39.300 I'm very worried about this. Let me ask you, do we have any allies? Are there any civil liberties groups?

00:45:46.260 Sometimes the left-leaning civil liberties groups actually do speak up on these things. Are there any other sources of political power?

00:45:53.660 Is there anyone in the Senate that cares? The Senate is generally a creature of the carny liberals, but not always.

00:46:00.780 Is there anyone fighting against this, Andrew, besides you?

00:46:03.720 Well, look, I think I've obviously been, and the Conservative Party has been the most vocal critic of it, but I've actually been quite heartened by how much opposition to Bill C-9 there has been from left and right.

00:46:15.460 It's been denounced by the Canadian Constitution Foundation, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and among faith communities.

00:46:22.620 Pretty much every denomination and every religion in Canada is represented in the list of those who have, at least in whole or in part, condemned Bill C-9.

00:46:31.600 And that includes, you know, Christian organizations from the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops to the United Church, which has been more aligned on the progressive side.

00:46:40.260 It's the Rabbinical Council of Toronto, the Orthodox Jewish community.

00:46:43.900 And then you also had 350 Muslim organizations this week come out against Bill C-9.

00:46:50.200 And there have even been a couple of liberal MPs that have been feeling a lot of pressure from their Muslim constituents and their Christian constituents alike.

00:46:58.060 Whether they'll be allowed to vote freely, I don't know.

00:47:00.860 A couple of them broke ranks with their party on a bill this week to do with an arms exports to the U.S. because of their Israel concern.

00:47:09.920 So I don't know if Mark Carney will allow them to vote freely on Bill C-9.

00:47:13.440 But as I said, every single party was against Bill C-9 until the Liberals made this deal to remove longstanding religious freedom protections.

00:47:22.000 And I think for some in their caucus, it might have been for political expediency.

00:47:25.160 But when you hear the comments from Mark Miller back in October, a lot of liberals fundamentally believe that you should be arrested and charged if you dare to vote verses of scripture they disagree with.

00:47:36.180 I appreciate you spending so much time with us. My last question is, how about the media? I think by nature, independent journalists are more free speech oriented.

00:47:44.700 um but the big slow-moving ancient battleships like uh the globe and mail comes to mind

00:47:52.040 they typically support mark carney in fact they're a little bit radical i think in that

00:47:56.300 but every once in a while they do the right thing it's funny as i mean just to to give a long answer

00:48:03.140 for a moment i remember back in the uh the trenches of the fight against section 13 of

00:48:08.040 the canadian human rights act which which you would know all too well you were personally at

00:48:11.460 the forefront of that. And that was repealed, I think it was in 2013. So 13 years ago. And at the

00:48:17.820 time, there was I remember a great deal of support from people in the mainstream media, there was a

00:48:23.240 principled liberal, small L liberal voices, even some big L liberal voices. I remember notably the

00:48:28.580 Senator Jerry Grafstein, as well as some others that stood up for free speech, because free speech

00:48:33.100 was not a conservative value or right wing value. It was a Canadian value. And my goodness, in the

00:48:39.700 Ten years between that and the Online Harms Act, it was so discouraging to see how many of those people withered away.

00:48:47.880 These principled voices that even would be in the pages of the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, on CBC defending freedom of expression from the left were gone.

00:48:56.800 The chorus of Liberal members of Parliament that at one point would have stood up for freedom of expression but no longer are there.

00:49:02.940 This is, I think, incredibly concerning.

00:49:04.780 Free speech is something that should be a value that all Canadians hold to, but that sadly isn't the case. There might be a couple of outliers here and there, but they are in the minority. So I think it is important. I will continue. I said in my maiden speech that I came to Ottawa and I came to politics because I wanted to make Canada a freer place. And Bill C-9 has been obviously an example of the Liberals trying to call my bluff on that pledge.

00:49:27.480 But we are going to continue to stand up for religious freedom and I will seek allies from wherever I can get on there.

00:49:33.980 So as far as senators are concerned, you know, I think there may be some that have some objections to C9 from the left.

00:49:39.840 I hope they are able to use their independence in the Senate that we often hear of and actually hold the government to account on this.

00:49:47.640 Give me just 30 more seconds. Do you see in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the CBC or other traditionally liberal media?

00:49:55.180 has there been a pundit a commentator someone who says i love mark carney but this is wrong

00:50:00.760 like are there any liberal libertarians left in the media you know there's been some reporting

00:50:07.580 the national post has done a little bit to its credit so as cbc as far as columnists go though

00:50:13.320 i just haven't seen it i haven't seen this rise to the level i haven't seen the pundit class

00:50:18.180 weighing in on this uh and and i'm not expecting it at this point but i think independent media

00:50:22.420 has done a bang-up job.

00:50:23.620 I know MPs' offices have been getting besieged

00:50:26.140 by well over 100,000 calls and even many more emails.

00:50:30.500 So Canadians are engaged on this,

00:50:32.020 faith communities are engaged

00:50:33.200 and will continue to fight for freedom.

00:50:35.280 Andrew, great to catch up with you.

00:50:36.440 What's the best way for people to follow you online

00:50:38.980 or in other ways?

00:50:40.740 Look, I've been following this closely

00:50:42.680 and I've been sharing updates in my clips

00:50:44.480 from committee in the House of Commons on social media.

00:50:46.900 So if people want to follow me on X,

00:50:48.460 I'm at Andrew Lawton.

00:50:49.980 And if they want to follow me on Facebook,

00:50:51.760 you can find me at Andrew Lawton there. Thank you, my friend. Hope to keep in touch. So glad

00:50:56.360 you're fighting this fight. Thank you. There is Andrew Lawton, member of parliament from the

00:51:01.320 London area. Used to be a journalist and he's keeping the spirit of free speech alive. Stay

00:51:07.040 with us. More ahead. Well, that's our show for the day. Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us

00:51:17.000 here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:51:21.760 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - March 12, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Carney continues Trudeau’s war on free speech in Canada

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