00:25:27.660Good. It's a pleasure to have you. You're always out there on the street.
00:25:30.880You and your cameraman seem to have a nose for news.
00:25:34.040You just know where things are going to be.
00:25:35.780And that place on Saturday was a place in Toronto called Christy Pits.
00:25:41.580Why don't you tell my viewers a little bit about the history of Christy Pits and what happened there on Saturday?
00:25:47.900So it's a public park that itself is a historically significant backdrop because in 1933, a riot broke out that was essentially it happened during a baseball game.
00:26:02.480And there were Jewish and Italian immigrants fighting with members of swastika clubs.
00:26:10.280And it was an hours long brawl. Police were heavily criticized for not doing much to prevent it, despite prior warning.
00:26:19.700And since then, Christy Pits has sort of carried that legacy, which has been, let's say, the imagery from it has been drawn on by local Antifa groups.
00:26:37.000And with the Christy Pits hardball league, it's three baseball bats pointing downwards in the same style as an Antifa arrow.
00:26:48.060And, you know, that's sort of the backdrop to what happened on Saturday, which was a rally held by Canada First, an anti-mass immigration rally.
00:26:59.220And in response to that, different groups planned counter protests, including Antifa counter protesters.
00:27:27.620So I thankfully no violence of that nature.
00:27:30.720But there was nonetheless verbal and physical assaults.
00:27:37.000The Canada First group was outnumbered by a large margin, and they were encircled by counter protesters.
00:27:46.640When they then moved to leave the park, some counter protesters followed them down the street, down side streets, pushing, shoving, blocking, things of that nature.
00:27:58.500You know, it looks like police were fairly numerous.
00:28:02.860They had bike helmets, not ride helmets so much.
00:28:06.180It looks like they didn't let things get too out of hand.
00:28:08.920I'm going to say, if someone started swinging a baseball bat at people, I think the police would have been there very quickly.
00:28:14.600Because that would be a very assault with a weapon, aggravated assault.
00:28:18.980You start hitting people with baseball bats, you could kill them or grievously injure them.
00:28:23.540It doesn't quite look like it got that bad.
00:28:27.980And in fact, I would say that there was a relatively short period of time where police didn't have a good handle on the situation, maybe 10 minutes or so going down Bloor Street.
00:28:39.720For the rest, police maintained a visible presence and more proactive than I've seen at other rallies in the past.
00:28:49.680The one point of criticism I might raise is, unlike other events where counter-protesters and protesters are separated by barricades or are prevented from intermingling, that didn't happen here.
00:29:04.240Now, you go to, as I mentioned at the top, you go to so many street events, some are one-sided protests, a few of them are, as you mentioned, protesters, generally separated by some physical barrier and by police.
00:29:23.360Do you, I mean, you go to so many of these protests or rallies, do you recognize the same people?
00:29:28.820Do you recognize an Antifa boss or organizer?
00:29:32.360Minister, I know you criticize the so-called Canadian anti-hate network, which is actually funded by the Trudeau government and now the Kearney government.
00:29:39.820Is Antifa a real force in the greater Toronto area, for example?
00:29:45.600There is most definitely a movement that exists.
00:29:49.060I don't know that there is a leader as such.
00:29:52.300I think that they try to organize in a more flat structure, although there are people who have positions of maybe informally, but who are the organizers and so forth.
00:30:09.080And to your point, it's often, you know, there's repetition in the characters who appear at different events, different parts of the city for different reasons.
00:30:20.160And that's part of what drew me into wanting to document Ontario's protest subculture, trying to understand how and why that is.
00:30:30.800So there is a real presence, you know, and my general experience, I would say at most protests is that most people are there in good faith.
00:30:42.040And it's the ones who have ulterior purposes, including the opportunity to hijack social justice causes or righteous anger for their own sort of personal ends, whether that's just catharsis, the sake of harassment for its own sake or whatever the case may be.
00:31:06.700But it is here, it is real, and as far as the Canadian Anti-Hate Network is concerned, there is an Ontario court ruling that confirms that Khan has assisted the Antifa movement, which has been violent.
00:31:23.140And there are individual players who can be connected to that organization, although I do note that Khan keeps its activists at arm's length.
00:31:34.900You know, one of the things that, I remember the first time I really encountered Antifa, and it was over a decade ago, it was actually during the Occupy Wall Street movement, which there was an echo encampment in Toronto, even though no Canadian banks fell.
00:31:51.900It was a movement basically that said, look, all these big banks are failing, they're getting bailed out, what about the rest of us?
00:31:58.720And there is a compelling logic there, but that wasn't a Canadian story, Canada actually weathered that crisis, but they had an encampment and I went down there, and I sort of poked around and they had an encampment, but actually no one was staying there.
00:32:13.720Like, it was more sort of theatre, and I got to know, not in a friendly way, but I got to, I started to recognise some of the leaders.
00:32:22.900I have to say, here, let me just throw to a clip, and this is from when I was at the Sun News Network, of what it was like, street encampment protests.
00:32:31.040I'm guessing this was more than 15 years ago. Here, take a look, about 15 years ago, take a look.
00:43:13.320Sheila Gunn-Reed here on special assignment this week in Iraqi Kurdistan.
00:43:17.280I'm here documenting your efforts to save the Christian survivors of an ISIS genocide here in the place that has been the cradle of Christianity
00:43:58.800AMAZING CIVIL LIBERTYS INITIATIVE LAUNCHED BY THE REBELS TO GIVE THESE GUYS SOME REPRESENTATION AND HOPEFULLY CONFUSE THE SITUATION THAT WE'VE GOT DOWN HERE.
00:44:10.440THEY WANT US TO MOVE THIS SIGN AROUND. WE CAN CONTINUE DISPLAYING IT, APPARENTLY, AS LONG AS WE MOVE IT BACK AND FORTH.
00:44:20.160SO THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE ARE GOING TO DO.
00:44:22.360I'M HERE WITH SARAH MILLER, ONE OF CANADA'S BEST HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS, AND WE ARE HERE TO HAND DELIVER HER METICULOUSLY DRAFTED HUMAN RIGHTS COMPLAINT DOCUMENTING THE HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES THAT UNFOLDED IN CANADA OVER THE LAST TWO YEARS UNDER THE AUSPICES OF THE PANDEMIC.
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00:45:30.920YOU SEE, THIS IS A MAN THAT I HAVE DIFFERENCES WITH.
00:45:40.920AND WE'LL CALL IT A MEDIA ORGANIZATION. YOUR GROUP.
00:45:42.920NEARLY EVERY MEDIA OUTLET HAS FALLEN IN LIFE, EXCEPT HER ONE.
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00:46:04.920I'VE BEEN TOLD OVER THREE TIMES TODAY.
00:46:06.920YOU'RE IN A CITY FACILITY? YEAH, SO ARE YOU.