Rebel News Podcast - September 24, 2025


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Ezra heads to court in fight for press freedom


Episode Stats

Length

48 minutes

Words per Minute

177.61934

Word Count

8,595

Sentence Count

640

Misogynist Sentences

7

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I had a depressing day. I spent it at the Federal Court of Appeal
00:00:03.500 fighting for freedom of the press. It was a lonely fight. There were no allies in the room.
00:00:07.860 I'll tell you more about that. But first, I want to invite you to get what we call Rebel News Plus.
00:00:13.680 It's the video version of this podcast because you absolutely have to see the second part of
00:00:17.860 the show. Drea Humphrey and Sheila Gunn-Reed get in a helicopter and go being part of the Rebel
00:00:25.340 Air Force flying over the ostrich ranch in B.C. looking for the ostrich killers. If what I've
00:00:32.320 just said makes no sense to you, it is hard to understand. I get it. But you're going to see it
00:00:37.000 all with your eyes on that segment of the show. So do yourself a favor and get Rebel News Plus
00:00:42.000 eight bucks a month. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com.
00:00:55.340 Tonight, does anyone care about freedom of speech or freedom of the press anymore?
00:01:03.700 It's September 25th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
00:01:06.400 You're fighting for freedom!
00:01:09.720 Shame on you, you sensorism bug!
00:01:12.840 Well, hi, everybody. I just got back to the office, the studio here, from the Federal Court
00:01:27.660 of Appeal, which is in downtown Toronto. It's a big building on 180 Queen Street West, for
00:01:32.860 those who know the city. There's all sorts of different courts and tribunals there. I've
00:01:36.640 been in that building probably half a dozen times. Frankly, I have a wonderful memory from
00:01:41.680 that building. I know that sounds really weird to say, but the first time I was ever in that
00:01:46.000 courthouse was in 2019, when Justin Trudeau's handpicked election debates committee banned
00:01:52.240 Rebel News and, at the time, True North from attending the debates. The last minute, they
00:01:58.700 told us that. It was, like, I think on the Thursday or the Friday, and if I'm going from
00:02:03.820 memory now, I think the debates was on a Monday. So they really made it almost impossible to
00:02:07.820 appeal, but we found lawyers who rushed down there. And I think it was the morning of the
00:02:13.260 debates, we found a judge who was available, and a courtroom that was available, which is
00:02:18.380 not easy to do, like on no notice. And the judge heard the case on an emergency basis.
00:02:24.280 And I could see, as the minutes went by, that the judge was warming to the case, and he was
00:02:29.360 asking more and more critical questions to the government. And for the first time maybe in my
00:02:34.220 life, I could feel that the judge was going our way. And it really felt like a miracle. I left
00:02:41.820 there, and it was one of the happiest moments of my time at Rebel News. We were vindicated.
00:02:47.680 Justin Trudeau's bullying was called out by the judge. He had so many lawyers in there, but we beat
00:02:53.460 him anyways. So that happened at 180 Queen Street West. I've since been back several times, because like I
00:02:59.180 say, there's all these different courts there. We have had some good luck in the courts, again,
00:03:03.660 in 2021. The federal court said that Trudeau had to let us in the election debates. Sometimes now,
00:03:11.180 simply telling the government we're going to go to federal court is enough to make them scared
00:03:14.960 straight. For example, they tried to ban us from reporting on the G7 conference in Banff.
00:03:20.660 They wouldn't let us, but as soon as we filed at court, they knew the jig was up, so they conceded.
00:03:26.240 It's quite funny that way. But today, it was a different feeling. We had already been to the
00:03:31.900 federal court, and we lost there. So we were at the Federal Court of Appeal, and we were arguing
00:03:37.140 about something you might have heard me talk about before. The acronym is QCJO, Qualified Canadian
00:03:43.680 Journalism Organization. What a mouthful, eh? What an alphabet soup. It's a code word for a licensed
00:03:51.260 journalist that Justin Trudeau approves. I mean, that's how he described it, trustworthy journalists,
00:03:57.040 as in he can trust them to do the right thing. 99% of journalists in this country are on the
00:04:03.160 government payroll in one way or another, and all the big newspapers are QCJO compliant,
00:04:11.600 which is why they're so obedient. Only Rebel News and maybe one or two others are not QCJO
00:04:17.800 compliant. But I've heard it said that the QCJO system was called the Kill Rebel Bill. Two different
00:04:24.760 journalists told me that. I mean, I would have thought it, but for them to say it was quite
00:04:29.380 striking to hear someone else say it. And the idea is, how can you separate Rebel News from the other
00:04:36.500 media? And as I mentioned, with the two cases involving the elections debate, it's really hard,
00:04:41.240 because what are you going to say? Oh, you guys are too biased? Well, we're not any more biased than
00:04:45.700 the CBC or the Toronto Star. I mean, there's really nothing you can say about Rebel News that you
00:04:51.940 can't say about other media. I mean, we're Canadian owned. We follow Canadian news. We
00:04:56.360 follow the general practices of journalism. I mean, you really just have to say, Rebel, you're out. But
00:05:03.000 even that, how do you do it? Well, you do it the way Trudeau did it. He handpicked a committee of his
00:05:10.580 allies and called them an advisory group. And then he said to the Canada Revenue Agency, which is
00:05:16.560 actually in charge of the QCJO, you do the work, but listen to my handpicked advisory group. And so
00:05:23.700 I learned in court today, and so anyhow, just to tell you what I was doing in court, is we were
00:05:28.980 denied a QCJO, so we appealed, and then we appealed again, and that brought us to today. But here's what
00:05:33.820 I learned in court today. I learned that the civil servant at the Canada Revenue Agency had agreed to
00:05:42.400 give us the QCJO status. But then Trudeau's advisory board weighed in, and the civil servant,
00:05:50.220 the professional career civil servant at the CRA flipped and said, okay, fine, we won't let them
00:05:56.400 have it. Anyways, let me show you a few videos I recorded on location at the court. The first one,
00:06:02.480 when I knew it was a tough battle, a bit of an uphill battle, but I was hopeful. So watch this video,
00:06:07.400 slightly repetitions of what I just said, but here's me early this morning.
00:06:10.760 Ezra Levan here for Rebel News. Behind me, a police guard. Don't worry,
00:06:14.540 I'm not being arrested. It's just parked next to this building here,
00:06:18.100 which is the Federal Court of Appeal in downtown Toronto. In a few minutes' time,
00:06:24.820 I'll be making my way up into the court to the seventh floor, where Rebel News is challenging
00:06:30.840 a decision by the lower court, the federal court, regarding freedom of the press. Let me give you
00:06:35.440 a quick summary of it. Justin Trudeau decided to regulate journalism. He invented a journalism
00:06:42.960 license called the QCJO, Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization. Now, that's not a
00:06:49.340 Canadian thing to do. In Canada, the government doesn't get to choose who is or isn't journalists.
00:06:55.060 The government doesn't get to decide who can or can't criticize them. But Trudeau did it,
00:07:00.240 and the rest of the media went along with it for two reasons. Number one, of course,
00:07:04.240 they were all getting this license naturally. It was really targeting independent,
00:07:09.040 critical journalists like Rebel News. And number two, when you get this license,
00:07:13.800 you get massive government funding. So for example, why would the Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail,
00:07:18.860 which have this journalism license, criticize the licensing regime when it's just independent
00:07:24.000 guys like Rebel News, who are locked out? So we're going to be in the court by ourselves today,
00:07:29.540 I predict. The federal court of appeal, we've got two lawyers on our side. I don't know how many will
00:07:34.780 be on the government side. Typically, they send three, four, five, six, seven. I mean, it's only
00:07:39.500 taxpayers' money, right? The Justice Department is really the largest law firm in Canada, and they
00:07:44.640 will be deployed. They will be arguing that the government has the power to determine who is or isn't
00:07:50.600 a journalist. And in one sense, who cares what they say, right? We can just do our journalism as
00:07:55.660 usual. Not quite, because flowing from this QCJO license are various things. The smallest thing,
00:08:03.540 for example, is that subscribers to QCJO news sources can write off their subscription fees on their taxes.
00:08:10.620 It's not a huge thing, but it's a two-tiered system. If you buy government-approved news, you'll get a tax
00:08:19.040 credit. But if you buy independent news, you won't. It's a little bit of discrimination pushing
00:08:23.200 people towards their propaganda pools. But that's the least of it. I mentioned already massive
00:08:28.740 government subsidies are available to QCJO sources. Obviously, Revolues would never apply for or accept
00:08:34.740 government money. Here's what really worries me about it. First of all, the credentialing is morally
00:08:39.380 wrong. Who the hell is the government to determine who is or isn't a journalist? But C-18, which is another
00:08:45.460 government bill, gives the government the power to order social media platforms to change what they call
00:08:52.080 discoverability. That's a fancy way of saying when you type in a search for Mark Carney news or liberal
00:08:59.400 party, what is the order that things show up? That's a very important part of the internet. And under C-18,
00:09:06.960 the federal government gave itself the power to order Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter, whoever, to alter
00:09:13.300 their algorithm to suit the government's political purposes. Now, the example they gave in the
00:09:18.820 legislation, they just gave a short list and said, and others, they had a couple examples. One was
00:09:24.920 French language results. Another was indigenous language results. But they left it open. So if you do not
00:09:33.200 have a QCJO news license, the government can order your news to be suppressed, downranked,
00:09:40.740 de-boosted. But if you tow the government line and get a QCJO news license, they can order the press
00:09:47.540 to boost you, order the social media companies to boost your results. It's a way of interfering with
00:09:52.620 the internet and cutting off traffic to independent sites like ours. You think this would animate every
00:09:58.620 free speech activist in the country, from the Canadian Association of Journalists, the falsely named
00:10:04.800 Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. But they don't care because, like I say, they're all on the
00:10:08.660 inside. They get paid to be Trudeau and now Mark Carney-Shills. Well, not us. We're going to fight.
00:10:14.540 And I've set up a special website called letusreport.com. And there's two reasons to go
00:10:19.420 there. The first is, I have put up the legal briefs, both from our lawyers and from the government
00:10:25.100 lawyers there. The government case is 30 pages long. Ours is 34 pages. So it's not a super long read.
00:10:31.300 And I want you to see both visions of Canada. The government vision, where bureaucrats and politicians
00:10:37.040 get to determine who is or isn't a journalist, and our vision, which is let people decide.
00:10:43.240 What's the government doing meddling? I think that's unconstitutional, frankly.
00:10:47.940 That's one reason to go to letusreport.com. The other is I need your help. The government has
00:10:52.960 unlimited resources. They want to squash us like a bug. It's obvious. We are on our own. We have to
00:10:58.780 crowdfund our legal fees. And, you know, we're being economical. But we want good lawyers.
00:11:05.420 If you could help me cover the cost of that, go to letusreport.com. Anyways, I'm going in right now.
00:11:10.520 I'm going to get through the metal detector. And I'm going to go take a seat. And I will be live
00:11:15.140 tweeting the proceedings. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be the only one in there. This isn't the sort of
00:11:20.880 thing that concerns the Canadian Association of Journalists. They don't really care about government
00:11:24.980 regulation because it benefits them. I think we may be the only news company in Canada that doesn't
00:11:31.740 get the QCJO designation. And I have heard the law referred to by two different people
00:11:37.700 as the Get Rebel Law because it's so obviously targeted at us. It hasn't stopped us yet in 10
00:11:44.580 years. But I am worried that if they order the algorithm to be changed, they're coming for us.
00:11:49.220 Well, I sat through the three hours and there was two government lawyers, but also three more sort
00:11:56.700 of mini-me government lawyers sitting behind them. I don't know if you've ever been in a court. You
00:12:00.760 have different rows, the lawyers and then other lawyers. It's just like it's a real hierarchy. So
00:12:06.380 there were two formal lawyers for the government and three others on their side. And then there was
00:12:11.280 me and my two lawyers. And then the place was empty, like no one cares anymore. And that's what makes me
00:12:16.140 sad. It makes me sad that in 2025, when a journalism organization like ours is being banned from having
00:12:25.880 some sort of a certification by the government, that no one cares. And maybe it's that I'm too
00:12:31.260 abrasive or too critical of other media, but that doesn't mean they have to, you know, they don't
00:12:35.920 have to be there cheering for me. They can at least write about the news. I think that 10 years ago before
00:12:40.680 Justin Trudeau set out to destroy journalistic independence, and he did it with a carrot and a stick,
00:12:45.280 by the way. He did it with bribes if you're obedient and sticks if you don't. So after 10 years of
00:12:50.800 incremental change, no one in the regime media cares. And if they do care, they don't say it out loud
00:12:58.020 because they get so much in subsidies from the government. That's sad. I think we're going to lose.
00:13:03.580 I'll be very, very honest with you. Like I had a real sense we were going to win that first court battle
00:13:08.660 in 2019. I was paying close attention today. I'd say it's a 60-40 chance we're going to lose. I mean,
00:13:14.720 it's not hopeless. The judges actually had fairly good questions for the government lawyers, which
00:13:19.460 may be a sign that they're poking holes in it. I was sad that I was the only person in court,
00:13:25.440 but it just sort of hit me when you had all these government lawyers talking to government judges
00:13:30.840 about a government bureaucrat denying us journalistic status. And I thought,
00:13:34.960 who the hell do you think you are? Like, why are you sitting in judgment as to whether or not I can
00:13:41.660 be a journalist? Like, how did this happen to our country? I mean, put aside this legal argument and
00:13:46.380 that fact and this appeal. And like, that's all once you've accepted the fact that this is normal.
00:13:51.580 But why are we accepting this as normal? Anyways, after three hours in court, I was a little bit sad.
00:13:56.680 And here's my sad Ezra recording outside the court. It's about five, 10 minutes long. Here, take a listen.
00:14:01.820 Oh, hi, everybody. Ezra Lamant here standing under a tree because it's starting to rain. I'm actually
00:14:08.580 right near the Federal Court of Appeal. That's that really big building there where we just had a
00:14:12.900 three-hour hearing, Rebel News taking on Mark Carney, or actually, it's more like Mark Carney taking on
00:14:18.760 Rebel News. The subject matter is a journalism license that Justin Trudeau brought in several
00:14:23.960 years ago. Rebel News applied for it. It's called the QCJO, Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization.
00:14:31.140 It's basically a journalism license. You have to apply for the government. If you don't get it,
00:14:37.140 they have the power to order social media platforms to downrank your discoverability.
00:14:44.060 That's in Bill 18. It allows the government to order Facebook, YouTube, Google, etc. to make it so
00:14:51.240 when people search for your news source. The licensed QCJO choices are boosted. And the independent
00:14:59.180 citizen journalists are throttled. That's why it's so dangerous. Anyways, I won't go into the
00:15:04.640 QCJO right now. I want to talk about the hearing we just had. Rebel News had two lawyers. Government
00:15:10.940 of Canada had two lawyers sitting at the front. But it ranged over the period of time up to three
00:15:15.860 others in the back of the court on their side. On my side, it was just me. It was a huge courtroom,
00:15:21.840 completely empty other than the lawyers, two clerks, three judges. It was a three-judge panel
00:15:27.400 and me. There was no civil liberties people there from all the traditional groups who claim to be
00:15:33.600 for press freedom. There was no one there from the Canadian Association of Journalists. There was no
00:15:37.680 one there from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. No one there from Amnesty International,
00:15:42.360 Penn Canada. Of course not, because they've all been co-opted. They've all taken the QCJO news
00:15:47.980 license and the subsidy that comes with it. Rebel News doesn't want the subsidy. We just want the
00:15:53.040 ability to do our jobs. But you see what that's done? That's neutered. That's nullified any independent
00:15:59.740 spirit in the media. And it hasn't happened overnight. It's been a 10-year process. I think
00:16:05.040 if you could go back in time 10 years and tell the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the CBC what has
00:16:10.880 become of this journalism license, they would be shocked. But over the course of 10 years, they become
00:16:15.560 more and more dependent on government cash and more and more obedient. It's just a handful of
00:16:20.700 outliers like Rebel News. Anyway, so to the court. It was astonishing to hear some of the arguments
00:16:26.640 from the government. One of the government lawyers said this is not journalism regulation or policing
00:16:31.400 at all. It is not journalism regulation, she said. Well, of course it is. That's why we're here. We
00:16:37.720 wouldn't care if it wasn't journalism regulation. There are literally regulations that are published.
00:16:44.140 It just was very bizarre. What I learned today that maybe I didn't quite register is that there was
00:16:50.500 a professional civil servant at the Canada Revenue Agency who approved our QCGO status. I actually
00:16:59.160 don't think I knew that. But Trudeau's hand-picked committee of his journalist friends who are not
00:17:07.640 staffers at the CRA. Trudeau just appointed a committee. I mean, he named his allies to it.
00:17:14.120 They contradicted the CRA civil servant and made her change her report. Can you believe that? A
00:17:24.360 government civil servant said, yeah, Rebel News passes the test. And then Trudeau's friend says,
00:17:29.700 no, it doesn't. So then the lady at the civil servant says, oh, sorry, I'll ban them.
00:17:36.060 The craziest thing is the reason why. In their first attempt at banning us, they said we were
00:17:41.980 too opinionated. They actually said that. But they realized that that was not a grounds under law
00:17:47.420 to ban us because opinion journalism is acceptable journalism. It's half of what the CBC and the Toronto
00:17:53.720 Star does anyways. But they later said that what we did was not real news. They said that only
00:18:00.120 two percent of what we do is real news. And I thought, how can they even say that? That doesn't
00:18:04.780 make any sense. We don't do weather. We don't do sports. We don't do human interest stories. How
00:18:10.060 could you possibly say? And we selected the audit period in question three weeks during the trucker
00:18:17.900 convoy where we did more journalism than we ever had in our lives. As you may know, in February of 2022,
00:18:23.720 we had 400 million views and impressions. So certainly a lot of people around the world
00:18:28.680 thought we were doing journalism. How can you, we were broadcasting almost 24 hours a day during
00:18:33.500 the trucker convoy. How can you watch that three weeks of journalism and say, no, that's not journalism.
00:18:39.200 We didn't figure it out until the very end of the hearing today. The government said, no,
00:18:44.580 none of that was journalism. None of that counts. Because at the end of some of those videos or on the
00:18:50.900 website, we mentioned a crowdfunding campaign for the truckers. So the government said, yes,
00:18:57.200 you did an enormous amount of journalism. They mentioned podcasts, documentaries, etc. But they
00:19:03.000 said, because you supported the truckers and invited other people to support it, we're not calling that
00:19:08.740 news. None of our coverage on the truckers counted because it was all, and at the end we'd say, hey,
00:19:14.800 if you want to support us, go to truckerlawyer.com or whatever our website was. That's why we're banned
00:19:21.120 for our support of the truckers. They literally admitted that in court today, their lawyers. I
00:19:25.020 thought that was incredible. You know, I was getting bogged down in the minutia, the different
00:19:30.900 rules. And I mean, here's an example. The law says a QCJO journalism organization merely has to have
00:19:39.180 two unrelated people publishing news on current events. Well, we have 30 people doing that.
00:19:46.220 Obviously, we need the test. Frankly, even if only, quote, two percent of our stuff is real news,
00:19:51.400 that's still much more news than is necessary to qualify. So it was really going down the rabbit
00:19:57.360 hole. And I just sort of thought, what are we doing here? You have four, five, six, seven lawyers,
00:20:03.900 three judges at the Federal Court of Appeal. You have two clerks. I don't know how much money the
00:20:10.100 government has spent on this over the last five years, a million bucks fighting us. And I thought,
00:20:14.720 you know, I agree with some of the things the lawyers are saying. I disagree with other things.
00:20:17.620 But why are we in a court? Why was a government panel telling government bureaucrats that we should
00:20:25.460 be denied our journalism status? And why was a government lawyer arguing to a government judge that
00:20:30.980 that? What is the government doing involved with who is a journalist at all? Since when did politicians,
00:20:40.700 judges, lawyers, bureaucrats have the ability to determine who a journalist is? Like, who the hell
00:20:47.020 are they to sit in judgment? I mean, I happen to think that we meet all the tests. I happen to think
00:20:52.160 it's clear they rigged the rules to be against us. It's clear that they handpicked a committee that hated
00:20:58.940 rebel news. This whole thing is really a way just to get rebel news. I've heard two other journalists
00:21:03.440 refer to the QCJO system as the get rebel rule. I believe that we pass the test of the CBC and if
00:21:10.800 the Toronto Star does, we sure do too. But why should I even have to jump over their hurdles? Since when
00:21:18.160 does a journalist in any self-respecting democracy have to please the politicians before having the right
00:21:26.080 to cover the politicians? Politicians don't have a veto who gets to cover them. That's reverse.
00:21:32.260 Journalists scrutinize politicians. Politicians don't get to scrutinize. Well, they can scrutinize.
00:21:37.880 But to ban, to punish or reward journalists, it was pretty gross in there. The judges did ask some good
00:21:45.500 questions of the government side, which gives me a clicker of hope. But really, I think what our biggest
00:21:52.320 hurdle today was, was the standard of review. And let me give you one minute about what that means to
00:21:58.000 lawyers. So the Canada Revenue Agency made this decision. And as I mentioned, they were pressured
00:22:03.960 by Trudeau's friends. So we appealed that to the federal court. And then we are appealing that to
00:22:08.740 the federal court of appeal. And the question that federal court of appeal judges have to ask themselves
00:22:14.720 is, how much deference do we give to the CRA, which blacklisted Rebel News? How much do we have to
00:22:23.640 respect their expertise? And it's different in different cases. But the law, I think, in this case
00:22:31.360 is reasonableness, not correctness. Here's what I mean. The federal court of appeal is not, there wasn't a
00:22:38.720 do-over. There wasn't evidence. It wasn't a new hearing. They were just looking at the case and saying,
00:22:43.740 was the ruling to blacklist Rebel News reasonable, plausible, understandable, even if it was wrong?
00:22:52.640 That's the standard of reasonableness, which is a lower standard than correctness. Did they get it
00:22:58.200 right? Even Mark Carney's lawyers today were saying, judge, if this is wrong, if this is an incorrect
00:23:07.280 decision, you still have to support it because we defer to the lower decision makers.
00:23:13.740 So even Mark Carney's lawyers themselves were saying, we're not even going to try and argue
00:23:21.520 that this was correct. We just have to say that, could someone believe this? And again,
00:23:28.020 what am I doing in court? I don't know. We've probably spent $100,000 on this case over the last
00:23:33.020 five years. I know the government's probably spent a million. Why are we in court arguing about whether
00:23:39.140 or not we have the right to be journalists? And why do we have to prove that it was unreasonable or
00:23:45.040 incorrect or whatever for us to be journalists? I find it very frustrating and a little bit sad.
00:23:50.700 I'm not sure how we're going to do here. If we lose again, I am going to seek leave to appeal to the
00:23:55.620 Supreme Court of Canada because I want the Supreme Court of Canada to either own this or disown this.
00:24:01.160 I'm getting ahead of myself. We haven't had the ruling here yet. There were some positive moments
00:24:05.200 where the government lawyers were grilled a bit. But it's very hard. You don't get a lot of wins
00:24:09.840 at the Federal Court of Appeal. They tend to stand by the lower court cases. I'm going to think about
00:24:15.180 this some more. But the one thing that gave me a little bit of hope when I was in the courtroom
00:24:18.720 by myself with all these other expensive people making decisions about our freedom.
00:24:25.200 Oh, by the way, the government said the Charter of Rights does not apply here.
00:24:28.660 How do you feel about that? But the one thing that gave me a little flicker of hope was this.
00:24:32.640 A few years ago, Elon Musk bought Twitter. And so Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney, when they decide
00:24:40.620 who is or isn't a journalist, that does have some real-world impact on us. I mentioned how it
00:24:46.240 affects the taxes of our subscribers. I mentioned how it could affect us being throttled online.
00:24:52.380 But that was all done before Elon Musk freed Twitter.
00:24:55.880 He renamed it X. And in a lot of places, what happens here is really important. It's important to us.
00:25:04.320 It could put us in legal jeopardy.
00:25:07.060 But I think Justin Trudeau and Mark Carney and the other bullies of the world,
00:25:11.540 I think in some ways they've been gone around and gone through, gone under.
00:25:17.260 And I don't think a lot of people are listening to them anymore. People are choosing to get information
00:25:22.680 on their own, regardless of what this court says, regardless of what the CRA says,
00:25:27.960 regardless of what Mark Carney or Justin Trudeau says.
00:25:31.260 And so I very much want to win this court case. And if I lose it, I'm going to appeal to the Supreme Court.
00:25:36.160 But I think that we have in part been saved by Elon Musk and his dedication to free speech
00:25:43.780 that in some ways is bigger than what any bureaucrat, politician, lawyer, or judge has to say.
00:25:50.720 And I'm holding on to that. I'm holding on to that because I need to have a little bit of hope.
00:25:55.580 All right, I'm going to make my way back to our office. Strange day at the Federal Court of Appeal.
00:26:00.940 We're in there alone fighting for freedom of the press. It's sort of depressing.
00:26:04.680 But if you can help us out, I'd be grateful for it. I haven't got my legal bill for today.
00:26:09.980 There's no chance that today's hearing will be less than $25,000. There's no chance.
00:26:14.680 If you can help, please go to letusreport.com. And by the way, you can read the legal briefs
00:26:19.900 for yourself there. We put both Mark Carney's legal brief and ours so you can read it over and see
00:26:24.820 if I'm right. There you have it. For Rebel News, I'm Ezra Levant. And to help us out,
00:26:30.380 which I need, go to letusreport.com.
00:26:33.060 Well, look, let me tell you a little secret. I know in advance that we're going to lose most of
00:26:40.700 our court cases. I know that. But I don't know which ones and I don't know how important the
00:26:46.440 wins are going to be either. When we went to court back in 2019, our lawyer, I remember him very
00:26:52.540 clearly. He said, we're going to lose. Can you please pay your legal bill in advance? That's what
00:26:58.180 he said. And we did. We wired in the money right away. That's how certain he was we were going to lose.
00:27:02.560 And it was a miracle that we won. In 2021, same thing. Because remember, the government had two
00:27:08.400 years to study the 2019 ruling and make the changes. Like in 2019, the court said, well,
00:27:14.840 the rules weren't clear. So in 2021, there were very clear rules. In 2019, the judge says the wrong
00:27:20.700 person told Rebel News they were banned. In 2021, they made sure they fixed that. In 2019,
00:27:25.740 the court said, you gave just a one line explanation for why they were banned. That's not
00:27:31.960 enough. So in 2021, I think they gave us like an 11 page reasons. So for two years, the liberal
00:27:38.060 government sort of reverse engineered their way to get Rebel News. And so I remember talking to our
00:27:43.640 lawyer in that case, it was Chad Williamson. He said, Ezra, for sure, you're going to lose this one.
00:27:47.380 Well, we fought it and we won. That's my reason that I fight even uphill battles, because you never
00:27:53.460 know when you're going to have a lucky strike. And you never know when, you know, I mean, as I say,
00:28:00.520 you make no shots that you don't take. So we go to bat for these things. And sometimes they're
00:28:07.240 small wins. I don't know if you remember when we sued Stephen Gilbeau, the former environment
00:28:11.500 minister, I forget what he's doing now, because he banned us on Twitter. And that sounds small and
00:28:17.080 tiny, but no, beating him and forcing him to unban us on Twitter and unblock us, which we've then
00:28:23.200 replicated many times. It's pushing back the government who thinks that we answer to them
00:28:28.720 rather than vice versa. It was a tiny win. Like it was like a one inch win. But so what? One inch
00:28:34.380 in the right direction is a pleasant change to always being pushed the wrong direction. So listen,
00:28:41.180 the fact that we, I think you're going to lose this battle is depressing to me. And it makes me sad.
00:28:47.180 It makes me sadder that no one else is in the room, but you know, I'm not going to stop
00:28:50.520 because someone's got to do it. And that's, I mean, there are some good guys out there. As you
00:28:54.660 know, we're big fans of the Democracy Fund that we work with all the time and of the Justice Center
00:29:00.340 for Constitutional Freedom. That's John Carpe. And there's a couple other groups like Christine
00:29:04.120 Van Gein with the CCF. I'm not saying there's no good guys out there, but there's very few good guys
00:29:10.460 in journalism. Like the Canadian Association of Journalists are completely colonized by Trudeau and
00:29:17.540 now Mark Carney. But someone's got to do it, don't you think? I mean, I remember when I was in court
00:29:23.040 a few months ago over my book, The Libranos and our lawn signs that the government said were illegal
00:29:27.800 because it really ticked off Trudeau. And I thought, are no other book publishers worried
00:29:32.300 about the fact that you can be prosecuted as an author? Well, the answer is no. And I just,
00:29:37.920 and I don't know how all these cases are going to go. We're going to probably lose more than we win,
00:29:43.720 especially on appeal. Generally, judges don't like to overturn lower rulings. They like to,
00:29:49.100 you know, defer to lower courts. And that was a big issue today. But we have to do it. It's in my
00:29:54.980 blood. It's, you know, I mean, I feel like a journalist a lot of the time, but every once in a
00:30:00.040 while I feel like a lawyer. I feel like an activist. And I think, if not now, when? And you know that it's
00:30:06.320 an old proverb, if not you, then who? And if not now, when? I think about those words because
00:30:12.960 sometimes I'd see an injustice and I think, well, if we don't do something about it, no one will.
00:30:17.140 That's why we set up the Democracy Fund as an independent arms like charity during the pandemic,
00:30:22.340 because there were thousands of cases of things going wrong and someone had to do something. So
00:30:27.740 anyways, I'm being a little bit melancholy because I lament the state of our country. And,
00:30:33.380 you know, I just can't get over that Justin Trudeau handpick a group of his allies. And they
00:30:40.460 basically were the mean girls who whispered amongst themselves and they managed to convince
00:30:45.240 the CRA to flip, to reverse their ruling and to ban us. And I was just thinking, that's what it's
00:30:51.580 like under Mark Carney and Justin Trudeau and all the other journalists are fined by it. Could you
00:30:56.480 imagine if one day Pierre Polyev wins and becomes prime minister? And instead of, and I think Pierre
00:31:04.200 Polyev would dismantle this atrocious, cute CJO, but can you imagine if he didn't? Can you imagine if
00:31:10.360 he appointed a handful of his close allies to be on this journalism committee of who got to have
00:31:16.640 this QCJO license and not? And, and for the mainstream media, who gets the free money and not?
00:31:23.420 And what if he were to point people to it? Like, um, oh, I don't know, like me, or how about instead
00:31:30.580 of me, how about Kian Bexty or Candace Malcolm or Derek Fildebrand? I'm talking about other independent
00:31:36.740 journalists. Like all these left-wing state broadcasters, like the CBC and Andrew Coyne
00:31:43.900 and Rosemary Barton, all of them, they're just tickled pink by this because they don't care about
00:31:48.800 the, the, the suppression of independent voices because they're doing great by this system
00:31:53.940 because their friends are in charge. But what would they say if Pierre Polyev's friends were in
00:32:00.560 charge? Now, I hope he's principled enough to detonate all these things, but you know what,
00:32:04.360 let me just put a marker down right now. Yeah, I'll, uh, I'll run the, the, uh, QCJO committee
00:32:10.940 if Polyev needs help to do that. Hell, I'll be the chairman of the CBC if he wants. That's the
00:32:16.940 thing about, you know, you've got to be principled. And I always say freedom of speech is the gift you
00:32:21.340 have to give to your opponent if you want it for yourself, because that's how precedent works. What
00:32:26.020 comes around goes around. You've got to make sure the rules are fair, but the other side actually
00:32:30.280 doesn't play that way. If Pierre Polyev ever took government and did not make those changes,
00:32:36.600 well, I would be delighted to be the boss of the CBC. And if people are terrified by that,
00:32:43.280 then they should dismantle the CBC now. Those are my thoughts on the day in court. Hey, while I was
00:32:49.500 doing that, I want to tell you, it's so exciting with this ostrich battle going on. And we've only had
00:32:54.940 snippets of news because the internet was so weak, but today we finally got a full report
00:32:59.160 from Drea Humphrey and Sheila Gunn-Reed who were down there. And you wouldn't believe it. You know,
00:33:03.420 my phone number is actually on the internet, if you can believe it. So I get random calls a lot.
00:33:08.460 And sometimes I don't answer it if I don't recognize the number. But I saw a phone number
00:33:13.640 and the area code and the city came up and it was, I thought, I wonder if this is near the ostrich farm.
00:33:20.340 So I answered the phone, even though I didn't know who it was. And wouldn't you know it, it was.
00:33:27.180 And it was a neighbor who had a helicopter. And would we like to use the helicopter to get some
00:33:33.840 aerial shots? Oh my gosh, it was so exciting. What a generous offer. So we managed to get Drea
00:33:39.120 and Sheila on that helicopter doing some recon. And they spotted the police staging ground,
00:33:47.340 which you could only do by helicopter. And yeah, without further ado, let me present to you
00:33:52.200 a very exciting report from the interior BC featuring our air force, Sheila and Drea.
00:34:00.780 You know, an ostrich might be a flightless bird, but our gals were in the sky. Here,
00:34:05.600 take a look at this.
00:34:06.320 The countdown between farmers at 301 Lane Jail Road in Edgewood, British Columbia's fight to try
00:34:15.120 to legally save their flock from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's senseless call order
00:34:21.140 to call them for an avian flu that two of their deceased carcasses late last year tested positive
00:34:28.960 for is on. It could be just a matter of hours between now and when the Canadian Food Inspection
00:34:38.360 Agency succeeds at calling these birds despite mass protests and eyes around the world watching.
00:34:46.220 And today we bring you a report of Rebel News being eyes in the sky from a helicopter to give you a
00:34:52.760 view of some of what CFIA has planned in how they're going to call these animals.
00:34:58.500 Animals that are not for food consumption. Animals that instead were being used for furthering
00:35:06.140 therapeutic research. Their antibodies being extracted from their eggs. These ostriches
00:35:12.400 represent so much. The battle for farmers' rights, food rights, sovereignty, and medical freedom.
00:35:21.260 I'm Drea Humphrey with Rebel News and this is Sheila Gunn-Reed with Rebel who's come a very long way
00:35:26.940 to be your eyes and ears including your eyes in the sky from a helicopter.
00:35:32.580 All right Sheila, here we are on the ground. We're seeing that there are protesters lined up
00:35:38.200 because as we revealed and will show you some of the footage we captured above, the hay bales are
00:35:45.480 organized in sort of a v-shape over here with a smaller line almost seeming to be blocking
00:35:53.280 the vehicles. What are you making of what we see? Yeah, so we were able to catch the hay trucks
00:36:01.400 being staged up the road. Sorry, I'm directionally challenged because we saw it in a helicopter but we
00:36:07.780 were able to see where the trucks were staged. They are the big square bales and they brought them in
00:36:14.220 four trucks worse and at first we thought they could be bringing them in to feed the birds but that
00:36:21.220 doesn't appear to be the case. They have brought them in to obscure the view from the road. In fact, the
00:36:27.480 hay bales follow the curve of the road so that if you're coming down the road you will not be able to
00:36:33.960 see what's happening behind the hay bales. And so the, you know, the presumption is that the call
00:36:40.500 when it does happen will happen behind the bales out of the view of the public. But we were able to
00:36:47.360 show people today the bales being brought in which I think was significant because the farmers were
00:36:54.220 arrested earlier today and so nobody has really been in the farm except for the police and the CFIA
00:37:01.980 agents. So really nobody knew what was happening. We were able to see it from above. That's right,
00:37:09.280 they wanted out of sight and out of your mind. And the same way that they in some ways sort of
00:37:14.480 convinced the farmers who were refusing to get out of the pen wanting to feed their animals till the
00:37:19.920 very last moment is the same way they kind of came through the back door. They told the farmers they
00:37:25.720 could feed the animals and when they came closer to the feed that's when they got arrested and they
00:37:32.280 came the same way back here. But enough of us gabbing, we have lots of footage of this including
00:37:37.480 earlier when some supporters did spot sort of the hay and the trucks and were pleading with them,
00:37:45.000 the truck drivers, as well as the companies to change their mind. Take a look here.
00:37:49.080 We can really make a mess out of this, you know.
00:37:52.280 We're on the right side.
00:37:56.280 Thanks for coming. Hopefully everybody's safe here now.
00:37:58.680 Are you guys supposed to protect the people?
00:38:00.360 You're supposed to protect the people.
00:38:02.280 Okay, I'm not saying you guys did.
00:38:04.200 Him and I can, right?
00:38:05.320 No, don't touch the fence, okay? Don't mess with the fence. That's all we're asking.
00:38:08.760 No worries.
00:38:09.160 We really don't want to be arrested.
00:38:10.600 Oh, that's good.
00:38:11.960 So just don't...
00:38:12.440 We were just talking one day, so we were in that...
00:38:14.680 Yeah, no, I get it. But one of the fellas was pushing one of the fence.
00:38:17.720 You're going to shoot the ostriches anyway.
00:38:19.960 I think from now on, everyone, if you see...
00:38:21.960 You bet. We're good.
00:38:22.680 ...Dog or myself talking to them.
00:38:25.480 So after that, we had heard mixed reports.
00:38:27.480 Everything's happening in the moment, so we didn't have time to verify it.
00:38:30.920 And we still don't know exactly what happened.
00:38:33.080 There was claims online that one of the companies wanted to pull out,
00:38:36.840 that they said it was booked through a third party.
00:38:39.000 They didn't know what it was going to be used for,
00:38:40.840 and that the farmer who gave the hay also wanted to pull out.
00:38:43.800 So maybe that was wrong, or maybe the CFIA said a deal is a deal.
00:38:48.200 We are around the corner, and this is what we spotted from the air,
00:38:52.520 thanks to one of our amazing Rebel News supporter.
00:38:56.040 Take a look at some of this footage.
00:38:58.040 We should tell you, as Drea said, that we were able to jump in a helicopter,
00:39:14.680 thanks to a Rebel News supporter.
00:39:16.040 The ride in the helicopter was gifted to us, and we're just so grateful for that,
00:39:21.400 because we were able to show the public what couldn't be seen from anywhere else.
00:39:25.880 We couldn't see anything that was happening in the farm as they were unloading the hay bales,
00:39:31.160 because, well, no one's allowed in the farm except the feds.
00:39:34.680 And we were able to tip off the farmers.
00:39:37.640 There was only one farmer left, and that was Dave Balinski,
00:39:42.040 as the other farmers were actually being booked and charged.
00:39:45.800 And he got a heads up, I don't know what it looked like over there.
00:39:48.760 Yeah, and we were there just right after the farmers were charged under the Animal Health Act,
00:39:58.040 I believe. We'll put it on the screen.
00:39:59.480 People are continuing to come here.
00:40:02.840 It seems to be endless, and the police are letting them in.
00:40:05.720 They're letting the protests happen.
00:40:07.320 But as we said, it looks like the plan is still to make this out of sight.
00:40:11.320 Rebel News is doing our best to actually live stream from above the pens.
00:40:15.480 So make sure you're checking our YouTube site, rebelnews.com, obviously,
00:40:20.040 and our main site, savetheostriches.com.
00:40:22.440 We don't know if they're going to jam those videos or not.
00:40:25.000 But for now, that is still streaming.
00:40:26.840 And if you want to watch the action as it happens,
00:40:30.600 both myself and Drea are streaming to our X account.
00:40:35.320 So Drea Humphrey, give them your Drea Humphrey somehow.
00:40:39.880 And Sheila Gunn-Reed at Sheila Gunn-Reed.
00:40:42.520 And if anything happens, we'll do our best to go live.
00:40:45.240 Please realize we're struggling with reception and upload speeds,
00:40:48.760 because we're not in the middle of nowhere.
00:40:52.520 But it's pretty remote.
00:40:54.360 And there are mountains.
00:40:55.720 And so it is difficult to get the news to you as quickly as you would like us to.
00:41:01.240 We're doing our very best.
00:41:02.840 But there's so much action happening.
00:41:04.520 Right.
00:41:04.920 You're seeing it.
00:41:05.720 It's nonstop.
00:41:06.840 And having two people, we're still running all around.
00:41:09.400 And things move very quickly.
00:41:11.000 Plus, tips come in.
00:41:12.120 Right.
00:41:12.520 Nonstop tips.
00:41:13.800 As I'm talking here, who knows how many have come in.
00:41:16.440 And some of them have been panning out great.
00:41:18.440 It really is a team effort here to try to save these birds.
00:41:23.320 And to weed through the rumors.
00:41:25.000 And to weed.
00:41:26.120 That's our job.
00:41:26.840 To weed for the rumors.
00:41:29.000 One was that a stay had already been accepted.
00:41:34.920 And that is not true, as you saw from the interview with the lawyer in the sky.
00:41:38.920 That is what they're hoping to happen tomorrow.
00:41:42.120 But I believe, so does the lawyer.
00:41:44.200 It looks like they're going very quickly here.
00:41:46.840 They're racing this day.
00:41:48.040 Yeah.
00:41:48.360 And I want to make sure we're keeping an eye on whether they are following
00:41:52.360 the practices they're supposed to do to make sure this is humane.
00:41:56.120 They better not cut any corners.
00:41:58.840 So keep watching at those avenues.
00:42:00.440 We said I'm Draya Humphrey with Rebel News.
00:42:02.760 I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed with Rebel News.
00:42:04.920 By the way, we're going to have to work late tonight because, Draya,
00:42:08.120 give us the time frame that they are allowed to conduct work on the farm until.
00:42:12.840 Yes.
00:42:13.240 So the warrant, which is not an RCMP warrant.
00:42:16.520 It is a CFIA warrant that they have under that same act for which the farmers,
00:42:22.360 two of them have been charged for, says that after nine o'clock and before 6 a.m.,
00:42:27.800 they're actually not allowed to do any of this.
00:42:29.880 So that's why we were a little panicked.
00:42:32.280 And I was looking through binoculars when they put the feed out because I thought,
00:42:35.880 oh, no, is it happening?
00:42:37.400 But I think they are actually feeding them.
00:42:39.960 And someone said to me that the farmers have been saying,
00:42:42.840 you need to feed these animals.
00:42:44.440 It's been long overdue and you wouldn't let us.
00:42:46.920 So it looks like they fed them for now.
00:42:49.240 And they're hiding their license plates, perhaps.
00:42:52.440 And hopefully we get an answer legally and have that for you right away, breaking that news.
00:42:59.560 Again, SaveTheOstriches.com.
00:43:02.280 Thank you for everyone who is chipping in to not just my cost to be here,
00:43:07.080 now Sheila's cost to be here.
00:43:09.720 There's many costs involved.
00:43:11.000 You guys have been great because you're just as passionate about this story as we are.
00:43:15.080 And so if you could continue to support our ability to keep renting what we're renting,
00:43:19.640 the travel, the gas, the food, everything like that at SaveTheOstriches.com,
00:43:24.840 there's an option to donate.
00:43:26.520 Thank you very much.
00:43:27.720 Thanks.
00:43:30.440 Well, what do you think?
00:43:31.480 Now, I learned today that the birds got a stay.
00:43:34.920 I don't know if it's called a stay of execution, but for at least a few more days,
00:43:39.720 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is not allowed to kill the birds.
00:43:44.840 I think there's more legal maneuvering going on.
00:43:47.080 So the crisis has been delayed, at least for a little bit.
00:43:50.200 I want to get out there myself.
00:43:51.480 It looks like so much excitement and it's a real battle.
00:43:54.920 And I got to admit, I'm slightly scared of ostriches and I have this
00:43:58.600 fear that they would peck at my eye or something horrific like that.
00:44:02.120 But that's not the point.
00:44:03.080 It's not whether or not the ostriches are cute.
00:44:05.480 It's that a stupid government bureaucracy out of sheer inertia and lack of accountability
00:44:11.560 seeks to kill hundreds of birds because almost a year ago, a handful of them were sick and
00:44:17.080 have recovered and now they all have herd immunity.
00:44:19.400 And so it's the same foolish bureaucratic inertia and do it because I say so-ness that we all
00:44:25.320 suffer through as people during the pandemic.
00:44:28.360 So I think that's what's animating some folks.
00:44:35.480 Hey, let me jam in a few letters from you to me.
00:44:41.080 Let me read them.
00:44:41.640 Lowell BP says, outrageous, weak-minded people to do this to the First Lady and President Trump.
00:44:48.040 Shame on all those slugs.
00:44:49.080 You're talking about when he was at the United Nations saying they shut down first the escalator
00:44:54.440 and then the teleprompter.
00:44:57.640 Hilarious practical joke.
00:44:59.800 If you have people like that who are breaking the oath of their employment,
00:45:02.920 breaking the trust with their employer to embarrass a world leader, obviously they should be fired.
00:45:09.800 But it's worse than that.
00:45:11.400 I mean, the teleprompter think, ha, ha, ha.
00:45:13.560 But to stop an escalator, would they also have stopped an elevator with the president
00:45:17.800 of the United States inside the elevator?
00:45:19.480 Is that a security risk?
00:45:20.920 Oh, you bet it is.
00:45:22.440 I think there has to be a lot more that goes on here in terms of accountability.
00:45:26.040 That's actually terrifying to me.
00:45:28.360 Sandy Trimble says, who determines what the rules-based order consists of, Carney?
00:45:32.840 Canadians have never voted such an order.
00:45:35.000 And it doesn't even make sense.
00:45:36.200 First of all, it is not within Canada's power to grant a state or not.
00:45:41.400 Does Carney think he's the emperor of the British Empire?
00:45:46.200 Second of all, as we noted, Parliament in Canada voted against this unless and until the conditions
00:45:53.800 have no precedent that the Palestinians demilitarize, get rid of Hamas, bring in elections next year,
00:46:00.760 and release the hostages.
00:46:02.040 None of those things have been done.
00:46:04.440 And, I mean, obviously none of those things will be done.
00:46:07.080 It just gets me that Mark Carney says, Israel, you have to recognize Palestine.
00:46:14.920 But Palestine doesn't have to recognize Israel.
00:46:17.240 Mark Carney's got that bizarre thing about a Zionist Gaza.
00:46:21.640 Oh my God, I can't believe he believes that.
00:46:26.200 My Heli World says pipelines under a Marxist delusional government are a pipe dream,
00:46:31.320 and you don't need AI to figure that one out.
00:46:33.400 Yeah, you know, just like the word sustainable, sustainable, sustainable was the word for about
00:46:38.760 a decade.
00:46:39.240 Now it's AI, AI.
00:46:41.000 Canada's an AI superpower.
00:46:43.320 But is it?
00:46:44.760 Is it really?
00:46:45.400 Can you name?
00:46:46.440 Like, I see the AI battles.
00:46:49.400 I see these monster tech companies.
00:46:53.080 I'm not even going to try and list them all because I'll get it wrong.
00:46:55.960 But these are companies with trillion dollars or hundred billion dollars market cap, market
00:47:02.040 capitalization.
00:47:04.440 We don't have any of those.
00:47:05.640 By the way, they're all in America.
00:47:09.080 You can say we're an AI giant.
00:47:11.400 I think that's just sort of like when he says to boomers, hey, elbows up.
00:47:16.280 I think maybe enough people feel good to hear that, that they like being deluded.
00:47:20.840 I got to think that Mark Carney is smart.
00:47:24.200 I just don't think you become the chairman of Brookfield asset management, a trillion
00:47:29.080 dollars under management without being smart.
00:47:31.080 He's got to be smart, right?
00:47:33.000 Like there's no way a dummy would be the chair.
00:47:35.080 There's just no way.
00:47:36.760 But sure seems dumb to me.
00:47:38.760 I don't know.
00:47:39.480 Or maybe it's just, maybe he's trying to come across as dumb and foggy so you can't
00:47:44.680 get a grip on anything.
00:47:46.040 I mean, I don't know.
00:47:48.680 I think he's a disaster as a prime minister so far.
00:47:51.320 That's our show so far for the day.
00:47:54.440 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home,
00:47:58.040 good night and keep fighting for freedom.
00:48:04.200 I welcome you.
00:48:07.520 Thank you.
00:48:07.760 Thanks.
00:48:10.160 You're welcome.
00:48:10.840 Mr.