Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Ezra heads to court in fight for press freedom

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 1.00

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 1.00

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. 0.68

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 1.00

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 0.88

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 0.51

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 0.80

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. 1.00

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. 1.00

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. 0.82

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. 0.99

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. 0.94

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.

Rebel News Podcast - September 24, 2025

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

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