Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ I’m truly surprised, and in a good way — it’s like all of Canada has risen up against Trudeau’s censorship plans

00:00:00.360 Hello, my Rebels. Today, I go through an encouraging document, an access to information record that was kept secret by the government until a professor got it loose.

00:00:09.000 It's 1,200 pages of feedback to Trudeau's censorship plans, and it's incredible. Canadians actually care about freedom.

00:00:16.440 And I guess I sort of knew it, or at least hoped it, but now I've got 1,200 pages of proof of it. I'll show you at least some of those pages.

00:00:24.360 That's right ahead, but before I get there, let me invite you to become a subscriber of what we call Rebel News Plus.

00:00:28.440 That's the video version of this podcast. You get to see what I'm talking about.

00:00:34.620 It's $8 a month, which is nothing compared to Netflix or Disney Plus or any of those things.

00:00:40.780 I do a show every single weekday. My friends Sheila Gunnery, David Menzies, Andrew Chapnose, and Nat and Kat have weekly shows, so that's a lot of stuff.

00:00:49.900 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, and we do rely on that money to keep us independent. We don't take a dime from Trudeau.

00:00:56.640 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:12.640 Tonight, I'm truly surprised, and in a good way. It's like all of Canada has risen up against Trudeau's censorship plans.

00:01:22.640 It's April 21st, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:24.720 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:30.800 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:34.860 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.

00:01:40.740 One of the benefits of being pessimistic is that if you're surprised, it's usually a happy surprise, right?

00:01:52.040 You've already assumed things will go poorly. You've already adjusted your attitude accordingly.

00:01:56.420 You're just doing your best to hold the line.

00:01:58.700 It's those optimists who are always in for a shock, am I right?

00:02:02.060 By the way, there's a difference between optimism and hope.

00:02:05.800 I like this definition from Arthur Brooks in the Atlantic Monthly.

00:02:09.820 He said,

00:02:10.240 Optimism is the belief that things will turn out all right.

00:02:16.400 Hope makes no such assumption, but is a conviction that one can act to make things better in some way.

00:02:23.560 I think that's just right.

00:02:24.740 I'm not optimistic, but I'm hopeful.

00:02:26.940 You've got to be.

00:02:27.940 I look around sometimes and I feel lonely, not as lonely now as maybe six months ago, but the loneliness was a tactic by the other side.

00:02:37.360 When cults indoctrinate a new member, as you know, they cut them off from their old friends and their family.

00:02:42.740 It's a tactic.

00:02:43.920 We were told not to gather together.

00:02:45.580 We were told not to go to life cycle events from weddings to funerals.

00:02:49.160 We were told we couldn't even meet with our own families or friends in our own houses.

00:02:53.680 Schools and churches were shut down, but casinos and liquor stores were kept open.

00:02:59.860 Today, you should know Jason Kenney's special enforcement team is in court in Alberta, prosecuting a church that dared to stay open during the pandemic.

00:03:09.240 Our chief reporter, Sheila Gunn-Reed, is the only reporter in the courthouse.

00:03:12.920 She's the only one documenting this outrageous prosecution, how Kenney's hitman deliberately interrupted the church service again and again,

00:03:20.640 and insisted on inspecting the church right at the middle of the service, like some sort of goons in communist China smashing into a house church or, frankly, some brown church in Germany smashing their way through a synagogue.

00:03:33.900 If you want to be grossed out, follow Sheila's coverage of this disgraceful trial in Alberta, a trial that is proceeding on the instructions of Kenney himself.

00:03:42.340 It's his special prosecutors.

00:03:44.740 By the way, Kenney's special church prosecutor insists on having her identity kept secret, and the court bizarrely allows it.

00:03:55.440 You know, it's like the medieval hangman, the medieval executioner wearing a mask to hide their identity, whether it's out of shame or guilt or to hide their face from any angels who might judge them, too.

00:04:06.980 Imagine that in 2022, a prosecution of a church for allowing people in sorrow and loneliness to gather together in a crisis, and the government prosecutes them with a secret prosecutor.

00:04:19.500 Not that it's needed, other than Sheila, no one from the media is even in there.

00:04:24.600 Loneliness, hopelessness, they want you to feel that way.

00:04:28.460 That's why the truckers were like a miracle.

00:04:30.500 Suddenly there was a rowdy, noisy, happy, smiling.

00:04:33.940 You could see their faces gathering, and you could join it no matter who you were.

00:04:39.520 And people made new friends again for the first time in two years.

00:04:41.940 It's fun to make new friends.

00:04:43.820 And they laughed, and they went out, and they didn't give a damn what school said.

00:04:46.840 You know, they had fun.

00:04:48.420 They had a hot tub.

00:04:49.880 When the last time you had fun?

00:04:51.400 They had fun.

00:04:52.020 They danced in the streets.

00:04:53.940 They waved flags.

00:04:54.860 They sang songs.

00:04:55.700 Even the anthem.

00:04:56.580 What a happy gathering.

00:04:57.840 What people lacked.

00:04:59.040 We're social creatures.

00:05:00.420 The miracle of the truckers was that it woke all of us up.

00:05:03.320 It reminded us what boisterous life is like when you're not constantly being hectored by drab TV doctors telling you the sky is falling.

00:05:11.800 And suddenly millions of us didn't feel so alone after all.

00:05:15.280 Can I play for you my own one-minute speech to the truckers when I saw them in Ottawa?

00:05:20.260 I think I got it right.

00:05:21.500 The point of the truckers' convoy wasn't a particular outcome.

00:05:25.080 Trudeau would never change his course based on critics.

00:05:28.240 Bought and paid for journalists wouldn't suddenly change their beliefs.

00:05:31.060 The point of the convoy was the convoy itself.

00:05:34.300 Take a look.

00:05:35.180 Hello, everybody.

00:05:37.740 It is cold today.

00:05:39.800 It is cold today.

00:05:41.860 Almost as cold as Justin Trudeau's hearts.

00:05:46.920 It's great to be here.

00:05:49.020 And on behalf of Rebel News, I salute you.

00:05:52.060 And I say keep speaking truth to power.

00:05:55.720 But I want to tell you what excites me the most about this crowd.

00:05:59.420 I see a lot of cameras, a lot of independent journalists.

00:06:04.500 Because when people say, what do we do about the media?

00:06:07.860 I say you become the media.

00:06:10.100 That's what you do.

00:06:11.140 The media acts like a party.

00:06:17.300 The media party.

00:06:18.860 It's a subsidiary of the Liberal Party.

00:06:22.140 So you've got to tell the story yourselves.

00:06:25.220 Everyone who is here, everyone who is along the road,

00:06:29.320 has to bear witness and testify to what they saw.

00:06:32.980 Because there's two competing narratives.

00:06:36.380 The government says you're racist.

00:06:39.560 The government says you're sexist. 0.98

00:06:41.400 The government says you're violent.

00:06:43.520 In the meantime, I've never seen a more diverse group of Canadians.

00:06:51.160 And far from violence, people want to not be violated anymore.

00:06:56.900 Justin Trudeau says you're extreme.

00:07:00.880 But he's the one who has violated our civil rights.

00:07:05.620 He says you're a fringe. 0.64

00:07:08.360 Well, that's a pretty bloody big fringe. 0.97

00:07:14.040 Let me close by saying this.

00:07:16.940 Someone asked me this morning, what's the point?

00:07:20.180 What's going to happen?

00:07:22.040 Why did we all gather in Ottawa?

00:07:24.880 Is he going to listen?

00:07:26.280 Is he going to resign?

00:07:27.980 Is the Governor General going to ask him to step down?

00:07:31.400 No.

00:07:31.880 He'll hold on to power as hard as he can.

00:07:34.840 Let me tell you what I think the point is.

00:07:38.460 The point is the convoy itself.

00:07:41.440 To show that you're not alone.

00:07:44.240 To show that you're not the crazy one they are. 0.73

00:07:47.920 To show that you're not the crazy one they are.

00:07:51.740 You already achieved your goal just by being here.

00:07:59.400 And the fact that millions of dollars came into the GoFundMe for the truckers.

00:08:06.380 Even if they would have canceled that, it was still a success.

00:08:11.860 Because it was a measurement of how much people cared.

00:08:16.460 You have succeeded just by being here.

00:08:22.100 He got the fight.

00:08:24.100 He got the fight.

00:08:27.120 Congratulations to the organizers.

00:08:29.440 But really, it was millions of Canadians along the way in the convoy and watching today from home.

00:08:37.540 Tell them what happened.

00:08:40.220 Tell them what you saw.

00:08:42.480 Because they will not hear the truth from anyone else.

00:08:46.580 He got the fight, everybody.

00:08:47.960 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:08:49.060 I was happy.

00:08:51.660 I was exhilarated.

00:08:53.680 They were happy.

00:08:54.480 And happy people are harder to scare than sad and lonely people.

00:08:57.780 Am I right?

00:08:58.740 It was that ash conformity test we've talked about. 0.51

00:09:01.340 As soon as you saw one other person sharing your point of view, you knew you weren't crazy and alone anymore.

00:09:06.700 So I was pessimistic.

00:09:08.160 I still am.

00:09:09.100 But I held out hope and the truckers gave us hope.

00:09:11.500 That's why I like them.

00:09:12.280 That's on the lockdowns.

00:09:14.820 But there has been another opportunistic menace working more quietly in parallel these past years.

00:09:20.040 I'm talking about Trudeau's burning desire to censor us, all of us, including ordinary people, including you, on social media like Facebook or Twitter or YouTube.

00:09:29.060 No one wants it.

00:09:30.100 No one has requested this.

00:09:31.380 No one needs it.

00:09:32.600 We have other wants and needs as a country.

00:09:34.700 Did you see the new inflation stats?

00:09:36.460 Out of control.

00:09:37.660 Double-digit increases on basic necessities of life.

00:09:40.380 Don't get me started again on housing prices.

00:09:43.540 There are real issues in Canada.

00:09:45.280 But the subject that Trudeau spends the most time and energy on is censorship.

00:09:49.240 But of course he does.

00:09:50.700 You may know some of his plans.

00:09:52.680 C-11.

00:09:53.320 It used to be called C-10.

00:09:54.960 That's a bill that lets the government regulate the Internet.

00:09:57.980 The same regulators, the CRTC, that ruined Canadian TV and radio and that are responsible for our outrageously high cell phone charges and cell phone data charges.

00:10:07.520 Those losers at the CRTC are going to be put in charge of the Internet.

00:10:12.180 But that's just an appetizer.

00:10:13.720 The old bill, C-36, will criminalize bad words online.

00:10:18.700 Bad words that aren't bad enough to be crimes.

00:10:20.600 See, crimes are already regulated and policed and prosecuted.

00:10:24.040 Whether you do it in person or on the telephone or on the TV or on the radio or on the Internet.

00:10:29.460 A death threat is a death threat.

00:10:31.240 A fraud is a fraud.

00:10:32.260 Don't think for a second that the Internet isn't regulated by the same laws that other technology is.

00:10:38.900 But C-36 would go much further than lawbreaking to offensive speech.

00:10:42.780 And then there was a bundle of ideas so bad, so bizarre, so outlandish that they weren't even called a bill.

00:10:49.100 They weren't even introduced in the parliament, but they were released in the form of background discussion documents right before the last election.

00:10:58.460 It was the study of what the government called online harms.

00:11:02.980 You see, they had to use the word harms because these aren't crimes.

00:11:07.740 They're not civil torts either.

00:11:09.460 Nothing you could sue over in a real court as a private citizen.

00:11:12.780 The criminal code already covers harassment and stalking.

00:11:16.340 It already covers child pornography and terrorism.

00:11:20.000 It already covers fraud, death threats.

00:11:22.460 That's already done.

00:11:23.680 The criminal code already has that in hand.

00:11:25.400 Civil law, that's like defamation maybe.

00:11:27.480 It already covers the Internet.

00:11:30.100 So what the online harms proposals would do couldn't be called crimes or even civil torts.

00:11:36.340 Just harms, so vague, so minor, so subjective, which is precisely why Trudeau wants those powers, because he's not going to go after any real crimes.

00:11:45.920 To him, crimes are political crimes.

00:11:48.460 Just look at how he took advantage of the trucker convoy.

00:11:51.220 Peaceful.

00:11:52.380 No violence at all.

00:11:53.200 No police charges touching on violence.

00:11:55.280 No firearms at all.

00:11:56.860 But Trudeau and the media lied about it.

00:11:59.280 I don't know if you remember.

00:11:59.840 They claimed that an attempted arson was done by the truckers.

00:12:02.800 That turned out to be a false hoax.

00:12:05.580 But it was one of the few thin examples cited by Trudeau to suspend all our civil liberties and bring in a form of martial law and even seize bank accounts with no legal process.

00:12:16.760 If he'd do that for a peaceful process, imagine what he'd do to control the whole Internet and online harms.

00:12:23.180 Don't take it from me.

00:12:24.120 Take it from the minister who introduced these ideas, Stephen Gilbeau.

00:12:27.440 It was specifically designed to protect politicians from criticism.

00:12:31.720 We've seen too many examples of public officials retreating from public service due to the hateful online content targeted towards themselves or even their families.

00:12:42.280 Oh, and he wants the power to absolutely delete websites.

00:12:47.760 The nuclear option.

00:12:48.920 We envision having blocking orders.

00:12:51.300 I mean, that's that maybe it's not, you know, it's it would be it would likely be a last result, last result, nuclear bomb in a toolbox of mechanism for a regulator.

00:13:11.240 Well, here's my point.

00:13:11.840 I did an extensive show about these online harms a few months back, so I'm not going to go into the details again.

00:13:16.500 But there really weren't a lot of people fighting back publicly, were there?

00:13:19.720 I mean, how could there be 99 percent of the journalists in this country, the people who should have been on guard?

00:13:25.600 Well, they've been colonized by Trudeau.

00:13:27.540 They can't criticize the heritage minister, whoever it is in any given day, because that's the heritage minister who gives journalists their bailout money.

00:13:36.140 Would you bite the hand that feeds you?

00:13:38.220 Well, here's a story from Professor Michael Geist, who has firsthand information that various editorial writers criticizing Trudeau's takeover of the Internet.

00:13:51.340 Their stories had been approved by low level editors at Canon's newspapers, but then spiked by senior bosses at those same newspapers.

00:13:58.860 Of course, the senior bosses are the people who value collecting millions of dollars more than they value an independent media that can criticize Trudeau.

00:14:07.120 Michael Geist is a professor with an interest in things like copyright law and free speech, but he's become the leading critic in academia, at least, of Trudeau's censorship and regulatory plans.

00:14:17.360 So that's today's story.

00:14:18.540 When Trudeau and Stephen Gilboa released their online harms proposals last year, as parliament broke before the 2021 election, they called for public submissions and consultations in response.

00:14:30.300 So they didn't have parliamentary hearings.

00:14:32.500 They just buried it in the summertime before an election.

00:14:36.640 They don't want scrutiny.

00:14:38.580 And weirdly, they didn't make public any of these public consultations.

00:14:42.400 They weren't public, were they?

00:14:44.700 Now, some organizations that sent in criticisms or comments to the government, they published their work on their own.

00:14:50.720 For example, the Independent Press Gallery, of which Rebel News is a part.

00:14:54.140 Here's the submissions by the IPG, which is obviously against government censorship.

00:14:59.900 But most of the submissions were not made public, even though they were called public consultations.

00:15:05.860 And funny enough, the Trudeau government refused to disclose them.

00:15:08.520 That's weird, right?

00:15:09.740 Isn't that weird?

00:15:10.940 I think that's weird.

00:15:13.240 Well, Professor Geist filed an access to information request.

00:15:16.100 And he received the results today, a 1,200-page compendium of public remarks, overwhelmingly critical of the government.

00:15:26.040 No wonder the liberals tried to keep it a secret.

00:15:28.300 Countless people from across the political spectrum opposing the censorship proposals.

00:15:32.600 People on the right, people on the left, minority groups, civil liberties groups.

00:15:36.520 People were shocked at how far Trudeau was proposing to go.

00:15:39.960 I started to look through the 1,200 pages today.

00:15:42.280 Obviously, I couldn't get through it all.

00:15:43.740 Well, we've posted a link to the whole document on the website below this video.

00:15:48.600 And it's all thanks to Professor Geist for doing this access to information request and posting the results on his website, making it public.

00:15:55.900 If you're interested, work through it.

00:15:58.160 I'm still going through it.

00:15:59.680 I'm fascinated by it.

00:16:01.920 But more than that, I'm deeply encouraged by it.

00:16:04.380 I'm hopeful, not optimistic yet.

00:16:07.320 Trudeau doesn't care what people say.

00:16:08.760 He does what he wants.

00:16:09.760 There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say,

00:16:30.000 we need to go green as fast as we need to start investing in solar.

00:16:34.220 I mean, there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he could do everything he wanted.

00:16:41.200 But it's what I said earlier about the truckers.

00:16:43.180 You didn't know how many friends you had.

00:16:46.580 You didn't know how many other people out there were concerned.

00:16:49.580 They were hidden until they stood up.

00:16:51.860 That's why Trudeau hated the truckers.

00:16:53.800 And that's why Trudeau tried to keep these public consultations not public.

00:16:58.160 I'm going to show you just a few excerpts.

00:17:00.380 Check out this extract from Microsoft's submission.

00:17:03.920 Let me read it.

00:17:05.580 The online harms proposal requires regulated service providers to take all reasonable measures,

00:17:11.800 which can include the use of automated systems to identify harmful content that is communicated on its service

00:17:17.120 and make that content inaccessible to persons in Canada.

00:17:20.080 In addition, regulated service providers would be required to independently adjudicate complaints

00:17:25.160 and remove illegal or harmful content within 24 hours from the content being flagged.

00:17:29.260 A failure to comply with these requirements would trigger significant administrative monetary damages.

00:17:35.420 Both of these obligations impinge on fundamental freedoms enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

00:17:40.400 and international human rights law to the extent that this approach may risk being perceived as a government censorship regime

00:17:47.180 that is outsourced to private companies.

00:17:50.080 Requiring service providers to proactively monitor all user content and to assess the legality or harmfulness of user content is problematic.

00:17:58.000 First, this requirement may have a disproportionate effect on user privacy

00:18:01.800 and may undermine necessary cybersecurity efforts by effectively eliminating the ability to leverage encryption for certain communications.

00:18:09.620 The extraordinary policy implications merit greater public debate.

00:18:16.080 There's a little bit of jargon in there, but I think it's pretty clear.

00:18:19.040 Microsoft is saying, what are you doing?

00:18:20.560 There's no place in, there's no free place in the world that does this.

00:18:24.800 Let me just read a little bit more from Microsoft.

00:18:26.500 I know it's some detail, but aren't you surprised?

00:18:29.980 I mean, I think of Microsoft, I think of the detestable Bill Gates.

00:18:33.340 But I guess Microsoft's free speech lawyers really thought this was a problem.

00:18:37.320 Let me read just one more excerpt from their quote.

00:19:08.960 Legally mandated adjudication and takedown rules incentivize service providers to adopt a conservative approach to content removal,

00:19:28.020 which could lead to the disproportionate removal of legitimate content.

00:19:31.200 This, in turn, could have unintended negative consequences for freedom of expression and risks creating a chilling effect on online speech,

00:19:40.000 free and open public discourse, and civil society participation.

00:19:44.160 Can you even believe it?

00:19:46.020 Big tech is arguing against the criminalization of speech, saying it doesn't want Trudeau to outsource censorship to them.

00:19:54.020 Here's an extract.

00:19:55.080 I'm just picking because there's so many in there.

00:19:57.120 Pinterest.

00:19:57.780 Have you heard of that website, Pinterest?

00:19:59.880 It's like little fun pictures that you, like, pin to the bullet.

00:20:03.980 I'm just going to read a little bit from Pinterest.

00:20:06.580 They got something to say.

00:20:07.740 Let me quote a little bit.

00:20:10.840 Pinterest is not a place for politics, and we are not focused on fostering free expression.

00:20:16.020 However, several provisions of the proposed law may have implications for the rights and interests of law-abiding Internet users,

00:20:22.740 which we think deserves more discussion.

00:20:24.440 The requirement to take down unlawful content on 24 hours notice, for example, will provide many small and medium-sized platforms with little time to assess potentially complex legal claims.

00:20:35.960 The strong incentive will be to simply take down any content that is alleged to violate the law in order to avoid legal risk.

00:20:42.460 Platform companies of all sizes regularly receive abusive or mistaken demands to remove lawful and even societally important content.

00:20:52.260 At Pinterest, we do our best to identify and resist such improper requests, but the largest companies will be uniquely positioned to carry out the kind of rapid yet accurate legal analysis in the proposed law suggests.

00:21:03.280 Similarly, the requirement that platforms take all reasonable measures, which can include the use of automated systems to identify harmful content, may, in practice, incentivize smaller platforms to rely on imprecise filtering tools.

00:21:18.900 Legal mandates to adopt poorly defined or understood automated systems create serious risk of harm to users.

00:21:25.800 I hope I'm not boring you with these.

00:21:27.460 I'm trying to show you that these companies that actually have to apply the censorship see a lot of practical problems and moral problems, too.

00:21:35.080 Now, there's a ton like that.

00:21:36.520 Let me close with Twitter's official statement.

00:21:40.500 I'm a Twitter user.

00:21:41.780 I think Twitter is what Trudeau really hates the most.

00:21:45.080 Issue, 24-hour takedown requirements.

00:21:46.980 Twitter opposes the recommendation of a time limit on addressing any content flagged by any person in Canada as harmful content.

00:21:54.920 The proposed time limit does not allow for judicious, thoughtful analysis in a manner that balances the right to freedom of expression in Canada with the right to freedom from discrimination and prejudice.

00:22:07.000 According to existing research and analyses, the proposed system has a high probability of negatively impacting marginalized, racialized, and intersectional groups.

00:22:17.420 More information from Professor Susie Dunn at Dalhousie University can be found here.

00:22:22.260 The 24-hour proposal should be abandoned.

00:22:24.840 Content should be addressed as quickly as possible and within the scope of existing Canadian jurisprudence, terms of service and rules by the online communications service providers.

00:22:34.640 Here's an interesting one.

00:22:37.020 Any standard applied in the digital world should also be applied in real life.

00:22:41.160 For example, law enforcement should be required to both launch an investigation within 24 hours of flagging as well as remove any hateful content.

00:22:50.400 Graffiti on a statue, for example, that appears within 24 hours across the country.

00:22:56.020 That's amazing.

00:22:57.400 It's a great point.

00:22:58.700 Why should a private company have to jump into action within 24 hours?

00:23:03.520 When's the last time police responded to a graffiti within 24 hours?

00:23:06.980 That's a great point.

00:23:07.940 Is Twitter actually comparing Trudeau's proposal to how China operates?

00:23:13.840 Issue, website blocking.

00:23:15.840 The proposal by the government of Canada to allow the Digital Safety Commissioner, I love that title, to block websites is drastic.

00:23:22.420 People around the world are being blocked from accessing Twitter and other services in a similar manner as the one proposed by Canada by multiple authoritarian governments, China, North Korea, and Iran, for example.

00:23:33.320 Under the false guise of online safety, impeding people's rights to access information online.

00:23:39.760 Look, I've just started to skim this 1,200 page access to information that Professor Geist received.

00:23:46.360 The entire world sees Trudeau for who he is, a wannabe dictator.

00:23:52.220 The only difference amongst the serious criticisms that I've shown you is how diplomatic they are at describing him.

00:23:59.840 The battle is still on.

00:24:01.440 Trudeau hates independent media.

00:24:04.360 He hates the fact that you're allowed to disagree with him.

00:24:07.180 He thinks if you have a different point of view, you're engaging in discrimination or disinformation, if not a crime.

00:24:15.620 Remember what he said to our reporter, Tamara Ugolini.

00:24:19.780 I'm pessimistic, but I'm hopeful.

00:24:22.800 There are more of us than I thought who care about freedom.

00:24:26.480 Stay with us for more.

00:24:27.460 Thank you.

00:24:31.440 Welcome back.

00:24:41.160 Well, I have been riveted to Sheila Gunn-Reed's Twitter stream.

00:24:45.800 She is live tweeting a trial in Alberta, the trial of a church.

00:24:51.000 Now, what has the church done?

00:24:52.660 Has it violated the criminal code?

00:24:55.620 Has it engaged in any form of violence?

00:24:58.200 No, it has not.

00:24:59.580 The church engaged in the crime of opening its doors during the lockdown.

00:25:06.720 Now, the lockdown is long over, and Alberta boasts that it's back and it's free. 0.73

00:25:10.840 And yet, Jason Kenney's handpicked special church prosecutors are in court right now, going after the church, asking, seeking over a million dollars in fines for the fact that they dared open.

00:25:27.800 The trial is in its second day today.

00:25:29.880 Sheila Gunn-Reed joins us now via Skype from Edmonton.

00:25:33.140 Sheila, great to see you again.

00:25:34.220 So, today is, I think, day two of the trial.

00:25:36.980 Is that right?

00:25:38.220 This is day three.

00:25:39.700 So, the first day they made the case to hear whether or not the judge would hear charter arguments.

00:25:46.260 The second day, the judge rejected the fact that there were any charter violations taking place here, and they moved right into the trial proper.

00:25:55.840 So, today was, I guess, the second official day of trial testimony, and it wrapped up just at lunchtime today.

00:26:02.640 So, I raced back home so I could be with you.

00:26:04.820 Thank you.

00:26:05.240 And so, you were physically in the courthouse.

00:26:07.700 A lot of trials over the last two years have been conducted online, either by Zoom or some other system like that.

00:26:14.500 So, you're saying that was not the case.

00:26:16.320 This was an in-person trial in Edmonton.

00:26:18.380 Is that right?

00:26:19.480 This is an in-person trial in Edmonton, and it's limited to just 10 people inside of the courtroom.

00:26:27.180 Not that that would matter because I'm the only media there.

00:26:30.580 But because of the restrictions on the number of people that can go into the courtroom, the supporters of Church in the Vine have to wait outside.

00:26:40.420 The Edmonton Courthouse still requires masks.

00:26:43.120 There's still barriers everywhere.

00:26:44.380 I even noticed a little sign on the elevator that if you go in the elevator, you have to face the wall.

00:26:50.320 Oh, my God.

00:26:51.300 It's so crazy.

00:26:52.700 It's so crazy.

00:26:53.380 It's like COVID is still the most deadly thing ever at the Edmonton Courthouse.

00:26:57.520 Well, and you know what?

00:26:58.680 We're laughing about it.

00:26:59.660 You have to face the walls in an elevator.

00:27:01.540 I guess there's lots of science-y thinking behind that one.

00:27:04.660 Seriously, I wonder who came up with that.

00:27:06.100 I've actually never heard that before.

00:27:07.680 I wonder if some cockamamie judge came up with that. 0.99

00:27:10.400 And the reason I say that is that these people are scientifically unreasonable.

00:27:15.800 There is no special attribute to the coronavirus that makes it attack people in a courtroom as opposed to a liquor store or a grocery store or a bus or whatever.

00:27:27.560 It's a reflection of the mania or the phobia of the judges themselves.

00:27:33.080 And we saw this in the case of Justice Adam Germain with his bizarre and unfactual assertions in the case of Pastor Arthur Pawlowski, where he said, everyone in Alberta knows someone who has died from this virus.

00:27:47.780 And we are engraved.

00:27:48.660 Well, actually, no, boss, not everyone.

00:27:51.220 It's extremely rare to die from it.

00:27:54.420 The average age of death is around 80.

00:27:57.240 These are people who are extremely sick to begin with.

00:28:00.040 They could likely have died from the flu.

00:28:02.580 In fact, many of the flu cases were counted as coronavirus.

00:28:06.400 We see cases across the world being revised downwards.

00:28:10.440 I think these judges are typically in their 60s and 70s.

00:28:14.740 They're fraidy cats.

00:28:16.140 They don't get out much.

00:28:17.300 They're not hanging out at the bar.

00:28:19.040 They're not going out to party.

00:28:20.800 So they live extremely cloistered lives.

00:28:23.320 By nature, they're rule followers.

00:28:25.380 So they're terrified.

00:28:26.320 And it's the fact that they're still living like the Japanese soldiers who were found in the Philippines in the 50s, still fighting against the Americans a decade after Japan surrendered.

00:28:41.400 That's what these judges are like.

00:28:43.120 And these are the people who are sitting in judgment of a pandemic lockdown case.

00:28:47.740 He's got no chance.

00:28:49.060 This church has no chance.

00:28:50.400 No, I knew that the second the judge made James Kitchen, the lawyer, the fight the fines lawyer, working on behalf of Church in the Vine and Pastor Tracy Fortin, the judge makes the documents come to the judge on a dinner tray, like a cafeteria tray.

00:29:11.880 So you give them to the court clerk who puts them on a cafeteria tray.

00:29:15.400 And then this magical cafeteria tray somehow disinfects the documents, and then they're given to the judge.

00:29:22.180 The clerk cannot hand the documents directly to the judge.

00:29:25.500 They have to go on this magical cafeteria tray.

00:29:27.860 So that should tell us exactly where we're going with this judge.

00:29:32.800 And there's a lot of the same faces that we are seeing involved in this.

00:29:40.480 For example, it's the same hunter killer prosecutor that argued for the continued incarceration of James Coates, who is tasked with prosecuting Church in the Vine and the nice pastor's wife, Tracy Fortin.

00:29:54.440 Really, they are not on trial here for violations of the public health order.

00:30:00.080 They've never been accused of that.

00:30:01.480 They are in trouble for obstructing a health inspector from coming into the church to continue to disrupt the church.

00:30:13.200 They tried to make arrangements with this health inspector to come into the church at a time when no one was praying or worshiping.

00:30:21.420 But the health inspector stood them up.

00:30:24.780 There was, I found out, there was a joint task force, like a JTF-style task force, of city bylaw officers, city cops, and Alberta Health Services, whose duty was to go around and check churches for COVID compliance.

00:30:41.200 And at one point, there was testimony that the health inspector admitted to her and the bylaw officers were running around the church like these biomedical police state lemmings.

00:30:54.200 They were everywhere and taking pictures of people as they were actively engaged in worship and prayer.

00:31:01.300 They were in the children's room, like the little Sunday school for the little ones.

00:31:05.680 They were in there.

00:31:06.860 The bylaw officers were in there milling around.

00:31:10.060 This is a church where, I mean, it's a big church, but everybody knows who everybody is.

00:31:15.040 And there was testimony today that when they barged into the church, the congregants reacted with horror.

00:31:21.620 They ran to Pastor Tracy and said, oh, my goodness, it looks like the cops are here in the middle of our church.

00:31:26.620 And yet the crown is asserting that none of this was disruptive to the ongoing services.

00:31:35.060 At one point, the health inspector tried to talk to Pastor Rodney, the lead pastor of the church, while he was giving services.

00:31:42.560 Oh, my God.

00:31:44.040 It's absolutely insane what the testimony that I heard.

00:31:47.160 Do you think for one second you use the word church a lot?

00:31:50.260 Of course, we live in a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.

00:31:53.900 I know for a fact Edmonton has Sikh temples, Jewish synagogues, Muslim mosques.

00:31:59.620 Do you know at all if this hunter-killer task force set up by Jason Kenney, if it went to any other religious groups and their houses of worship,

00:32:08.640 or if it was, as you described, simply targeting the Christian churches?

00:32:14.300 I only heard evidence today that they were targeting Christian churches.

00:32:18.940 And, you know, the health inspector sort of bragged that, you know, there are other churches, including my own, that had no problem following these restrictions.

00:32:29.120 There's no allegation that Church in the Vine wasn't following the restrictions.

00:32:33.580 They just didn't want the state running loose, running amok inside their church while they are actively praying.

00:32:40.400 And you know what, and I happen to know that disrupting a religious gathering actually is a crime in the criminal code.

00:32:50.180 If some hobo, some vandal, some troublemaker, some mischief maker, some someone with a grudge were to enter a church during a service and disrupted,

00:33:02.900 that is actually a criminal code offense.

00:33:06.600 And if, as you say, Jason Kenney's hand-picked team barges into a church, goes to the kids' room and takes photos,

00:33:16.540 I would shout, pedophile alert, stranger danger, who is the perv coming in to take photos of children not their own, uninvited without a warrant? 0.57

00:33:26.300 That is seriously gross stuff.

00:33:30.020 And to do that in the middle, and to talk to a clergyman in the middle of a sermon or a prayer, you know what, I bet they, you know what, we know that people who like groping people sign up for the TSA.

00:33:49.780 I'm not saying everyone in the TSA is a groper, but imagine if you're a groper, what an amazing job. 0.89

00:33:56.040 You literally get paid to grope people all day, and if they resist, you get to make them miss their flight. 0.94

00:34:03.020 So I wonder if in the same gross, gross way, if Jason Kenney said, all right, I don't want any Christians on this hunter-killer squad, 1.00

00:34:13.960 because you're going to have some compunction about this. 0.89

00:34:17.420 You're not going to feel great about disrupting religious services.

00:34:21.280 I want all the Christian haters.

00:34:23.800 I want everyone who's got a grudge against the church. 0.98

00:34:26.360 Maybe you're a Satanist.

00:34:28.500 Maybe you just, I don't know, maybe you hate the church. 0.98

00:34:31.640 I want to recruit the church haters, because you're going to have to do some extremely immoral, unethical, and gross things.

00:34:39.460 I don't want you blinking. 0.82

00:34:41.480 I want you to go into that church nursery, barge in, scare the devil out of people, take photos of their minor children,

00:34:50.060 and if anyone says get out, I want you to threaten them. 0.60

00:34:54.260 That's a special kind of person.

00:34:57.420 In my mind, that's a person who should never work with any power or authority ever,

00:35:02.120 but it sounds like that's who was specifically recruited by Jason Kenney,

00:35:06.140 and the fact that we're literally having this trial in 2022 shows me that he shares this grudge.

00:35:12.020 You know, the health inspector did allude to the fact that she attends her own church,

00:35:17.080 and there was some irony there that I think she missed,

00:35:20.100 but my Catholic light bulb went off when she said,

00:35:23.260 I'm Anglekin, but I go to this other Catholic church that actually follows the rules,

00:35:28.560 and then she said the name of the Catholic church, and it was St. Thomas More.

00:35:32.100 And the irony there is St. Thomas More was martyred,

00:35:35.940 because he refused to concede that the King of England was the head of his church,

00:35:41.680 and yet this woman is tasked with making sure that churches all kneel before the state,

00:35:48.660 and the state gets to run around inside the church while services are actively going on.

00:35:53.600 I think maybe she needs to brush up on her catechism a little bit,

00:35:56.720 but we also heard testimony that it wasn't just the state that Church in the Vine kept out.

00:36:05.380 When CBC found them as some sort of COVID scoff law and started publicizing this,

00:36:12.780 then they had Satanists and ne'er-do-wells trying to get access to the church,

00:36:17.400 so then they had to enhance security protocols, they were getting threats,

00:36:20.900 they were screening and interviewing people that they didn't know as they were coming into the church.

00:36:26.720 And so they said they had to escort five people off the property,

00:36:30.620 which goes to their argument that this is a private place, privately owned,

00:36:37.700 and the requirement for entry during services is that you are there to worship God.

00:36:44.840 You don't get to come and inspect it.

00:36:46.720 And so the province is arguing that this is a public place,

00:36:50.660 and because it's a public place, we get to enter and inspect at all times without getting a warrant.

00:36:55.840 So you're saying they didn't have a warrant?

00:36:57.800 So you're saying that Jason Kenney's cops, and I'm not even going to call them cops,

00:37:03.140 because I think they were like health hunter killers, like they weren't actual police, am I right?

00:37:08.800 Bylaw officers.

00:37:09.840 So these health bylaw officers who do not have training as police would barge into this church without a warrant?

00:37:16.980 Barge into the nursery without a warrant? 0.89

00:37:19.700 What a bunch of freaks. 0.99

00:37:22.800 What a gross, gross freak show. 0.89

00:37:26.140 Yeah, because the state is arguing that this is accessible to the public,

00:37:29.880 so we can just come in and inspect it as though it's a grocery store.

00:37:34.240 And, you know, the church is saying it's not.

00:37:36.800 It's a private place where the requirement for membership and entry is that you are there to worship God.

00:37:44.180 And they did their best to accommodate the health inspectors, come back when we're not actively praying,

00:37:50.120 but that wasn't good enough for the province of Alberta.

00:37:52.620 And now, if they get the maximum, this church that has done nothing wrong except protect the sanctity of their sanctuary during worship,

00:38:01.940 they could see between Pastor Tracy and the church itself $1.3 million in fines.

00:38:08.220 What is the public benefit of any of that?

00:38:10.260 Well, to destroy the church and put Christians in their place and show them who's boss and how dare they embarrass Jason Kenney 0.72

00:38:16.620 and how dare they defy the one true God, Teresa Tam.

00:38:21.660 Now, let's talk for a minute about the secret prosecutor.

00:38:24.720 Earlier in the show, I referred to the medieval custom of executioners or hangmen wearing a black hood over their own face.

00:38:32.980 I mean, typically a black hood is over, a hood is put over the face of someone being executed, someone being hanged, not always.

00:38:41.320 Of course, hangings don't happen in Western countries these days, but they have in the past.

00:38:46.220 And it was to hide the contortion of their face and give them, I suppose, some sort of privacy in their last moments.

00:38:54.180 But the reason the executioner or the hangman wore a mask was a little bit different so they could hide who they were so that they themselves wouldn't be a target of retribution, perhaps.

00:39:10.320 I'm not so much sure it was out of shame, but maybe to hide from the evil they're about to do, killing someone.

00:39:16.400 Maybe it was metaphorical to hide themselves from the presence of God as they commit a killing.

00:39:23.040 I don't know why.

00:39:24.460 I suppose every hangman or executioner had their own reason for hiding their face.

00:39:29.800 Why and how does the prosecutor hide her?

00:39:34.640 Who is it?

00:39:35.280 Do you know the name of the prosecutor?

00:39:37.600 Absolutely.

00:39:38.360 It's Karen Thorsrud.

00:39:39.620 She's the same prosecutor who argued for the continued incarceration of Pastor James Coates,

00:39:44.500 and she did it quite passionately.

00:39:46.400 Thirty-five days was not good enough for James Coates, according to Karen Thorsrud.

00:39:51.440 And in that trial, the judge allowed her to remain anonymous.

00:39:56.420 This is not a gangland trial.

00:39:58.260 She's not prosecuting a cartel.

00:39:59.980 She's locking up pastors and seizing their churches and fining other pastors. 0.96

00:40:05.040 Karen Thorsrud.

00:40:06.120 All right.

00:40:06.460 Well, let's say her name.

00:40:08.580 And I think she's right to be ashamed of herself.

00:40:13.020 And that shame should redound to the health minister.

00:40:16.400 And the justice minister.

00:40:17.620 And the premier as well.

00:40:19.580 That shame should redound to the judge, who allows a secret prosecutor, Karen Thorsrud,

00:40:25.780 to hide her name.

00:40:27.200 What a disgrace. 0.98

00:40:28.200 Very un-Canadian. 0.78

00:40:29.980 But you said something earlier that we glossed over, and I want to come back to it, that, I mean, clearly a church has fundamental freedoms.

00:40:38.260 Freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of association, freedom of speech, freedom of thought, conscience, belief.

00:40:44.460 It really touches on a great number of freedoms.

00:40:46.800 Religion, freedom of religion being the most obvious one.

00:40:48.860 And the right to gather, that would be called freedom of assembly.

00:40:53.800 And if these things were being infringed by the government, that is exactly what the Charter of Rights was written for.

00:41:03.500 And these freedoms are so important.

00:41:04.920 The Charter of Rights is a fairly long document.

00:41:07.340 But right near the top, Section 2, they have a special paragraph called Fundamental Freedoms.

00:41:13.320 So these are more important than the others.

00:41:14.820 So, for example, the right to vote is not in there.

00:41:19.000 Mobility rights, the right to move around, that's not in there.

00:41:23.180 But freedom of speech, thought, religion, conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of association, freedom of assembly, those are the fundamental freedoms.

00:41:29.820 And you're telling me that this judge, who's such a hypochondriac that the judge wants papers handed to her on a silver tray or something so they don't have cooties or something. 0.98

00:41:42.620 I mean, this judge, I don't think she's fit to try a case on the pandemic.

00:41:46.500 She obviously has some phobia about it.

00:41:49.960 She's a germaphobe. 0.86

00:41:52.160 But you're saying she won't even hear the Charter arguments.

00:41:54.820 I just want to understand that because how can a judge say I won't even hear them?

00:41:59.820 Well, that was the thing.

00:42:00.740 It was kind of it sort of caught the defense lawyer flat footed.

00:42:04.960 I mean, he was prepared to move directly into the trial.

00:42:07.940 But it was shocking to hear that these issues that touch on a church, you would think that cautiously you would agree to hear charter arguments around freedom of religion and freedom of assembly.

00:42:25.220 But she just refused to hear them.

00:42:28.780 And she said that either the charter violations were non-existent or so minuscule that they would have no effect on the case.

00:42:38.200 And yet, Pastor Tracy Fortin said, I blocked the door so that there was not a further violation of the rights of my congregation to worship uninterrupted by the state.

00:42:53.160 That's the whole crux of the case.

00:42:55.040 She doesn't deny that she obstructed the state from coming into the church.

00:42:59.960 She's trying to explain why she did it and the fact that there was no warrant for them to come in to a private building anyway.

00:43:06.380 But the whole explanation is they were coming in to violate our right to assemble and practice our religion uninterrupted by the state.

00:43:17.260 That is why I did not allow her in.

00:43:19.640 And yet the judge wouldn't hear any of that.

00:43:21.700 You know, it's been a while since I've been in law school and I haven't practiced law in over a decade.

00:43:25.760 But I do know a little bit about the charter of rights.

00:43:29.000 And the first burden is on the individual citizen to say, here's how my rights were infringed.

00:43:35.560 And that's almost always easy to show because almost everything infringes your rights in some way.

00:43:41.960 Every government action.

00:43:43.240 The hard part, the meat of it, the main part is the second step, which is, all right, so your freedoms were violated by the government.

00:43:52.360 But those can be saved if it's if the violation was rationally connected to some important goal and your rights were minimally impaired.

00:44:06.200 And, you know, so you have to demonstrably justify them.

00:44:10.860 And so to simply say your rights were not violated when you've got these jackboots coming in and pushing their way in, it's absurd. 1.00

00:44:20.120 What you do in a charter analysis, you say, OK, there was a violation.

00:44:24.040 But was it rationally connected to a goal?

00:44:26.580 Was it minimal impairment?

00:44:28.680 Was it proportionate?

00:44:30.560 I think those are the tests called the oak test.

00:44:33.440 So you're saying this judge did not engage in that analysis.

00:44:37.060 The judge just said, I'm not even going to spend time on it.

00:44:40.440 Did the judge engage in that balancing, that Oaks test as it's named after the famous oak case called Oaks?

00:44:49.460 And that's the test that's been used for almost 40 years.

00:44:52.900 You're saying the judge did not even go through the motions of the Oaks test.

00:44:56.620 There was maybe five minutes of explanation, but she came to the conclusion that the violation of their charter rights was non-existent or so minimal that it would be of no consequence in the case whatsoever.

00:45:09.440 You know, I think we got ourselves a candidate for the High Court of Beijing here.

00:45:13.120 I mean, if Beverly McLaughlin ever steps down from her perch working for the Chinese judiciary, maybe this judge will fit right in. 0.99

00:45:24.320 You've got a germaphobe judge who wants documents handed to her on a silver plate. 1.00

00:45:30.160 She probably sprays them with Windex before she reads them.

00:45:33.080 If you're in the elevators of her courthouse, you've got to stare at the wall because that's what science would say. 0.92

00:45:37.240 She gives less than five minutes treatment to charter arguments, and she allows a prosecutor, Karen Thorsrud, to have the executioner's mask on her to keep herself secret.

00:45:48.500 I'm going to go out on a limb here, Sheila, and say just a hunch here that this church is going to be convicted.

00:45:55.580 I don't know. I feel it in my bones.

00:45:57.040 I do, too, just based on everything that I saw in the courtroom.

00:46:02.660 I mean, there was things that the prosecutor said that the judge just sort of let slip by, calling the congregants at the church followers of Pastor Tracy and Pastor Rodney as though they were, you know, cult leaders as opposed to just regular old pastors.

00:46:21.940 It's been a very strange couple of days, odd to see a pastor interrogated on how cinnamon rolls and coffee are distributed in the church because that violated public health orders.

00:46:39.820 And to hear testimony that people were shaking hands as though it were evidence presented at a merger trial.

00:46:46.160 Very odd time to be alive, but we'll find out the verdict in the case next Friday.

00:46:52.700 I'll be there in person because this is an in-person trial.

00:46:56.360 There's no WebEx link.

00:46:57.560 So I'll be there in person to get reaction from the lawyer and from Pastor Rodney and Tracy.

00:47:03.580 But I know that you have said that the Democracy Fund would go ahead and appeal this in the event of a conviction because this is just so outrageous.

00:47:13.880 I can't even believe this is Alberta, but we do lock up more pastors than China here. 0.99

00:47:18.220 So I shouldn't be surprised.

00:47:19.360 Yeah, it's outrageous.

00:47:20.240 And we do have that billboard.

00:47:21.380 If people want to see the billboard, they can go to rebelbillboards.com.

00:47:25.020 And I know you unveiled that.

00:47:26.360 It really is true.

00:47:27.600 I'm not saying that Alberta has locked up more Christians than China has in total.

00:47:33.180 But I don't think that China used the pandemic as an excuse to lock up pastors.

00:47:39.420 I think this is the fifth or sixth pastor in Alberta.

00:47:42.760 There's something broken there.

00:47:44.780 And I don't know if there's some internal psychological torment going on inside Jason Kenney, the man who was once the Canadian cabinet minister in charge of religious freedom around the world,

00:47:59.100 the guy who set up the office of religious freedom, the guy who went to China and stood up for the dissidents,

00:48:05.640 the guy who tweeted his support for Chinese underground churches, for him to now be the chief prosecutor of the Alberta Inquisition is so bizarre and gross.

00:48:16.180 I don't know what kind of psychology is going on there.

00:48:18.720 And I think the judges are absolutely off their rockers.

00:48:24.400 Judge Jermaine, who gave Arthur Bablovsky this little card to read about denouncing himself whenever he criticized the government, like that's China stuff.

00:48:34.380 That really is China stuff.

00:48:35.980 You've got a China style secret prosecutor, a China style judiciary that's telling people to renounce themselves in some struggle session, a China style secret prosecutor wearing a mask over their face, a China style premier who says this is all just normal.

00:48:52.660 While he dines in the sky palace, no prosecution of him, there is something really, really broken in Alberta.

00:49:00.740 And frankly, Jason Kenney should lose his job over this alone.

00:49:05.520 Karen Thorsrud, her name should be a disgrace for all eternity.

00:49:10.640 And I don't want to prejudge what this judge is going to do, but I'm pretty sure I know what this judge is going to do. 0.98

00:49:17.300 Alberta has anti-Christian bigotry like a rot, like a rust.

00:49:23.160 And I don't know where it came from because I do not think that is in keeping with the temperament or the character of the province as a whole.

00:49:31.340 Motto strong and free.

00:49:32.620 These people are out of line.

00:49:35.940 And I'm glad you're in there, Sheila.

00:49:37.480 And shame on the other media for not being in there.

00:49:41.040 Yeah, you know, it's an international story.

00:49:43.160 It's drawing the attention of the Americans.

00:49:47.560 Josh Hawley, Senator Josh Hawley, even suggested that Alberta should be on some sort of human rights, religious freedom watch list.

00:49:55.260 And he's not wrong.

00:49:56.680 But it's interesting to see that the rest of the media, they don't seem to care because they are fully in support of persecuting these pastors.

00:50:05.420 They whipped up some of the problems happening at this church with the Satanists and the weirdos coming in to disrupt it.

00:50:13.000 They were part and parcel of the government's ongoing persecution of them.

00:50:17.720 Yeah.

00:50:18.060 Well, there's a lot of weirdos going around here.

00:50:21.040 Just really, really incredible.

00:50:22.680 I'm glad you're in there, Sheila.

00:50:23.520 Thanks very much.

00:50:24.280 And folks, if you're not on Twitter, it's really easy to get on there.

00:50:27.720 And Sheila Gunn-Reid's email address is simply her full name, Sheila Gunn-Reid, her Twitter address, rather.

00:50:32.680 And if you want to chip in, the Democracy Fund will give you a charitable tax receipt if you want, because the Democracy Fund is covering the legal bills.

00:50:41.860 Is that right?

00:50:43.000 Yes.

00:50:43.320 This is a Democracy Fund case.

00:50:45.140 If people want to donate to cover the legal costs, the ballooning legal costs, as this church stares down $1.3 million in fines, you can make a donation at fightthefines.com.

00:50:56.660 And because of that partnership with the Democracy Fund, all donations qualify for that charitable tax receipt.

00:51:02.180 And boy, do they ever need the help, because they're headed towards an appeal.

00:51:05.660 Yeah.

00:51:06.100 Yeah, that's crazy.

00:51:07.360 All right, Sheila, thanks very much.

00:51:09.100 You've got applause.

00:51:10.120 There you have it, our chief reporter reporting like a chief.

00:51:14.800 Boy, I'm glad she's in there, aren't you?

00:51:17.080 Well, you would not know of this if it weren't for Sheila Gunn-Reid and Rebel News.

00:51:22.080 Stay with us more ahead.

00:51:23.140 Hey, welcome back.

00:51:36.380 Your notes to me, Warden Zoell says,

00:51:40.240 It's a pretty sad state of affairs when we have to rely on an eccentric billionaire to bring back freedom of speech to the Internet.

00:51:47.200 Isn't that the truth?

00:51:48.040 I mean, it's supposed to be all our jobs, supposed to be the jobs of lawyers and law professors and judges and political leaders, too.

00:51:56.200 Canuck has something to say on immigration.

00:51:58.740 The plan is to break the system by any means necessary.

00:52:01.620 Same thing is happening in America, only on a larger scale.

00:52:05.580 I'm going to disagree with you on that.

00:52:07.320 Of course, the number of immigrants to the United States is larger in absolute terms.

00:52:11.420 But remember that America is almost 10 times bigger than Canada.

00:52:14.780 Canada has about double the immigration the U.S. has proportionately.

00:52:22.620 LoaWorks31 says,

00:52:23.640 I had to wait three years to be processed and came into Canada at a time when it was limited to 150,000 immigrants per year.

00:52:29.980 We shouldn't let in so many immigrants per year when we can't keep up with the demands on housing. 1.00

00:52:34.180 It isn't fair to natural-born Canadians or new immigrants if no one can afford to rent or buy a house. 0.94

00:52:39.640 I think you're right.

00:52:40.600 And when Chrystia Freeland boasts that the GDP is going up, well, yeah, and prices are going up and it's harder to live.

00:52:48.480 And when you're pouring in, you know, close to half a million, like 400,000 plus new immigrants a year, just – and most of them are going to Toronto and Vancouver.

00:52:59.800 What that does to housing is – it's more important what that does to people's ability to buy a house than, woo, property values are up.

00:53:07.920 Property values up is great if you own property, but what if you can't get in?

00:53:11.640 What if you can't get ownership?

00:53:13.840 I'm worried about that.

00:53:16.140 That's our show for today.

00:53:18.000 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

00:53:22.140 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:53:23.060 And let me leave you with our video of the day from our friend David Menzies.

00:53:26.700 Toronto's mayor got COVID, even though he's fully vaxxed, and forces others to get the jab, too.

00:53:32.720 Here, take a look at this.

00:53:33.720 Talk to you later.

00:53:34.660 In the meantime, as I said earlier, I wish John Tory a speedy recovery as he gets over this bout of COVID-19 in his luxury condo.

00:53:45.700 Let's give him three cheers, shall we? 0.99

00:53:48.420 Hip, hip, hypocrite. 0.98

00:53:53.060 David Menzies for Rebel News here at Toronto City Hall. 0.98

00:53:58.200 Well, what's the story, Mr. Tory?

00:54:01.380 Alas, there shall be no answer to that query today because John Tory, he's not in the office.

00:54:08.200 He is at home recuperating.

00:54:10.400 On the eve of Good Friday, we were told that Mayor John Tory has indeed a case of COVID-19.

00:54:19.640 And as we await for his resurrection in the days, weeks, or perhaps months ahead, we must ponder the question, how can this be?

00:54:29.320 After all, on this very site, Nathan Phillips Square, this is where pop-up vaccine clinics appeared.

00:54:37.080 Even those appealing to children, get the jabs and you'll get a free Harvey's hamburger, ice cream, or a balloon.

00:54:45.000 And we were continually told that that was all we had to do to protect ourselves, namely, get those jabs of the experimental vaccine.

00:54:58.340 And John Tory, well, he led by example, didn't he, folks?

00:55:02.740 He has been double-jabbed. 0.98

00:55:04.520 He has the booster.

00:55:05.960 And next month, he is eligible for the second booster.

00:55:10.240 And yet, there is John Tory resting right now and recuperating.

00:55:15.620 And I hope he makes a full recovery with the coronavirus.

00:55:19.520 So, what indeed is the story?

00:55:23.240 Could it be that the coronavirus vaccine does not come as advertised?

00:55:30.800 And how odd, folks.

00:55:32.340 I mean, I would love to query John Tory.

00:55:34.940 He is an allegedly conservative mayor.

00:55:38.340 But in the past two years of the COVID-19 lockdowns, he has embraced the tactics of, yes, a dictator.

00:55:46.980 Case in point, do you remember in November 2020 when John Tory literally sent in all the king's horses and all the king's men to shut down Adamson BBQ?

00:56:00.420 Check it out. 0.99

00:56:01.000 Shut up! 1.00

00:56:02.420 Shut up! 1.00

00:56:03.300 Shame on you! 1.00

00:56:04.840 Shame on you! 1.00

00:56:06.440 Shame on you! 1.00

00:56:07.800 Shame on you! 1.00

00:56:10.440 Brotherhood not having a friend! 1.00

00:56:12.280 Shut up! 1.00

00:56:14.300 And how's this for perverse irony? 0.99

00:56:16.800 After Adam Skelly was arrested and incarcerated, he was later sent a bill for the policing costs, almost $200,000.

00:56:28.200 Absolutely shameful.

00:56:29.980 Oh, and folks, speaking of eating, do you remember when Mayor John Tory advocated that if you are going out to have a bite, you should mask in between bites?

00:56:44.120 Yeah, check this out.

00:56:45.660 Be a little more stringent about when people have to wear a mask, which is aside from the fact when you're taking a sip or when you're taking a bite, you have the mask on.

00:56:53.040 So while you're waiting for your food, while you're looking at the menu, all those times you keep it on.

00:56:57.200 Brilliant.

00:56:57.720 Well, no, not really. 0.96

00:56:58.860 It's ridiculous. 0.79

00:56:59.560 Oh, and by the way, that's how Mayor John Tory wants the people, the great unwashed masses of Hogtown to eat. 0.89

00:57:07.080 That rule doesn't apply to him or any of the other political elites.

00:57:11.760 Do you remember when John Tory last year was caught on a Yorkville patio with his wife, Barbara?

00:57:18.120 No sign of masking between bites.

00:57:20.280 In fact, no sign of a mask either.

00:57:22.640 Check it out.

00:57:23.360 Destroyed every small business.

00:57:24.700 Don't you feel guilty?

00:57:25.820 Actually.

00:57:26.360 Being here in public, knowing that all these people here have been affected by your draconian measures?

00:57:31.540 Do you have anything to say about that?

00:57:32.540 Yeah, so yet again, another example of do as I say, not as I do.

00:57:39.500 One law for thee and one law for me.

00:57:42.940 And speaking of double standards, you know, we're being told by all the authorities these days,

00:57:48.960 especially if you're unvaxxed and you can't get on a plane and you can't get on a train,

00:57:53.700 to embrace the staycation, they call it.

00:57:57.160 You know, travel within your region, explore our Great Dominion as opposed to going off to some far-flung destination.

00:58:06.160 But check out this from a few weeks ago.

00:58:08.500 Our friend Sue Ann Levy, she took these photos.

00:58:12.040 It's Mayor John Tory at Pearson International Airport getting on a plane to, yeah, Florida.

00:58:20.580 And just think of the irony there, folks.

00:58:22.700 Ontario was perhaps the most locked-down province on the entire continent.

00:58:29.580 And yet there's Mayor Tory buggering off to Florida, perhaps the most free jurisdiction on the continent.

00:58:39.700 Absolutely incredible.

00:58:41.620 The chutzpah that this man displays.

00:58:44.560 And, you know, there were so many other examples of misery that was inflicted upon the citizens of Toronto,

00:58:51.500 thanks to Mayor John Tory's obsessiveness in terms of clamping down and locking down.

00:58:59.120 Do you remember at Trinity Bellwoods Park, just a few kilometres away from Nathan Phillips Square,

00:59:05.120 that perversity of social distancing circles?

00:59:10.380 Yeah, that's right.

00:59:11.280 Limit yourself to a handful of people in your circle.

00:59:13.960 Don't dare emerge from your circle.

00:59:15.880 Well, but that rule didn't apply to John Tory, not when there was a chance to do a photo op with some nurses on University Avenue.

00:59:25.500 And how about High Park fenced off during the spring?

00:59:30.660 Because, God forbid, the citizens of Hogtown should converge and smell the cherry blossoms.

00:59:37.880 I mean, those fences, it was like right out of East Berlin circa 1946.

00:59:44.060 We paid a visit then.

00:59:45.680 It was unbelievable.

00:59:46.840 Did you put this up this sign?

00:59:48.120 We did, yes, sir.

00:59:49.060 It says, Mr. Mayor, tear down this wall, like Ronald Reagan said back in 1987 in East Berlin.

00:59:56.200 Isn't that beautiful?

00:59:57.020 We're standing up for our freedom, officer.

00:59:59.780 I'm just going to have to take you on this sign, okay?

01:00:02.080 Can you tell me that?

01:00:03.640 And then there was that group of thugs known as Afro-Indigenous Rising in the summer of 2020.

01:00:09.020 They occupied this very square, breaking 11 sections of the Trespass Act.

01:00:15.620 But that was no problem for John Tory and his little police service, the security guards here.

01:00:22.240 They didn't see anything problematic with this filthy occupation.

01:00:27.220 Rather, they went after journalists for covering the occupation.

01:00:32.320 Check it out.

01:00:33.020 Give me a hug.

01:00:33.560 Give me a hug.

01:00:34.120 I love you.

01:00:34.880 I love you.

01:00:36.100 I love you.

01:00:37.960 Don't run away from love.

01:00:39.400 Don't run away from love.

01:00:40.860 Don't run away from love.

01:00:41.960 Don't run away from love.

01:00:43.680 Don't run away from love.

01:00:44.640 Don't run away from love.

01:00:44.780 Don't run away from love.

01:00:47.640 One minute.

01:00:50.380 Sir?

01:00:51.020 Yeah.

01:00:51.220 What are you?

01:00:52.260 What's your purpose here?

01:00:53.560 I'm a cameraman.

01:00:54.600 Can I see her?

01:00:55.780 Are you going to stop me instead of them trying to block me?

01:00:58.320 I'm asking you.

01:00:59.540 Can you answer me?

01:01:00.520 I don't have to provide you anything.

01:01:02.080 Okay.

01:01:02.640 Just like they don't have to provide anything to you.

01:01:04.920 I'm not harassing them.

01:01:06.140 They're following me.

01:01:06.980 You are in their space.

01:01:08.460 Oh, this is their space.

01:01:09.440 Occupy.

01:01:10.760 Can you please stop?

01:01:12.120 No.

01:01:12.860 However, there was zero tolerance given to protesters that were part of the anti-lockdown movement

01:01:18.920 in January of last year, waving a Canadian flag that was deemed to be a crime against the state

01:01:25.880 and you would be violently arrested.

01:01:29.100 Check out this video, folks.

01:01:30.380 Look at how many cops are here. 0.72

01:01:38.840 I'm going to have like 15.

01:01:39.840 I'm going to resist.

01:01:42.260 I'm going to resist.

01:01:43.140 I'm going to resist.

01:01:43.720 I'm going to resist.

01:01:44.340 So why are they arresting you?

01:01:46.640 We're forcing you.

01:01:48.180 And then just weeks after that was shot, who appeared at Young Dundas Square?

01:01:54.560 Well, it was the supporters of the Tamil Tigers terrorist group.

01:01:58.640 You know, the people that Patrick Brown, the wannabe conservative leader, wants to take off

01:02:04.400 the terrorist list.

01:02:05.920 Yeah, they got to march on Young Dundas Square.

01:02:10.140 Do you see any law enforcement here?

01:02:11.940 So there you have it, folks.

01:02:13.880 These were just some examples of the misery Torontonians have endured these past two years.

01:02:22.660 In the meantime, as I said earlier, I wish John Tory a speedy recovery as he gets over this bout

01:02:30.580 of COVID-19 in his luxury condo.

01:02:33.640 Let's give him three cheers, shall we? 1.00

01:02:36.300 Hip, hip, hypocrite. 0.99

01:02:38.260 For Rebel News, I'm David the Menzoid Menzies. 0.97

01:02:45.540 Hey folks, before you know it, summer is going to be here.

01:02:48.860 So get ready to have fun in the sun by wearing some of the newest Rebel News merchandise.

01:02:55.500 We've got new t-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, you name it.

01:03:00.460 Wear your politics on your sleeve when it comes to supporting Rebel News and looking quite

01:03:06.640 fashionably as you do so.

01:03:08.260 Please go to rebelnewsstore.com.

01:03:11.380 That's rebelnewsstore.com and place your order today.

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Rebel News Podcast - April 22, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ I’m truly surprised, and in a good way — it’s like all of Canada has risen up against Trudeau’s censorship plans

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