Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Lessons from Pierre Poilievre's by-election win

00:00:00.260 Hello, my friends. Last night, Pierre Paulyev won his by-election in Alberta. No surprise

00:00:05.080 there, but there were some very interesting details. I don't know if you saw our live

00:00:09.120 stream last night, but I did my monologue on it today to unpack some of the news. Also,

00:00:13.800 we talked to John Carpe, the head of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms. Boy, he's

00:00:18.740 got some very interesting cases, and he'll give us an update on three of them. But first,

00:00:24.340 let me invite you to become a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus. It's the video

00:00:27.920 version of this podcast. It's eight bucks a month, which might not sound like a lot to you,

00:00:32.200 but boy, it adds up for us because we don't take any government money, and it shows. Tonight,

00:00:37.340 Pierre Paulyev wins in Alberta, of course, but how the media covered it teaches us a lot.

00:00:43.740 It's August 19th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:45.940 You body for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug! 0.96

00:00:57.920 Oh, hey everybody. I don't know if you saw, but last night we had a great live stream 0.52

00:01:05.080 about the special by-election in Crowfoot. That's the rural riding in Alberta where Pierre

00:01:11.880 Paulyev ran. The exact name of the riding is Battle River Crowfoot, and that district and its

00:01:18.500 antecedents have voted conservative every single time in the last 90 years, other than I think for

00:01:25.880 two years. Like, it really is one of the most conservative places in the world. The incumbent

00:01:31.400 conservative MP, Damian Couric is his name, he stepped down so that Pierre Paulyev could run

00:01:37.860 again after losing his own Ottawa area seat in the general election. Now, I know a little something

00:01:43.280 about stepping aside to let the party leader run. I don't know if you know this, but about,

00:01:47.420 oh, I don't know, 25 years ago or something, I was running in Calgary Southwest, and I stepped aside

00:01:53.980 somewhat reluctantly at first, so that Stephen Harper could get a quick entry into Parliament.

00:01:59.300 If you do it, if he asks you to do so. Well, I would like to sit down with him in a meeting with

00:02:04.120 our local grassroots executive at Mr. Harper's convenience and have a talk about it. So Damian

00:02:09.720 Couric has given up a lot, and it's to the benefit of the party and hopefully the country. Now, of course

00:02:15.100 it was going to be a slam dunk. I mean, come on, it's, uh, Couric himself got, I think, 82% in the last

00:02:21.340 election. And I don't know if you know this, but Pierre Paulyev is originally from Alberta. In fact,

00:02:26.260 he helped on my campaign, uh, when I ran in Calgary Southwest in that doomed mission. Couric got about

00:02:32.800 80%, of course, and, um, Paulyev got almost exactly the same, just over 80% last night. Our live stream

00:02:41.300 went about three hours. Uh, Sheila, uh, Gunn-Reed and Lise Merrill were on it. It was actually huge

00:02:48.000 turnout for a by-election. I don't know if you know that 59% of people voted in a by-election.

00:02:53.580 I actually cannot remember a by-election that had that kind of turnout. By-elect elections are

00:02:58.340 typically low energy, low interest affairs, 20, 30%. But this one was very strong. Um, the media,

00:03:05.720 I think had something to do with that. They were hyping up. They had this dream. They always have

00:03:11.120 the dream that Alberta is going to suddenly turn to the left. And you know, it did once it voted for

00:03:15.400 Rachel Notley's NDP, but that was really a vote split in some special circumstances.

00:03:20.020 The media decided not to back the Mark Carney candidate. They knew he had no choice.

00:03:25.240 And the NDP Hamas candidate, no, no chance. Um, so they backed what they, if they would make in a lab, 1.00

00:03:32.980 their perfect candidate, it was this one. Her name was Bonnie Critchley. She was running as an

00:03:38.860 independent and, um, they all got behind her. It was really weird. I mean, how was it that of the

00:03:46.620 214 candidates on the ballot, I'll get to that in a minute, that every single media company decided

00:03:53.160 at the same time that Bonnie Critchley was the one to watch. Didn't really seem to be so independent

00:03:59.160 to me after all, was it? It was, it was quite something how she had total media support right

00:04:04.920 away. Here's the CBC story about her. Uh, they said she was a real contender. Here's the National

00:04:12.040 Observer, a left-wing, uh, newspaper. You can forgive them because they're based in Vancouver.

00:04:17.560 Uh, here she is on the CBC's National News Channel TV. Um, boy, they, they must have believed she had

00:04:24.960 a chance if they were putting her on the National TV show. Take a look. Bonnie Critchley is running as

00:04:29.380 an independent candidate in the upcoming by-election in Battle River Crowfoot. And she joins me now.

00:04:33.660 Bonnie Critchley, it's good to meet you. Thank you for joining us on the show today.

00:04:37.560 Good morning. Well, at least it's morning here right now. So, how, how are you doing today?

00:04:41.940 I'm very good. How are you doing? Tell, tell us why you've decided to run in this by-election,

00:04:45.720 run against the Conservative leader, Pierre Polly Evans, seat.

00:04:49.920 Um, it, it really boils down to, um, my slogan, which isn't a slogan. It's simply the truth. It's,

00:04:57.580 this is our home. This is our riding. We just had an election and we spent all that money

00:05:03.580 and we elected the candidate of our choice who promptly turned around and said, no, I don't

00:05:10.000 want that mandate I asked you for. And we're spending another $2 million to vote in the guy

00:05:15.920 from, angry guy from Ottawa who doesn't know jack about this area. He may have been born in Calgary,

00:05:23.380 but he's from Ottawa. He hasn't been here. He hasn't lived here. And even if he had stayed in

00:05:31.160 Calgary, this is a very different area than, um, the urban centers he's used to.

00:05:37.120 So you're mad. You don't like, uh, what Damien Couric has done. You don't like what Pierre Polly Evans

00:05:41.120 has done, even though there is a long tradition in Canadian politics, uh, of, of backbenchers giving

00:05:47.120 up their seat for the leader. You, you don't like this one bit.

00:05:49.380 Well, yeah, I would agree. Normally. Yes. But this, uh, unseated leader didn't, it's not that

00:05:58.320 he didn't have a seat. It's that he didn't bother to show up for his constituents. So they fired him.

00:06:04.320 And now he's just assumes we're going to vote him in when he, he lived in the same town as his

00:06:10.060 constituents. We're 3000 kilometers West. You think he's going to show up here ever.

00:06:14.680 And here she is in the tie, which is a left-wing site funded by San Francisco leftists. Uh, I refer

00:06:22.060 to this one because it, it actually went full in on the conspiracy theory that this Bonnie Critchley 0.99

00:06:28.840 could be Pierre Polly. Let me just look at that headline there, the military vet who could end

00:06:34.580 Polly's political career. Well, if she would have won, I mean, true, that would have ended it. 1.00

00:06:40.120 Um, her fight is daunting, but indie candidate Bonnie Critchley isn't one to back down. Uh, 1.00

00:06:48.120 on the face of it, Bonnie Critchley is an unlikely giant killer. Yeah. I'd say extremely unlikely in

00:06:54.620 the end. Now let me stop you there before I, I'm not going to read any more. Um, she got less than 10%

00:07:00.440 of the vote. I mean, good for her. Good for her. I mean, good for her for running. And she had a heck of

00:07:05.720 a media management team or PR firm, and we don't know which, uh, she tried to paint Polly as the 1.00

00:07:11.160 outsider, which I suppose he is. I mean, he's been in Ontario for more than a decade. Um, but she's

00:07:16.240 an outsider too. She just moved back to the area after being away for a very long time. And I read

00:07:22.340 the tie article and they really tried to make it seem like she was the true conservative, unlike Pierre

00:07:28.800 Polyev, um, by saying four times that she was a combat veteran in Afghanistan and she went on a

00:07:37.280 combat mission there. Now it's true. She is in the military and she was in Afghanistan. And let me say

00:07:44.020 without any sarcasm or winking or nudging, she absolutely deserves our full respect and thanks

00:07:52.020 for serving in the military. But it is a lie to say she was on a combat deployment. It's just not

00:07:59.060 true. The tie story uses that word combat four times. Now she obviously read that story, but she

00:08:07.500 never corrected them. That's a kind of stolen valor. I'm not saying she didn't serve, but she did not

00:08:14.620 serve in combat. That makes her a liar. One of the things, um, she was mad about, about Polyev that,

00:08:24.000 uh, like her, he parachuted in the riding. I mean, she said that on TV. Now, of course, that is what

00:08:30.680 most leaders do when they're looking for a seat. Justin Trudeau did not live in Papineau riding.

00:08:36.140 When he first ran, he cleared out the local candidate and he ran. Mark Carney did the same thing. He was

00:08:41.800 living in the United Kingdom and suddenly he's running in the Ottawa area in Nepean. He didn't

00:08:46.560 live there. He brushed aside the, the local liberals. But funny enough, Bonnie Critchley did not have that 0.98

00:08:52.960 same problem with over 200 fake candidates who managed to get their name on the ballot. Almost

00:09:01.400 none of them who lived in the riding or even set foot there. Crowfoot is a great place, but you don't

00:09:06.960 go there unless you're going there on purpose. You don't pass through Crowfoot. 200 names, fake,

00:09:13.960 fake, fake, the human equivalent of spam. Um, they never visited, let alone lived there. And because

00:09:23.080 of that, of course, a great number of them did not even get a single vote because they couldn't even

00:09:28.580 vote for themselves. They don't live in Crowfoot. They're fake. This whole thing was a scam,

00:09:34.040 a hoax. And it caused voters to have to write in the name of the winner because otherwise,

00:09:41.360 I mean, imagine 214 names on the ballot. Hey, um, if you had to write the name of your candidate

00:09:47.480 on a ballot, no checking. Do you know how to spell Pierre Polyev? It's a bit of a tricky name,

00:09:53.520 isn't it? Like I say, it's a scam. It was an organized group, many of whom shared the same,

00:09:59.100 uh, uh, uh, financial agent. Um, it's a trick. It's a, it's an anti-democratic way to suppress

00:10:07.300 voting, but only perpetrated against conservatives. This is the second time they've targeted Pierre

00:10:13.140 Polyev. They haven't targeted any liberals. Isn't that a head scratcher? But fortunately,

00:10:18.500 Albertans are not easily tricked. And in the end, 80% went for Polyev, less than 10% went to the

00:10:23.560 giant killer, Bonnie Critchley, just 4% from Mark Carney's liberals. Uh, the NDP got 2%.

00:10:30.460 I guess there's not a lot of Hamas supporters in Crowfoot after all. I note that the People's

00:10:35.800 Party of Canada got 0.3%. Now I like the PPC's policies and I've always liked Maxime Bernier,

00:10:43.420 but look, if the party is getting 0.3% in Crowfoot, Alberta, I think the moment has passed.

00:10:51.120 So what did we learn from last night? Well, not a lot, really. Conservatives win in rural Alberta.

00:10:58.640 That's not really news. That's olds. Albertans did not abide the trickery of the 200 fake candidates,

00:11:06.720 most of whom were from out East.

00:11:08.220 To the great people of the special areas whose ancestors were told a century ago, including Damien's

00:11:16.360 great-grandparents, that they'd never be able to farm on that land. Too tough and too dry. And yet,

00:11:24.040 on the homestead signs that you drive by on the highway, those old names are still there and their

00:11:29.800 great-great-grandchildren are still making those fields blossom. They never gave up, so I will never

00:11:38.100 give up. Because as my mother, who's here today, taught me, when you get knocked down, you get up

00:11:51.560 and you keep on going. If you believe in what you're doing, you march forward. And so I say to all of the

00:11:57.120 people, not just in the great region of Battle River Crowfoot, but right across this country,

00:12:03.480 to anyone who has been knocked down, but has got back up and kept on going, you haven't given up,

00:12:09.640 so I won't give up. Together, we will work together. We will fight together. We will sacrifice together

00:12:15.880 to restore the opportunity that our grandparents left for us so that we can leave it for our

00:12:22.300 grandchildren, so that we can once again restore a country that is strong, self-reliant, and sovereign.

00:12:29.660 That is the country we're in this for. That is why we stay united. That is why we go forward.

00:12:36.080 May God keep our land glorious and free. Thank you very much. Thank you.

00:12:40.180 I think that's what motivated the high turnout, actually. People saw that there were some

00:12:44.400 shenanigans. Elections Canada cannot be trusted to run fair elections. Incredibly, at least one of

00:12:52.180 the fake candidates was a former Elections Canada employee. Isn't that funny? The media cannot be

00:12:59.340 trusted. I mean, I put it to you that if 200 fake candidates were to run against Mark Carney,

00:13:05.400 corrupting the system against a liberal, you know that the CBC would have contacted every single one

00:13:12.160 of them to out them, to ask them, who are you? Who put you up to this? Who paid for it? Have you ever

00:13:17.160 been out there? Why are you doing this? But they were in league with them. The final takeaway

00:13:23.400 is the saddest, though. Central Canada seems to prefer a billionaire oligarch banker with three

00:13:32.060 passports who supports Hamas, who's obsessed with net zero emissions, who hates Donald Trump,

00:13:38.960 and who half a year into his term as prime minister has not yet produced a budget. Yeah,

00:13:44.960 I'm afraid we're in trouble as a country. Stay with us for more.

00:13:59.920 Well, you know, the Democracy Fund is close to my heart. That's a civil liberties charity that we

00:14:03.840 help pump up to fight the massive battle during the pandemic. But I'll tell you a little secret.

00:14:08.860 We modeled the Democracy Fund after the granddaddy of all civil liberties groups in Canada,

00:14:15.680 the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom. They have been at it for more than 10 years. And

00:14:20.840 you know that because we've been talking to them ever since Rebel News was born. We've probably

00:14:25.520 interviewed their various lawyers. I'm not even exaggerating when I say 100 times. And the reason

00:14:31.540 is they are defending people who the rest of the so-called civil liberties movement ignore. It is

00:14:38.500 my observation that the, quote, traditional civil liberties groups in Canada, like the Canadian

00:14:44.360 Civil Liberties Association, they don't actually support freedom of speech for people who are

00:14:50.420 conservative or Christian. Just for a few examples, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association hit the

00:14:56.680 snooze button during the entire pandemic when we had a civil liberties bonfire. That was some of the

00:15:03.560 gap that the Democracy Fund was set up to meet. And that is what the Justice Center has been doing

00:15:08.480 since I was knee-high to a tadpole. And joining us now to talk about three very important cases

00:15:13.840 that the JCCF is doing is our friend, John Carpe, the boss and founder of the JCCF. Great to see you

00:15:20.160 again. I, you know, I, I don't think you get the proper kudos because you have been in the trenches

00:15:26.940 every single day. And, and some of the cases are, quote, glamorous, but some of them are not at all.

00:15:34.100 But you're always there, John. So on behalf of our viewers, thank you.

00:15:38.980 Well, I'm so glad to be with you again and chatting about some of the current violations of,

00:15:45.880 of charter rights and freedoms. It seems like the, uh, things might get worse before they get better

00:15:50.600 in Canada. That's the way it's looking. Yeah, I'm afraid you're right. There's always some news. I

00:15:54.580 look forward to the days when there are, when there will be no more civil liberties news. Alas,

00:15:59.060 mankind is flawed and we're all sinners. And I think that we will never be done this fight.

00:16:04.320 I want to talk about three different cases with you, John, because you guys are doing some really

00:16:07.920 good work. I want to talk about this Nova Scotia and frankly, other provinces, New Brunswick, et cetera,

00:16:14.080 have done atrocious civil liberties violations in the name of stopping the fire. They've really brought

00:16:20.100 in climate lockdown. So I want to talk about that for a minute. I want to talk about our friend,

00:16:23.820 Amy Ham. That's the nurse in British Columbia who was fired as a nurse by her friend professional

00:16:29.820 association. Cause she dared to, uh, put up a billboard praising JK Rowling's views on

00:16:35.860 transgenderism. And finally, I want to talk about a trucker named Evan Blackman who was acquitted,

00:16:42.660 but the crown is so vindictive. They're retrying three things. Let's get this deal with each of them

00:16:49.020 in five minutes. John, first one, Jeff Evely. He's a military veteran. I interviewed him about a week

00:16:55.120 ago. He loves walking in the forest with his dog. He got a $28,000 fine. He's a client of JCCF. Tell me

00:17:04.360 a little bit about what you're going to do for Jeff. And I understand you might have a bigger project of

00:17:09.580 Go ahead. Well, Jeff's very courageous to have, uh, exercised his, his liberty to walk in the forest

00:17:17.760 in the face of a completely irrational ban. This is like seeking to punish people. It's not connected

00:17:25.020 to stopping fires. You or I, or anybody else walking through the forest doesn't, it's not rationally

00:17:31.120 connected to, uh, preventing forest fires. If a province passes a law, you know, no campfires or

00:17:37.480 no smoking in the woods, no cooking in the woods. Okay, fine. Those are reasonable laws, uh, that are

00:17:43.760 connected to the goal. So we are providing lawyers to help Jeff, uh, for Jeff Evely so he can fight

00:17:50.800 against this, this prosecution. And the defense in court is not going to be pretending he didn't go

00:17:56.960 into the woods. The defense will be that the, the law itself is an unjustified violation of our charter

00:18:03.160 section seven right to liberty. But in addition to that, see that prosecution might take, uh, or it

00:18:09.840 will take months or, or even years, right? These things just, they take a long time. Um, this

00:18:16.300 prohibition on walking in the woods is in, in force from August 5th to October 15th. We want to see what

00:18:22.460 we can do to get that ban lifted so that, uh, the good people in Nova Scotia can enjoy walking in the

00:18:30.240 woods and going fishing and hiking and camping and so on and so forth, uh, you know, before October

00:18:36.060 15th. So we're also going to file a, um, a court application for a judicial review, seeking a court

00:18:42.560 order to strike down this policy as an unjustified and unreasonable violation of liberty. So we're doing

00:18:49.560 that proactively in addition to helping Jeff to, to fight the, uh, this $28,872 ticket.

00:18:57.080 Yeah, that's astonishing. You know, you used a, a phrase earlier that rang a bell from my days in

00:19:03.960 law school. It was, uh, rationally connected because under our charter of rights, which is

00:19:10.160 sort of a watered down version of the U S bill of rights, the government is explicitly allowed to

00:19:17.300 violate our rights if it's demonstrably justifiable. And the, the Supreme court came up with a three

00:19:25.600 pronged test. And, um, is it a minimal impairment that, that is, are they violating our rights, the

00:19:32.700 least amount necessary to do the job? Is it a pressing and substantial problem? Now wildfires are

00:19:39.540 a pressing and substantial problem. Okay. And then finally, is there infringement on our liberty?

00:19:44.900 Is it rationally connected to the problem? And I think you're right to say that's where they're

00:19:51.440 most likely to fail. Walking in the forest does not start fire. Smoking might, cooking might,

00:19:58.180 arson would. So for this reminds me so much of the pandemic when you had irrational moves that

00:20:05.200 were scientifically invalid, but it made lawmakers feel good. Minimal impairment. You're not allowed

00:20:11.820 to walk at all in the forest, even on your private land. I think you got a winner here, John, but judges

00:20:16.940 might be caught up in the, in the mania, the wildfire mania, just like they were caught up five

00:20:23.180 years ago in the COVID mania. Well, fortunately the judges in Nova Scotia are not getting bombarded

00:20:29.600 every hour of every day of every week with this message about extreme fire hazard. And we're all

00:20:37.160 in this together and we all have to give up our rights to walk in the woods in order to stop the

00:20:42.380 fire. Judges are not getting this, this media propaganda on a daily basis or an hourly basis.

00:20:49.040 Whereas with COVID, the judges were, you know, getting this message just pounded into their heads

00:20:55.040 24 hours a day. And, and sadly, as I've outlined in my book, Corrupted by Fear, we've seen judges

00:21:02.880 that actually wrote the media narrative into their court rulings without there being evidence to support

00:21:08.780 that narrative. So I think we've, we're in far better shape in Nova Scotia because whichever judge

00:21:14.260 hears it is not going to be in a state of fear with, you know, hourly propaganda about the dangers

00:21:21.320 of forest fires and how, you know, a ban on walking in the woods is going to save us all from these

00:21:26.220 deadly forest fires. So it's going to be a lot easier for the judge to look at this rationally.

00:21:32.060 One more really important point is the government also has to demonstrate that, that the law is doing

00:21:36.700 more good than harm. Right. And so the governments didn't even bother with the COVID lockdowns to

00:21:43.060 look at the harms, but here walking in the woods brings a lot of, uh, physical, mental, spiritual

00:21:49.040 benefits to people. It's like when they shut down the gyms and when they shut down the outdoor parks,

00:21:55.140 remember they drew those stupid circles in the parks and told people they couldn't go to the park 0.99

00:22:00.400 outside, which was the healthiest place. Oh, I'm getting so many terrible flashbacks. All right. 0.99

00:22:04.700 Listen, I want to talk about a couple other cases, but that's a, that's such a good one that you guys

00:22:08.140 are doing. Um, our friend, Amy Hamm, the nurse in BC has been hounded out of the profession and my

00:22:15.300 heart breaks for her. It's, it's deeply unfair and unjust, but the, to add, add a layer of humiliation

00:22:25.000 to it. Her professional board, which has stripped her of her rights to practice nursing has given her 0.90

00:22:33.080 a bill for $93,600. So they had a kangaroo court that drummed her out of the profession because she 0.90

00:22:43.120 disagrees with transgenderism, even though she never took it out on any patient, there was never a

00:22:48.500 complaint. She was never hostile to any patient whatsoever outside of her work. It was an

00:22:54.140 extracurricular thing. She, she expressed her politics. Not only did they strip her of her

00:22:58.540 career, destroy her job, but now they're sending her a bill. It's like what Stalin would, uh, kill

00:23:04.800 someone and then send the family an invoice for the bullet. That's what's happened here. Tell me 0.58

00:23:10.880 what's going on with Amy Hamm. I hope you guys are fighting that fine. Well, absolutely. So the, it's

00:23:20.100 just a disgrace. This, this British Columbia college of midwives and nurses, uh, it obviously

00:23:26.620 completely captured by anti-science transgender ideology when they punish one of their own members

00:23:33.000 for stating in public that there's only two sexes and that women are entitled to safe spaces like

00:23:39.060 bathrooms, change rooms, uh, female sporting composition, uh, competitions and so on. The, 0.67

00:23:45.720 the big culprit though is the politicians who allow these professional bodies to run rogue and to

00:23:54.360 impose their, their woke ideology on professionals. Uh, you know, similar to the law society of Alberta

00:24:02.220 forces every lawyer to take this woke ideological course on, on Aboriginal issues where

00:24:08.900 you have to, uh, tell the law society that, that colonization is a very terrible thing and

00:24:15.040 decolonization is a good thing. Uh, in Alberta, it's being fixed, uh, at least in parts, there's 0.98

00:24:21.100 legislation that is coming that is going to basically say to the law society, you can regulate how well a

00:24:28.260 lawyer is acting for his client, you know, make sure that the lawyer is, is ethical and not stealing

00:24:34.240 trust funds. You can regulate how doctors are treating their own patients, you know, like it's

00:24:39.120 unethical for a doctor to have sex with the patient. So the college can step in, but you're not going to

00:24:44.160 regulate the speech of doctors and lawyers. And so what needs to happen in BC and Alberta and every

00:24:51.040 province is for the provinces to change the law, to simply, uh, tell these, uh, the law society, the British

00:24:59.440 Columbia college of nurses and midwives, uh, college of physicians and surgeons, the association of

00:25:04.640 professional engineers, uh, the teachers colleges, et cetera. Uh, you are not to police the speech of

00:25:11.520 regulated professionals. That's the solution. Cause it's really easy to get upset with the, with the

00:25:16.560 college, the BC college and midwives and nurses, and they should be ashamed of themselves, uh, for their

00:25:21.840 reprehensible behavior. And then this vindictive $94,000 penalty for a baseless prosecution that they

00:25:29.200 themselves commenced. And then it's like, Oh, and now you've got to pay us 94,000. They should

00:25:33.520 be ashamed of themselves. But the bigger problem is with politicians who are not reining in these

00:25:38.880 woke ideologues. You know, uh, you just made me remember it. I can't believe I forgot forgot a few

00:25:44.320 months ago. I was asked to participate in a round table with the upper to government to talk about

00:25:50.800 industry professional associations, censoring their members because you know, 20 years ago or whatever,

00:25:56.960 when I was, I mean, I haven't practiced law in a very long time, but 24 spurious complaints were

00:26:03.520 made against me to the law side of Alberta. When I was still a member of the law society,

00:26:07.840 none of them had anything to do with me lawyering, not one. I never had a single complaint. I mean,

00:26:12.880 I didn't do a lot of lawyering. Um, they were all political complaints. Like people would send a copy

00:26:18.480 of my Toronto sun newspaper article to the law society and say, that's illegal. Like it was that

00:26:25.040 ridiculous. There were so many complaints against me. At one point I was told that 10% of all the work 0.92

00:26:32.480 of the Alberta law society was dealing with my politics. They would, can you believe it? It was,

00:26:37.920 it was awful. And I, I got through, I mean, I'm maybe a little bit more conflict oriented than our

00:26:44.640 friend Amy Ham. Um, but I was delighted to be called by the government to tell the story of how the law

00:26:51.600 society was abused, hijacked and weaponized to turn it into a political weapon. So I was very

00:26:58.160 glad to hear it. And if they are promulgating those changes, if they are going to take that

00:27:02.720 censorship power away from the professions, I'm very glad. And if my testimony had anything to do

00:27:08.480 with it, I'm, I'm double glad because, um, like, I think there were 24 or 26 complaints against me.

00:27:14.320 Every single one of them was thrown out, but every single one of them required me to fight. I mean,

00:27:18.800 I know, I sort of know how Amy Ham feels. I mean, what happened to her was more disastrous,

00:27:24.320 but I know the feeling of being surrounded. Hey, we have time just for one more quick update.

00:27:29.440 A trucker named Evan Blackman, who was prosecuted, he had his bank's bank account seized and frozen

00:27:35.360 illegally by the government. He was prosecuted for a crime. He was acquitted. But you tell me if I'm

00:27:42.400 wrong here, Doug Ford's Department of Justice appealed his acquittal, which is insane. The

00:27:49.280 vengeful vendetta. You can't blame that on Justin Trudeau, I'm afraid. You can't blame that on Mark

00:27:54.160 Carney. This was Doug Ford's Department of Justice. Tell me a little bit more about Evan Blackman's case.

00:28:00.000 So he was a protester in Ottawa. He was arrested, uh, criminally charged, even though he was on his

00:28:09.840 knees with his hand over his heart, uh, singing, Oh Canada. And, and at other times he has his hands

00:28:15.840 stretched out to, uh, uh, encourage protesters to cooperate. Yeah. A judge called him a peacemaker.

00:28:22.800 A judge actually called him a peacemaker and the, but the province just can't let it be. Can they?

00:28:30.800 No, it's, this is petty vindictive and it appears to be very political. You've got the crown prosecutors

00:28:36.640 in Ontario who are, uh, uh, they've complained publicly that, that, that accused rapists and

00:28:42.480 accused murderers are walking away scot-free without a trial because the crown says they don't have enough

00:28:47.840 resources to properly prosecute these cases. And then you've got this, uh, uh, Supreme Court ruling

00:28:54.240 in Jordan that says that, you know, serious crime has to be brought to trial within 30 months. And the

00:28:59.360 crown says, Oh, boo hoo, poor us. We don't have the resources. And so, you know, very serious criminal

00:29:05.120 charges are, are not being, uh, there's no trial taking place. And, and there's a double standard there.

00:29:11.520 You see, I don't live in Toronto, but I did see footage back in March, uh, a bunch of Muslims

00:29:17.520 shutting down young and blur for evening prayers. And I've heard from other people in Toronto that

00:29:22.400 this is a routine weekly thing where protesters will obstruct a highway, um, meaning any street,

00:29:29.440 uh, legal term is a highway. And there's just police are not laying charges. Whereas you get

00:29:35.600 people like Evan Blackman, who was protesting for the wrong cause, the wrong cause being anti-lockdowns,

00:29:42.560 anti-vaccine passports, and the crown's going after him aggressively and just throwing the book at him.

00:29:47.280 Yeah. I mean, Tamara Leach is, is all of these things. I mean, 50 plus days of hearings. 1.00

00:29:52.400 They want seven years in prison for her. Um, I mean, 50 days of court, how many, 1.00

00:29:59.120 like a murder trial might take a week or two so that, that going after Tamara Leach is more 0.98

00:30:05.360 important than going after half a dozen murderers. Cause that's what you're talking about when you have

00:30:09.680 limited prosecutorial resources, it's so gross. And I, and I think we have to say,

00:30:15.120 you know, conservatives like to blame Justin Trudeau or Mark Carney, and there's a lot to

00:30:19.120 blame them for, but not this. This is 100% Doug Ford. Hey, John, good luck in these three cases.

00:30:25.520 Each of them are very interesting. And, and we know Jeff Evely. We interviewed him last week.

00:30:31.280 We know Amy Ham. We think she's great. She actually came on our rebel news cruise this year. And I don't

00:30:35.920 know Evan Blackman, but he sounds like a good guy. And, uh, so I'm glad you're representing him. What's the best

00:30:41.600 way for people to keep in touch with all you guys are doing? Is it jccf.ca? Is that your website?

00:30:50.480 Exactly. Yeah. Justice Center of Constitutional Freedoms, jccf.ca. Go to our website. If you'd like

00:30:56.400 our email newsletter, um, then, uh, you can subscribe to that. And if you want to donate,

00:31:02.800 we'll give you a tax receipt. And, uh, we, we exist thanks to generosity of Canadians that,

00:31:09.280 that support our work to defend freedom in Canada. I think you've made an enormous difference over

00:31:13.920 the years. And like I say, you have been a role model, uh, for what little work we've done here.

00:31:18.320 It was, uh, you who set the precedent. So thank you for that. Great to see you again, John Carpe,

00:31:23.040 our guest today, the boss of the JCCF. Stay with us more ahead.

00:31:27.040 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. And these are all from premium subscribers like you who put

00:31:40.400 comments under the video. The first one is from Gary Shotson, who says Ukraine is a European problem,

00:31:46.320 not a Canadian one. Mexico, China, and India were not there. Well, that's the thing. Listen,

00:31:52.000 I do not support the violent invasion of one country into another. I just don't. We want peace.

00:31:58.720 Um, that said, I don't think that the Western media's portrayal of Vladimir Putin reflected the

00:32:07.440 global response to him. I mean, India sopped up all the oil and gas that Russia no longer could sell

00:32:14.240 to Europe. Although, by the way, I should tell you, Russia still sells more oil and gas to Western

00:32:19.920 Europe than Western Europe spent on weapons for Ukraine. It's really weird how the money was

00:32:25.280 recirculated. Places like India, China, they really didn't feel like that battle was theirs. I think

00:32:31.840 there was a special role that the Biden family played in Ukraine and that American politicians

00:32:38.320 had in Ukraine that made that such an American issue. Obviously, I want the war to stop. I want

00:32:43.040 the killing to stop, but I want there to be a long-term peace. Of course I do. But I don't think that

00:32:48.240 we've been well served by either the political or the media treatment of this crisis over the last

00:32:54.080 two and a half, three and a half years. Next letter is from James McCann, who says,

00:33:00.080 the office was already crowded. Why would President Trump invite people he already owns and have little

00:33:04.720 or nothing to offer? You're talking about the fact that Mark Carney was not there. Well,

00:33:10.080 remember there was that one guy, the head of Finland, Alexander, I don't even remember his last name.

00:33:16.480 Will you forgive me for forgetting the name of the leader of Finland? I don't know the mayor's name

00:33:23.200 of Moscow, which is a city of 20 million. I don't know the prime minister's name or president's name

00:33:29.440 of Finland, a country of five million. He was there. I don't really understand why he was there and

00:33:35.920 Canada wasn't. It doesn't make sense by the normal metrics. How much population does Canada have? How much

00:33:43.200 money did Canada give to Ukraine? Canada beats Finland on both counts. I just think that Mark

00:33:49.600 Carney and Donald Trump don't like each other. And I'm a little bit baffled by that because I really

00:33:54.640 think Donald Trump helped ensure that Mark Carney won. And last letter today by Roman Koff, who says,

00:34:02.400 looks like Trump is trying to minimize Canada. Didn't like the pushback in retaliation on tariffs.

00:34:07.760 You know, it's tough to deal with Donald Trump and I don't envy the Canadian diplomats who have to do

00:34:13.280 it. But the word diplomat implies being diplomatic. I don't understand what's going on with Mark Carney's

00:34:19.760 attack dog, Doug Ford, who every single day says atrocious and astonishing things about Trump

00:34:26.240 that he must know, that he does know, will necessarily be counterproductive. Doug Ford is a 0.74

00:34:33.840 nobody to the White House. He's not a member of the federal government. He has no power to enter into

00:34:40.320 trade deals. He's a provincial premier. The only thing he can do is hurl insults, which I think are

00:34:48.240 strategically designed to prick at Donald Trump's pride and ego. One has to ask, why is the premier of

00:34:57.280 Ontario deliberately and counter productively picking a fight with the United States? Why?

00:35:04.640 Isn't he risking his auto industry? Isn't he risking other industries in the country?

00:35:09.920 I do not understand his scheme. I'm not impressed with it. And in no way is it anything conservative.

00:35:17.280 Your guess is as good as mine. Let me know what you think. That's a show for today. Until tomorrow,

00:35:22.880 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night,

00:35:26.960 and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - August 20, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Lessons from Pierre Poilievre's by-election win

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