Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Liberal politician falsely claimed a Rebel News reporter harassed him — I’ll tell you what happened next

00:00:00.340 Hello, my Rebels. I don't know if you saw over the weekend, but a liberal candidate said something

00:00:07.040 online that was so shocking about Rebel News. But for about one second, I thought, well, maybe it's

00:00:11.760 true. He said a Rebel News reporter harassed him and he gave really specific details at this

00:00:18.220 farmer's market after doing this and this. I thought, boy, that's a very specific allegation.

00:00:23.960 It wasn't until I called and emailed our entire Ontario staff that I realized

00:00:27.720 it was a lie. I'll take you through that story and what we're doing about it, but more importantly,

00:00:32.360 what it means and why would the liberal lie that way? I'll give you my explanation or my best guess.

00:00:38.420 That's today's show. Before I go to it, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.

00:00:43.620 That's the video version of this podcast. It's useful. For example, today I show you all the

00:00:47.620 tweets he made. And if you get the video version of the podcast, it's called Rebel News Plus.

00:00:55.160 Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's $8 a month. You get the video version of this show

00:01:01.420 every day, Sheila Gunn-Reed, David Menzies, and Andrew Chapitreau every week, and the satisfaction

00:01:06.660 of knowing that you're helping to keep Rebel News independent. We don't take a dime from Trudeau.

00:01:12.020 All right, here's today's podcast.

00:01:13.220 Tonight, a liberal politician falsely cries wolf, claiming a Rebel News reporter harassed him at a

00:01:34.140 farmer's market. Trouble is, it's a lie. It's January 17th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:39.520 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:45.620 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:49.700 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody

00:01:54.560 right to do so.

00:02:00.340 I saw a tweet from Justin Trudeau proudly announcing that it is no longer legal to intimidate doctors

00:02:06.440 or nurses. Except, of course, it's never been legal to intimidate anyone. Any profession, really. Any

00:02:13.520 person of any background. Now, of course, there is a threshold. What is intimidation? That's the

00:02:18.860 question. Here's a handbook for prosecutors published by Trudeau's Justice Department just

00:02:24.020 last month, actually, describing the law as it has been for a very long time, for decades, actually.

00:02:30.940 Criminal harassment, which includes stalking, is a crime. While many crimes are defined by conduct

00:02:37.700 that results in a very clear physical outcome, for example, murder, the offense of criminal harassment

00:02:44.120 prohibits deliberate conduct that is psychologically harmful to others. Criminal harassment often consists

00:02:52.300 of repeated conduct that is carried out over a period of time and that causes its targets to

00:02:57.360 reasonably fear for their safety, but does not necessarily result in physical injury. It may be

00:03:02.960 a precursor to subsequent violent and or lethal acts. That's a pretty good one-paragraph summary.

00:03:10.380 Obviously, there are things that are uncomfortable or offensive that are completely legal, even

00:03:16.540 important to society, beneficial. There is no right not to be offended in Canada. That's a counterfeit

00:03:23.360 human right. It's a woke feeling. It's really another way of saying you want the power to shut

00:03:28.560 up someone you don't like. But according to that Justice Department handbook, most harassment is

00:03:34.820 actually really obsessed stalkers who quite often know their victims. Think of an obsessed ex-boyfriend

00:03:42.700 or something. Ex-girlfriend, perhaps. So if someone is being stalked, that's been against the law for

00:03:49.640 decades. And then there's the law against intimidation, which has its own section in the

00:03:56.700 criminal code. I'm going to read straight from the criminal code to show you how vigorous the law is

00:04:01.420 right now, but also what intimidation means in the criminal context. It's anyone who, and I quote,

00:04:07.660 uses violence or threats of violence to a person or their intimate partner or children or injures the

00:04:15.420 person's property. B, intimidates or attempts to intimidate that person or a relative of that

00:04:21.780 person by threats that in Canada or elsewhere, violence or other injury will be done to or punishment

00:04:28.720 inflicted on him or her or relative of his or hers, or that the property of any of them will be damaged.

00:04:34.480 C, persistently follows that person. D, hides any tools, clothes, or other property owned or used by

00:04:43.460 that person or deprives him or her of them or hinders him or her in the use of them. E, with one or more

00:04:51.340 other persons, follows that person in a disorderly manner on a highway. F, besets or watches the place

00:04:58.780 where that person resides, works, carries on business or happens to be, or G, blocks or obstructs a highway.

00:05:06.340 I like that last one. Yeah, you might recall a couple years ago how railway lines and highways

00:05:11.380 were constantly being blocked by environmental extremist groups and the police literally did

00:05:16.600 nothing. Same with the eco-sabotage of logging or oil patch places, but my point is it's been against

00:05:24.040 the law for a very long time to harass people or stalk people or intimidate someone. I just, I mean,

00:05:29.880 that criminal code provision has a lot of examples, right? But there is a move about to expand this

00:05:34.640 dramatically to capture things that heretofore have been simply called healthy debate. But healthy debate

00:05:42.080 is an old-fashioned concept now. Now the default response by the left is no debate. Silence the dissenter.

00:05:49.740 It's been that way for a while on certain issues in certain places. For example, the CBC and Britain's

00:05:54.660 BBC positively boast that their editorial policy is to ban anyone from coming on air to provide a

00:06:02.620 skeptical point of view on the theory of man-made global warming. That's been their practice for

00:06:07.680 years and they're doing the same and much more actually on the pandemic and lockdowns and forced

00:06:13.000 vaccines. Thing is, people just went elsewhere to get that other side of the story, mainly the internet.

00:06:18.740 So that's why woke censorship moved to YouTube and Twitter and Facebook and Instagram

00:06:23.580 and places like that. That's why Joe Rogan is so successful. He has smart, long conversations with

00:06:31.460 people, usually experts, usually dissidents, and he listens and asks questions and he doesn't

00:06:36.740 denigrate or deride them, which is why he has about 11 million listeners on his podcast on any given

00:06:42.780 episode, more than any cable news host in America. In fact, double the highest Fox News host.

00:06:48.400 Which is why they want to censor him so badly. Same thing with the most successful comedian in

00:06:54.440 America right now, Dave Chappelle. He tells jokes about trans people, for example, and so he must 1.00

00:07:00.060 be burned at the stake. Just like J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, the most 0.98

00:07:04.860 successful author of our time. My point is, debating critics is out, silencing critics is the new way,

00:07:11.580 and Trudeau has decided that it's not happening enough yet. So he wants more laws, new laws.

00:07:20.460 Look at this. Update. It's now illegal to intimidate doctors, nurses, and patients, 0.97

00:07:24.900 or to obstruct them from providing care or seeking treatment. As our government's legislation to

00:07:29.920 criminalize a behavior comes into force today, we'll continue to have the backs of healthcare workers. 0.96

00:07:34.980 No, you weird liar. It's always been illegal to intimidate people. I just read to you the criminal

00:07:41.400 code provisions there, too. But frankly, I think doctors could use some protection

00:07:46.160 from intimidation these days. Doctors and nurses and other healthcare professionals

00:07:50.200 could use some protection from Trudeau and his Simon Says premiers who copy him,

00:07:55.740 who have not only fired thousands of doctors and nurses for not being vaccinated, even though many of

00:08:00.660 them have natural immunity, which seems to be working better than the vaccine, but mainly the absolute

00:08:05.960 intimidation of doctors by their colleges of physicians and surgeons. If those doctors dare to

00:08:11.900 have a medical opinion for one of their patients that deviates from the political line, that you must

00:08:18.560 have a vaccine in an endless series of booster shots. Any doctor who gives exemptions is investigated

00:08:25.220 and threatened, and in many cases suspended even before their case is heard. So yeah, this is projection

00:08:32.040 on Trudeau's part. Doctors like the rest of us have strong protections under criminal law, always have.

00:08:38.460 The laws of stalking, harassment, and intimidation, all sorts of threats. That has never been legal to do.

00:08:45.160 Trudeau is the threatener today, and even as he threatens doctors, he's projecting onto you what he's actually

00:08:51.980 doing to his critics. He does that a lot. He sexually assaulted Rose Knight in Creston, BC, but he calls

00:08:57.880 his enemies sexist and misogynist. He wore blackface more times than he can remember, but he calls his 0.96

00:09:03.880 enemies racist. He threatened doctors, but he says his enemies do, and of course he's definitely against

00:09:10.880 violence. Oh, unless it's his own personal bodyguards doing it to a rebel news reporter.

00:09:15.780 But as Trudeau does, so they all do. And so it was that this weekend, a little Trudeau wannabe,

00:09:23.120 a liberal candidate provincially in Ontario who has been a lockdown extremist, a TV doctor,

00:09:29.920 hyping lockdowns, he told a lie, a whopper of a lie, an extreme lie, a cry wolf lie, a cry baby lie.

00:09:37.060 Here's what he said. Nathan Stahl is his name. He said,

00:09:39.540 Today a Rebel News reporter harassed me at a local farmer's market for promoting vaccines.

00:09:43.940 That same reporter made use of the market's shopping service, where volunteers personally

00:09:48.680 shop inside for those without a vaccine certificate. Reasonable accommodation demands civility.

00:09:54.380 More than a thousand people retweeted or liked that. Probably a hundred thousand people saw it or

00:09:59.340 more. You heard him. He was very specific. A Rebel News reporter at a farmer's market.

00:10:07.260 A Rebel News reporter who was personally shopping without a vaccine. Harassed him. You couldn't be

00:10:12.860 more factually precise than that in a small tweet. Now, he didn't say anyone's name. He didn't show

00:10:18.160 a photo or a video taken from his cell phone. But look, he's a doctor and a politician, so surely

00:10:23.020 he wouldn't just make that all up, right? That's a pretty specific thing to say. Well, I saw that and

00:10:28.560 I immediately sent a note to our entire staff. Did anyone talk to that guy? Now, a bunch of our team

00:10:34.580 immediately replied and I phoned the rest. Obviously, I didn't pester the people I knew were far away in

00:10:40.960 British Columbia or Australia, but everyone in Ontario where this guy is. And not only did none

00:10:46.800 of our staff interact with him, only one person actually knew who he was. And no one on our staff

00:10:53.180 had ever contacted him in any manner. None of them had been to a farmer's market at all that day

00:10:59.520 anywhere. It was simply all made up. Just completely made up. But that's the thing about defamatory facts

00:11:06.720 as opposed to defamatory opinions. If this Nathan Stahl character had just called us names

00:11:11.700 or had an opinion about us, people could ignore that. They could think he was reasonable or

00:11:16.440 unreasonable. But frankly, an opinion, when you express it, says as much about you as the person

00:11:21.940 you're expressing your opinion about, about the person about whom the opinion is spoken. Now,

00:11:27.820 you could say, I hate rebel news. I think they're terrible. Okay, fine. Fair enough. That's your

00:11:31.780 opinion. But he says specific facts. One of our reporters harassed him at a specific place,

00:11:37.400 specific details. It's very different than an opinion, isn't it? As you can tell by my own

00:11:43.500 immediate reaction of calling our own team. I myself thought it was possible, even if it was

00:11:49.000 very unlikely, it was possible that it was true because he said it was such specificity.

00:11:53.760 I was pretty sure he would be exaggerating no matter what, but I thought it could be true

00:11:59.400 until I spoke with literally our whole team. I called him out on it on Twitter. This is what I

00:12:07.240 said after I talked to everyone on our team. I said, this is a defamatory lie. It did not happen.

00:12:12.740 I personally checked with every Rebel News staffer today. No one interacted with you in any way.

00:12:17.540 No one was at a farmer's market. Most of my staff have never heard of you. Please delete this

00:12:21.860 falsehood. You untrustworthy liar. I was mad. So I said it again because he wasn't deleting it. I said, 0.99

00:12:28.400 you wicked liar. I've just checked with every single Rebel News staff member. No one interacted 0.99

00:12:33.660 with you today. No one went to a farmer's market. Most of my staff have no clue who you are. Retract 0.74

00:12:39.280 your defamation and apologize or we'll sue you on Monday morning. I went at it a bit and here's

00:12:44.500 what the little liar finally wrote in reply. He said, please speak with Rosemary Fry. Here's her

00:12:50.420 Rebel News article covering my work on COVID-19 vaccines. And then he linked to this story from

00:12:55.600 five months ago. Huh? Rosemary Fry? She doesn't work for us. Never has. And that story, it was our

00:13:02.620 reporter, Tamari Ugolini, interviewing Rosemary Fry. She's just a person we interviewed five months ago.

00:13:09.020 We've done 30,000 videos in our time. We've spoken to thousands of people. They don't work for us.

00:13:15.420 They're not Rebel News reporters, which he specifically said actually twice. He's not that dumb to think 0.95

00:13:21.760 someone we interviewed five months ago as a Rebel News reporter. He just thought he could get away 0.92

00:13:25.800 with that lie. And by the way, he's such a liar, I don't believe he even had an interaction with her 0.98

00:13:30.740 in any event. But so what? The lie was out there. And even after I called him on his lie, he let it 0.96

00:13:35.960 stand for hours more. So hundreds and thousands of people could see it and retweet it. It was a hoax.

00:13:41.840 Like Jussie Smollett. He invented a hate crime, but it was a lie. He was the hater.

00:13:47.420 So what, though? Here's a left-wing news site called The Narwhal republishing it,

00:13:54.160 saying it's proof that we're not real journalists. Andre Picard, the Globe and Mail's health journalist,

00:13:58.900 retweeted it. Of course, Catherine McKenna, the disgraced former minister, did too.

00:14:04.320 Over a thousand people liked retweet it. And then finally, a real lawyer, I guess,

00:14:08.180 talked to him, and he panicked. And he just deleted it all. But with no correction, no retraction,

00:14:12.800 no apology. The hundred thousand plus people who read it simply read it. And that was it. They

00:14:17.600 assume it was accurate because Stahl didn't correct himself. The defamation is done. The hate was

00:14:23.380 published, and it's in the service of Trudeau's narrative. People are inciting violence against

00:14:28.320 them or even committing violence against them or whatever harassing meant. They're lying.

00:14:35.360 They're the violent ones. They're the threateners. They're the ones locking us all down. They're the 0.77

00:14:40.900 ones using police to bully us, using colleges of physicians and surgeons to silence doctors.

00:14:46.380 They're accusing their victims of what they themselves do. Our lawyer sent Stahl a demand

00:14:51.900 letter telling him that if he doesn't, in fact, retract and apologize and put that on his Twitter

00:14:56.740 account, we're going to see him in court. I'll let you know how that goes. By the way, look at this.

00:15:04.360 The unvaccinated cherish their freedom to harm others. How can we ever forgive them? That was published 1.00

00:15:10.600 in Canada's largest newspaper, the Toronto Star. If I were a woke leftist, I'd say that's

00:15:16.560 intimidation or harassment or something, and the police ought to arrest them. But I'm not a leftist,

00:15:22.000 so I'll just say it's a disgrace. And it's absolutely 100% at the feet of Justin Trudeau,

00:15:28.200 who has telegraphed to the entire establishment that it's okay to hate those you disagree with

00:15:33.920 on the pandemic. This will not end well. Stay with us for more.

00:15:45.020 Well, hey, do you remember a few weeks ago when David Suzuki said that there could or would or

00:15:51.600 should be violence against pipelines? He wasn't very clear. Initially, he held his ground, refused

00:15:58.820 to retract that. But I don't know where the pressure came from, whether it was from the

00:16:03.280 David Suzuki Foundation, which for some reason is charitable status in Canada, or whether it was

00:16:08.280 from the CBC. But he eventually realized that he had simply gone too far, this multimillionaire,

00:16:15.480 essentially giving his moral blessing to eco-terrorism. So he finally walked it back. But

00:16:22.260 everyone got the message. Well, not so at the CBC, Trudeau's state broadcaster. In this great story

00:16:29.640 on True North by Cosman, Georgia, it's revealed by Cosman's digging that the CBC has just commissioned

00:16:38.860 an anarchist who promotes violence, including videos like one titled, How to Paralyze a Country.

00:16:49.340 Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster has hired an anarchist to put together such a movie. Joining us

00:16:57.920 now is Cosman, Georgia, the reporter at True North who revealed the story. Cosman, how you doing? Great

00:17:03.000 to see you. Good. How are you, Ezra? Well, I'm fine. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. I thought

00:17:10.940 that maybe when David Suzuki blinked and walked back his eco-terrorist message, which was a little bit

00:17:17.480 ambiguous. It wasn't clear if he was predicting it or giving it his blessing. He walked it back. But

00:17:23.440 this guy, Franklin Lopez, he's full-on anarchist promoting violence, isn't he?

00:17:31.880 Yes, in some sense. So Franklin Lopez, by the admission of the CBC, has been an active anarchist

00:17:40.080 activist activist in the Canadian community for about 20 years. So it's evident that the CBC was

00:17:46.440 well aware of Mr. Lopez's past connections. Now his work through the company Submedia, which he founded,

00:17:54.740 has found its way on several of Canada's most radical anarchist extremist websites like Montreal

00:18:02.420 Counterinformation, North Shore Counterinformation. These are websites that regularly publish communications

00:18:10.380 and descriptions of illegal and criminal activity, such as shutting down pipelines, throwing stones

00:18:20.160 through bank windows. So there's an extensive network of these anarchist little communities that

00:18:28.960 use these websites to get their word out and essentially encourage each other to pursue

00:18:35.740 attacks on Canada's critical infrastructure and other such things.

00:18:41.800 So I want to make it clear, because just earlier today I was saying, look, Trudeau is looking to

00:18:45.360 criminalize merely dissenting speech. And so we have to allow offensive speech and annoying speech and

00:18:54.120 speech we don't like as part of the political hurly-burly. But I just want to be crystal clear,

00:18:58.960 these websites that you're talking about, they don't just talk about ideas. They talk really

00:19:04.060 how to make a pipe bomb, how to derail a train. Am I accurate in describing them that way? They're

00:19:09.820 actual manuals, how-to manuals for violence and eco-terrorism. Is that right?

00:19:17.300 Yes, absolutely. You know, as you mentioned, having an extreme or radical opinion is not illegal in this

00:19:22.800 country. But what these websites endorse cross the line. Now, they put in tongue-in-cheek comments

00:19:30.080 where they're just saying, you know, this is for informational purposes. But Montreal Counter

00:19:35.200 Information, which has published and linked to several of Mr. Lopez's videos, has published guides

00:19:41.960 on how to make Molotov cocktails. Now, it's illegal to own or produce Molotov cocktails because they're a

00:19:47.840 form of inflammatory explosives. So I think this clearly crosses the line. And the fact that the

00:19:54.480 CBC is comfortable to work with such an individual that has been endorsed by these websites, and he

00:20:01.880 himself has published, you know, positive portrayals of people, radical environmentalist protesters shutting

00:20:08.900 down pipelines. And as you mentioned, you know, how to paralyze the country. These are very concerning

00:20:14.100 things. Yeah. The article on True North is called Radical Anarchist Producing CBC Documentary

00:20:20.180 on BC Pipeline Protests. Now, I want to make sure we sharpen the distinction between things that this

00:20:26.940 anarchist Franklin Lopez himself has said or done versus the websites upon which he's published. I mean,

00:20:34.180 I think we can infer certain things by him being published by these violence promoting sites. But what has

00:20:41.840 the worst thing that he himself has said or done? I suppose he gives them their blessing. But has he

00:20:48.820 himself counseled violence or, you know, violence to property or violence to people that you know of?

00:20:57.900 As far as I can tell, Mr. Lopez has been very careful about what he says and does using his own name.

00:21:04.860 Now, on his Twitter account, which has since been locked, he has, you know, published positive,

00:21:11.580 messages about Antifa and various actions that they've done throughout the country and in the

00:21:17.860 United States and beyond. So if you just look at Mr. Lopez's company, Submedia, there's hundreds of

00:21:24.940 videos positively portraying other radicals. Now, as I said, he's been very careful and he's also been

00:21:33.480 very public about this, you know, and the fact that the CBC has no qualms with that, it just goes to

00:21:40.560 show how much they've sold their soul. And as we know recently from former CBC producer Tara Henley,

00:21:48.240 the CBC has a far left problem and it's endemic across the Crown Corporation.

00:21:54.920 Yeah. You know, what was so interesting about your story is you actually talked to Chuck Thompson,

00:21:59.920 the chief spin doctor over there at the CBC. He's the damage control mop up guy. I really got to know

00:22:05.440 his name during the whole Xi'an Gomeshi scandal. So when he's put on a file, you know, they're in

00:22:11.520 trouble. But you're right. He basically said, yeah, we've known who he was for 20 years and that's all

00:22:16.980 we're saying. He didn't get into any particulars. I think it's unthinkable that the CBC would glamorize

00:22:22.880 violence and eco-terrorism if it were against any other industry, if it were against, I don't know,

00:22:28.660 wind turbines or something green. I mean, I don't know, anything against one of their left-wing

00:22:35.580 heroes. But if it's against oil and gas, of course, the CBC will do. Why is that a surprise?

00:22:43.120 They're Trudeau's CBC state broadcaster. They do what he says. And he himself, Trudeau himself,

00:22:49.560 I can't think that he's ever criticized eco-terrorism. He hired Gerald Butts as his

00:22:55.180 principal advisor for years. So the CBC is basically saying, yeah, what are you going to

00:22:59.260 do about it? I mean, the brazenness is quite something. You're absolutely right, Ezra. You

00:23:06.260 know, this production is called Yinta, and as Chuck Thompson described it to me, it's a point-of-view

00:23:12.880 documentary. Now I wonder, would the CBC create a point-of-view documentary about all of the First 0.63

00:23:19.460 nations along the BCLNG pipelines route, all of the elected councils who endorse and are set to benefit

00:23:27.060 from this project in terms of jobs and income? Would they create a point-of-view documentary

00:23:34.120 from the perspective of the besieged BCLNG workers who have constantly faced blockades, lack of access to

00:23:42.340 food and road closures due to the activities of these radical protesters? I suspect they probably

00:23:50.260 won't create that point-of-view. So it's obviously very one-sided. And as you said, you know, Gerald

00:23:55.860 Butts is very involved in the environmental movement. But we just saw from the latest cabinet the promotion

00:24:02.520 of Stephen Guilbault, who was a radical Greenpeace activist, and he's very much proud of that fact in

00:24:09.900 various interviews he's given to the media. Yeah. Well, he's a convicted criminal, too. He broke into the

00:24:14.820 CN Tower as part of a stunt, and he pretended in court that he was quite contrite, but he did a victory

00:24:23.020 lap for the media outside. He's untrustworthy, Stephen Guilbault, and he's shown that he'll break the law to get

00:24:28.380 his way if he can't do it lawfully. So it's no surprising that the CBC is the same. I just want to point out

00:24:33.000 one thing. This is about the pipeline where there's an Indian band, the Wet'suwet'en First Nation.

00:24:41.420 We sent our former reporter, Kian Bexte, up there, and we discovered that all the agitators against

00:24:48.360 the pipeline, they're not the actual band council. They're not the actual people there who represent

00:24:56.400 the First Nations. They're, you know, I'm not going to call them impersonators, but they have no democratic 0.73

00:25:03.080 legitimacy. They're basically foreign-funded provocateurs. It's no surprise to me that Franklin Lopez comes in on the

00:25:10.780 side of the basically eco-colonizers to tell the local Aboriginal folks that they're not allowed to have

00:25:19.980 economic development. It's really gross, and the fact that the CBC is pouring money into an Antifa-style

00:25:26.820 filmmaker says it all. That's a word to you, Cosman. Do you think that the CBC will ever have its

00:25:34.200 massive budget cut? I see that Aaron O'Toole, who campaigned on defunding it, is now saying,

00:25:41.240 hey, let's fix it. In fact, he reached out to that Tara Henley you're referring to and said, hey, Tara,

00:25:46.040 let's sit down and see how we can fix the CBC. I thought Aaron O'Toole told conservatives that he

00:25:52.020 would defund the CBC. I didn't hear him say he would fix it. Do you ever think we're going to

00:25:56.940 defund the CBC or get rid of it? Well, it would take a serious conservative leader to do that,

00:26:03.920 and I don't think Aaron O'Toole is that person. I think actually his original plan to essentially

00:26:09.020 privatize the CBC English TV arm of the Crown Corporation was actually a decent one, but he's

00:26:17.400 obviously reversed that position. Now he's talking about fixing it. I think a serious conservative

00:26:22.820 government would clean shop. They would use their powers through the governor and council to essentially,

00:26:30.200 I think, they should fire their board of directors, get some more level-headed people in there, 0.97

00:26:37.060 start cutting down CBC's coverage of national and federal politics, sell those assets, and put that

00:26:44.760 money and resources into local news, which is so desperately needed across this country. So there

00:26:51.260 are clearly ways to, if not totally defund the CBC, absolutely reform it. And you could also change

00:26:59.900 their code of ethics and make freedom of speech central to their code of ethics.

00:27:07.060 I think there are plenty of options that a conservative government would have. Now the

00:27:11.440 question is, who would be willing to do that? And I don't think Aaron O'Toole is that person.

00:27:17.740 Well, that's the one thing I'm going to disagree with you on, Cosman. I don't want to, you know,

00:27:22.100 refocus the CBC on local news gathering. I want to get them out of the news business. I want to get the

00:27:27.740 government out of the news business. And just as easily as a conservative leader could

00:27:32.260 stack the CBC with his board of directors, uh, the next year, a liberal prime minister could do the

00:27:38.480 same. I think this is one of the things where if you don't pull it out by the root, it'll be,

00:27:45.140 it's part of the permanent deep state. And the CBC has a stronger culture of left-wing activism than

00:27:52.320 the conservative party does. It'll just outlast the conservatives. We saw that mistake made by

00:27:57.260 Stephen Harper who did not pull it out by the root when he had a chance. And of course they stuck the

00:28:03.780 knife in him in 2015 when they had the chance. So I think it's unreformable. I think it's like,

00:28:08.700 uh, it's like the CIA. You will never reform the CIA. It's just, it's too large. It's its own

00:28:15.840 creature. It truly is the deep state. The CBC, as you can see by your own story is the deep state of

00:28:22.020 left-wing activism. It, it will not be reformed. That's just my view. I think, I think it has to

00:28:27.140 be pulled up by the root and a bunch of salt poured into the ground where it once grew. It's great to

00:28:32.140 see you, Cosman. Thanks for covering this story. I appreciate your investigations and we look forward

00:28:37.020 to talking to you again soon. Thanks for having me, Ezra. Happy to be here. Right on, you too. There

00:28:41.760 you have it, Cosman, Georgia. His story is called Radical Anarchist Producing CBC Documentary

00:28:46.640 on BC Pipeline Protest, because of course, stay with us. More ahead.

00:28:59.200 Hey, welcome back. Well, you know what? Here in Toronto, they get four feet of snow and everyone

00:29:03.920 panics. Well, I managed to come into work today and so did one other staffer, our friend Dakota.

00:29:08.780 So he's running the studio today. Big thanks to him. And the rest of our team is working hard

00:29:13.920 from home, but I was delighted to make it. You know, imagine saying that the way to get around

00:29:18.700 the second largest country in the world, one of the coldest countries in the world is, I don't know,

00:29:22.960 with a bicycle, with a Prius. Today, at least in this city, pickup trucks and SUVs own the road.

00:29:29.040 It was quite something out here and proof that all these schemers and global warmest,

00:29:33.840 they really have no clue. It's really the same as the big brains who tell us that lockdowns will fix

00:29:39.500 the pandemic. Anyways, forgive me that little aside. Newbie Bob says, I can't believe things

00:29:45.700 are getting this far. You really are fighting hard to squeeze the last hope out of freedom out of us.

00:29:51.340 Keep strong, all. You could be referring to just about any story we talk about,

00:29:56.180 because we talk about freedom. Josh Bush says, thanks for discussing section one of our Charter

00:30:00.780 of Rights and Freedoms. I call it the comicavia, which essentially makes a mockery of our entire

00:30:05.340 Canadian constitution. Any document that starts with exemptions to what it purportedly avows is

00:30:10.500 not a serious document. Canadians, in essence, have only the freedoms that the sitting government

00:30:15.160 grants at their pleasure. You're so right. And if you remember our conversation with Brian Peckford,

00:30:20.900 the former premier of Newfoundland, that's what he said. He says that exemption, that section one,

00:30:25.700 which says all these other rights we're about to give you, they're limited, so just don't even take

00:30:30.680 it seriously. Brian Peckford says that that was meant to be used in extreme emergencies, not this

00:30:36.940 perpetual public health emergency that's not even really an emergency. So yeah, but what are you going

00:30:42.040 to do? I mean, the Soviet Union had a constitution that promised freedom, put it in the hands of the 0.99

00:30:49.040 Communist Party, and they're so-called judges, and you get what you get. For, you know, the UK, you could

00:30:53.580 say, doesn't even have a written constitution, and yet they love freedom, and their courts defend it.

00:30:58.600 So you have to have freedom in your culture. Simply having a piece of paper will do you no favors.

00:31:05.620 Black Medicine says, time to pack up, say bye-bye to Alberta, and head south for beautiful and free

00:31:11.440 Florida. Well, as you know, Texas and Florida are the two states with the most in-migration from the

00:31:17.340 other states, California and New York being the most out-migration, no surprise there. But the thing is,

00:31:23.200 not everyone can move. Many businesses are geographically rooted. People have to go to a

00:31:28.740 particular office. If you're in a restaurant business, you can't just lift up your restaurant

00:31:33.380 and move to Florida. I mean, I suppose you could shut down your entire life here and try again there,

00:31:37.840 but there's one more wrinkle. It's another country. You can't just walk into Florida. I know that there

00:31:42.800 are illegal migrants there, to be sure, but that's a dream. For some people, it can be reality, 0.99

00:31:49.600 but for most Canadians, we've got to stay and fight for freedom. Well, that's our show for today.

00:31:54.960 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.

00:31:58.820 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:32:00.680 He is the reigning Australian Open champion, and he cannot play because he is unvaccinated. Now, 0.95

00:32:09.460 our next guest has been covering the story from the beginning. He has great insight into the entire

00:32:14.740 lockdown going on two years and insanity in Australia. His name is Avi Yamini. He's the chief

00:32:19.480 Australian correspondent for Rebel News, and he joins us now from Melbourne. Avi, great to have

00:32:24.480 you on the show this morning. I'm just going to turn it over to you. What's your reaction as you

00:32:27.480 see what's happening in Australia this morning? Well, thanks for having me. It's been an insane

00:32:32.980 week, but a couple of corrections. It's not actually that the government appealed it and won the

00:32:38.960 appeal. That's not true. He first, when he came in, they tried to ban him, saying his vaccine

00:32:47.920 exemption was invalid. When he appealed that, he won in the federal circuit court. And what

00:32:57.480 then transpired is the government claimed that he'd lied on his papers to get into the country

00:33:05.940 in his documentation. But that's not even what they came after him at the end. At the end,

00:33:10.820 the minister of immigration exercised his discretionary power to remove Novak Djokovic for the reason

00:33:20.480 that his mere presence in the country would essentially incite dissent. He said, citing that he was a risk

00:33:28.840 to civil order. So him being him, him being here, not that he was un-vaxxed, but that people perceived

00:33:36.220 his way of thinking, his belief to be anti-vaxxed. And that could inspire people not to get vaccinated

00:33:46.800 in a country where we're, I don't know, 90% or in a state, 93% vaccinated. It is crazy what happened

00:33:54.880 here today. Yeah, I mean, everything in Australia seems crazy to me these days. I guess my question

00:34:03.240 to you is, you know, I get how the government feels about this. It's a little surprising in the post

00:34:08.580 Omicron era where we now know that the vaccinated are spreading it. But how do the Australian people

00:34:13.920 feel about it? Where do they stand? Because this was such an international story that put a spotlight on

00:34:20.260 what they've been going through as well. I think a lot of Australians were really angry in the

00:34:26.300 beginning when Novak got an exemption, because as I said, over 90%, at least in Victoria, are double 0.91

00:34:33.540 vaccinated. And that's not because people chose to, it's because pretty much to live life here, you need

00:34:39.500 to be fully vaccinated. So people felt like they were forced to get vaccinated. But then this superstar

00:34:45.540 came here, and he was given an exemption. I think the federal government here rode that wave and felt

00:34:53.640 like they had an opportunity to win some political points. And they essentially went to take him out

00:35:02.520 on the most bizarre, bizarre, for the most bizarre reason. It's not, again, that he's unvaccinated.

00:35:08.800 Today, the immigration minister conceded that his vaccination exemption was absolutely kosher. It

00:35:17.420 was fine. It was over the fact that they said he was potentially inciting dissent. And one of the

00:35:24.080 things that they cited as evidence, which I found quite interesting, is that before the vaccines were

00:35:30.740 even available, that he'd questioned the idea of a vaccine, or he said that he was no expert, but

00:35:38.120 he would see at the time, but he wasn't really interested in vaccines. That was the only real

00:35:43.620 evidence that the state had that he was ever kind of anti-vax. The interesting thing is that that was

00:35:50.080 at a period of time that Joe Biden and every Democrat in America was having a go at the vaccines. It was

00:35:57.060 during the period that Trump was talking about the vaccine. And back at that time, being anti-vax was

00:36:03.380 actually the right kind of position to have. So it is a really, really bizarre situation that's

00:36:11.840 happened here. But there is, listen, a lot of people were angry about Novak being here. I think

00:36:17.840 Australians are going to look back at this period with a lot of shame.

00:36:22.880 Avi, you raised so many great points. This idea that he would incite dissent, you know, dissent is

00:36:29.520 something Americans are quite proud of, although it's been being squelched here as well. And we've

00:36:33.680 seen it actively by big tech. But the fact that the government would say dissent not allowed,

00:36:40.420 what does that tell you about the current state of politics, of power in Australia? A lot of people

00:36:46.740 look over at Australia and don't recognize a thing we used to think it was.

00:36:50.200 Look, I lived here my whole life and I don't recognize it. The last two years

00:36:55.620 has absolutely changed Australia. And day by day, it gets worse as we're coming out of this pandemic,

00:37:03.500 as we're learning to live with it. It seems like we're being stripped more and more of basic

00:37:09.700 fundamental human rights. And it's really, really sad. And I hope, like probably many Aussies, 1.00

00:37:17.600 that we come out of this okay and we're able to get back to the Australia we once had. But it is

00:37:23.700 looking harder and harder as we go forward.

00:37:27.980 Avi Yamini of Rebel News, great perspective this morning. Thanks for jumping on so quickly this morning.

00:37:32.900 Thanks for having me.

00:37:47.600 Bye.

00:37:51.980 Bye.

00:37:52.780 Bye.

00:37:53.360 Bye.

00:37:53.700 Bye.

00:38:12.000 Bye.

00:38:14.040 Bye.

00:38:14.220 Bye.

00:38:14.240 Bye.

00:38:14.280 Bye.

00:38:14.860 Bye.

00:38:15.320 Bye.

00:38:16.080 Bye.

Rebel News Podcast - January 18, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Liberal politician falsely claimed a Rebel News reporter harassed him — I’ll tell you what happened next

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