Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Orange Shirt Day founder wants Rebel News shirts criminalized

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. A couple of things I want to talk to you about today. One, of course, is the 25th anniversary of 9-11, a very somber and horrific day that we should never forget.

00:00:10.720 And then I want to talk about an attempt to criminalize skepticism about those 215 bodies allegedly buried in Kamloops outside the former residential school.

00:00:20.880 Yeah, they're targeting Rebel News, and it's a real concerted campaign. I'll show you about it.

00:00:26.520 And I think they're going to come for us.

00:00:28.200 The Justice Minister is actually talking about it.

00:00:30.060 It's sort of crazy.

00:00:31.340 But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.

00:00:34.160 It's the video version of this podcast.

00:00:36.600 Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe.

00:00:39.520 And not only will you get great content, you'll get the satisfaction of keeping one of the skeptical voices free.

00:00:45.820 We're not all on the government payroll.

00:00:47.440 We'll never take a dime here at Rebel News.

00:00:49.380 That's why we rely on you.

00:00:55.840 Tonight, the founder of Orange Shirt Day says she wants a law passed to make what Rebel News is doing a crime.

00:01:14.860 In the same week, we learned Ottawa is paying university researchers to write a list of which news outlets Canadians are allowed to trust.

00:01:23.120 It's September 11th. This is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:25.840 Shame on you, you sensorious bug. 0.77

00:01:40.740 Oh, hi, everybody. 0.94

00:01:42.180 It's September 11th, the 25th anniversary of the horrific terrorist attack against America.

00:01:48.960 The Twin Towers in New York and other targets as well, including the Pentagon.

00:01:53.100 thousands dead, many thousands more injured, and the beginning of a dystopian time period where 0.92

00:01:59.820 radical Islam became the chief opponent of the West, not the Soviet Union that was peacefully

00:02:06.060 defeated a decade or so earlier. We're still fighting the fight and suffering the losses 0.90

00:02:12.620 of that war, as George W. Bush called it, the global war on terror.

00:02:16.620 Unfortunately, I think so many things have been setbacks since then.

00:02:20.620 And simply looking at the pro-Islamist mayor of New York City himself is a signal of that.

00:02:27.620 Let me show you a quick clip.

00:02:29.040 Here is Mayor Zoran Mamdani having a laugh with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez during the ceremony of remembrance.

00:02:39.820 They couldn't even wait.

00:02:41.040 They were just having a good chuckle while the family of those deceased were crying.

00:02:47.080 Take a quick look.

00:02:47.900 Outrageous. We talk about the issues of 9-11 all the time on Rebel News and we'll continue to talk

00:03:01.020 about them not just once a year, not just on anniversaries. Today we have a different story

00:03:06.460 for you. Let me start with the CBC story because it's a big one. Phyllis Webstat is the woman who

00:03:13.080 started Orange Shirt Day. She was six years old when she was sent to St. Joseph's Mission

00:03:18.040 near Williams Lake. Her grandmother bought her a new orange shirt. The school took it away.

00:03:24.040 Orange Shirt Day isn't just big business these days, though. It's an exercising, compelled speech.

00:03:29.960 In many schools, students are required to wear orange shirts as a symbol of their personal

00:03:36.480 adherence to the political accusation that Canada committed a genocide against Indigenous people.

00:03:42.000 In fact, that it's still going on.

00:03:44.680 And in particular, wearing that shirt is your symbolic agreement that 215 Indigenous children are buried in a mass grave outside a former residential school in Kamloops.

00:03:57.620 It's the Canadian equivalent to taking a knee for George Floyd.

00:04:02.080 You were indicating that you're buying into the race Marxism and a particular version of the story.

00:04:08.820 So Rebel News, as you may know, came up with some orange t-shirts of our own with an alternative point of view on them.

00:04:16.380 Nothing rude, nothing outrageous.

00:04:18.320 What's on these shirts?

00:04:19.360 Well, let me show you.

00:04:20.880 Dig deeper, buried truth, still no proof, built, not stolen.

00:04:26.120 You can't handle the truth.

00:04:28.600 You know, dig deeper.

00:04:29.940 Two words, that's the crime, apparently.

00:04:32.380 Frankly, as you can see, some of those shirts can be worn by people on no matter what side of the debate.

00:04:37.520 But here's what she told the CBC a couple of days ago when asked about our shirts.

00:04:42.340 She said, I believe what Rebel News is doing right now is what is needed to convince our Canadian government that, yes, a law needs to be passed.

00:04:51.760 A law, a criminal law.

00:04:53.200 They call it against indigenous denialism.

00:04:56.640 The CBC says she, quote, supports the idea that residential school denialism should be added as hate speech to Canada's criminal code.

00:05:03.860 So, it's not enough to disagree with our shirts and our message.

00:05:08.120 She wants people who sell them or wear them, I suppose, to be charged with a crime.

00:05:14.280 Now, the shirts themselves don't have a lot of information on them.

00:05:18.020 That's what makes her call for criminalization so interesting.

00:05:21.320 It's not actually our shirts that she wants to criminalize, dig deeper.

00:05:26.860 It's what's in the mind of someone who might wear such a shirt.

00:05:31.300 Five years ago, the Kamloops band announced 215 anomalies in an apple orchard.

00:05:36.740 Every flag in the country went to half-mast.

00:05:38.520 The prime minister himself knelt with a teddy bear in a photo op.

00:05:42.860 And in five years, nobody has dug, not one shovel.

00:05:45.960 Dig deeper isn't a slur.

00:05:48.480 It's a suggestion.

00:05:49.560 It's what you would say to any other claim that big.

00:05:52.500 You would do a forensic analysis.

00:05:54.700 You would exhume the bodies, but you're not allowed to say that.

00:05:58.300 Phyllis Webstat is part of the story.

00:05:59.920 She's the entrepreneur who had done quite well office-selling shirts, and I'll get back

00:06:04.880 to that in a moment. 0.99

00:06:05.880 She's quite a go-getter.

00:06:07.800 I wish I was as good an entrepreneur as she is. 1.00

00:06:11.080 But her call to criminalize us was just the starter pistol for a wave of authoritarians 0.99

00:06:17.060 to start the legislative machinery to actually do just that, to criminalize us.

00:06:23.700 On September 3rd, the Liberal Indigenous Caucus put out a letter, six MPs, three of

00:06:28.800 sit in Mark Carney's cabinet, Mandy Gullmasty, the Indigenous Services Minister, Rebecca Chartrand,

00:06:35.680 the Minister of Northern Affairs, and Buckley Bélanger as Secretary of State. And they were

00:06:43.200 not pleased with us. They said, we will call upon Canadians to reject this campaign of hate

00:06:48.720 and its advertisers. Do they mean just people who advertise on rebel news?

00:06:53.840 cabinet ministers of the government of Canada organizing a boycott of a news company's

00:06:59.840 advertisers because we have a difference of opinion? Think about that for a minute. Imagine

00:07:03.560 if Stephen Harper's cabinet ministers had signed a letter telling Canadians to boycott

00:07:08.580 the Toronto Star's advertisers. It's crazy. I'll go on a bit. This campaign only weakens us as a

00:07:15.860 united country while we attempt to stand up to outside threats. What are you talking about?

00:07:20.900 Remember that phrase, so I'm going to come back to it.

00:07:23.620 Then Gulmasti, that's the Liberal Cabinet Minister,

00:07:26.160 told the CBC she took the matter to Sean Fraser, the Justice Minister.

00:07:32.380 And Fraser's office put out a statement.

00:07:35.900 Any legal response should be developed carefully

00:07:38.220 in consultation and cooperation with Indigenous peoples.

00:07:42.460 Any legal response to a T-shirt?

00:07:46.500 The Justice Minister of Canada is going to have a legal response to a T-shirt.

00:07:50.900 And the NDP's Leah Gazan, she's had a private member's bill to criminalize residential

00:07:56.140 school denialism, sitting there since last fall actually.

00:07:59.520 She wrote to the Liberal caucus this week, she says she wants the Liberal government

00:08:03.200 to adopt her insane bill as their own.

00:08:08.400 The production of merchandise denying genocide and mocking the National Day of Truth and Reconciliation.

00:08:15.220 We must respond to this as what it is, the incitement, monetization and promotion of

00:08:19.340 hate. Have you even looked at the shirts? Now, they tried this already in June. A Senate committee

00:08:26.460 struck a denialism crime. They stuck it, rather. They put it into Bill C-9, the government's hate

00:08:32.780 bill. Two years in prison for condoning, denying or downplaying the residential school system. Now,

00:08:38.620 the full Senate threw it out, but it was close. 32 to 41. So now they found a new reason to bring

00:08:47.580 it back, Rebel News. That's what Webstat meant. Read her quote again. What Rebel News is doing

00:08:54.300 is, quote, what is needed to convince our Canadian government. We are the excuse for criminalizing

00:09:02.380 skepticism. Now, Billy Moran of the Conservatives, he said that as a descendant of Jewish people,

00:09:11.600 Do I not consider this a double standard when I promote residential school denialism?

00:09:18.480 I want to answer Billy Moran.

00:09:19.800 I think he's a good egg for what I know of him. 0.63

00:09:22.580 He says, Holocaust denial is illegal in Canada, so as a Jew, don't I see a double standard? 0.76

00:09:27.500 And I would say, well, the Holocaust was meticulously documented by the Nazis themselves.

00:09:34.200 Names, train manifests, six million dead.

00:09:36.960 And we can tell you exactly where.

00:09:38.740 You can actually go to Auschwitz yourself to see with your own eyes what happened.

00:09:45.020 Kamloops is 215 radar readings in an apple orchard that no one has been allowed to excavate in five years, despite millions of dollars being earmarked for a forensic study.

00:09:56.280 Asking to see the evidence isn't denial.

00:09:58.320 That's not hate.

00:09:59.060 That's a question.

00:10:01.480 And by the way, Holocaust denial.

00:10:02.800 Well, I suppose technically it's a crime, but I can just tell you it ain't a crime. 0.52

00:10:08.740 Every week, I see it in the streets of my own neighborhood by mainly foreign agitators spewing their anti-Jewish, anti-Semitic, pro-Holocaust, pro-Nazi commentary. 0.71

00:10:21.800 I see it every week.

00:10:23.920 So, yeah, I don't know if it's illegal on paper because it's sure not illegal on the streets.

00:10:28.800 But here's the thing I really want you to see tonight because it's not just about the shirts.

00:10:33.400 Government to list reliable media.

00:10:37.260 That's a headline in Black Locks.

00:10:38.800 The same week the Liberals decided Rebel News as a hate group,

00:10:41.840 Black Locks reporter, one of the few independent media outlets in Canada,

00:10:45.840 they got access to information documents from the Department of Canadian Heritage.

00:10:50.540 I don't know if you saw this elsewhere.

00:10:52.060 Ottawa is paying researchers at Toronto Metropolitan University,

00:10:56.800 Laval and Concordia, to build what they call a local news directory.

00:11:01.300 A list of media that are, in their words, trustworthy and reliable.

00:11:08.220 The information will help policymakers and others make more data-informed decisions about

00:11:12.960 where interventions are needed and will help people struggling to find local news they

00:11:17.540 can trust.

00:11:18.540 Are people struggling to find news they can trust and the government can help them?

00:11:24.240 The government can make interventions in the news.

00:11:28.180 They spent a hundred grand on this project so far.

00:11:29.920 The total budget was censored.

00:11:31.460 Three years they've been working at it.

00:11:32.920 Which outlets get on the trust of this?

00:11:34.660 Well, the memo says qualified journalism organizations.

00:11:38.540 That's the Canada Revenue Agency's term.

00:11:41.060 It means the outlets that take the government bailout up to 30 grand a year per employee.

00:11:45.560 I think it's actually more now.

00:11:47.680 So the government is paying academics to make a list of the news outlets the government will give cash to and then call that trust.

00:11:56.260 For Canadian heritage, the directory will help guide the department's policy and program decisions.

00:12:01.880 Program decisions.

00:12:03.680 That's money.

00:12:04.560 The list decides who gets more.

00:12:07.340 Now, Rebel News has never taken a dime of government money.

00:12:09.640 We never will.

00:12:10.340 So I can tell you exactly where we will be in the government of Canada's directory of trustworthy news.

00:12:16.020 We won't.

00:12:17.140 Only government-approved, government-funded media will be in the directory of trustworthy news.

00:12:24.320 And it gets worse.

00:12:24.940 There's a second Heritage Memo in the same batch from last September.

00:12:27.860 Listen to the language. 0.61

00:12:29.700 There are foreign state efforts to drive social division.

00:12:33.120 The amplification of divisive content on social media platforms

00:12:36.500 threaten our information sovereignty

00:12:38.540 and continue to drive polarization and undermine our social cohesion.

00:12:44.620 Social cohesion, divisive content, information sovereignty.

00:12:48.500 Now, go back to the Liberal MP's letter about our T-shirts.

00:12:51.980 Tear out our fabric and create division.

00:12:53.900 stand up to outside threats. Same word, same government, same year. That's not a coincidence.

00:12:59.820 That's a script. That's the line they're using. Here's the government's own definition of

00:13:04.800 approved media from that memo. The CBC is a pillar of our cultural identity and a cornerstone of our

00:13:13.020 sovereignty. Of course it is. CBC gets more than a billion dollars a year to be reliable. That's

00:13:19.060 their job and remember this is the same government that black locks caught in may holding a closed 0.92

00:13:24.400 door meeting in the prime minister's office about which reporters get accredited remember that an

00:13:30.640 immigration department staffer complained in writing that quote none of us has criteria that

00:13:34.980 reflect the reality of independent journalists black blacklists for reporters who are independent

00:13:40.020 a directory for trusted outlets a crime for questions put it all together one a list of

00:13:48.340 news outlets you're allowed to trust paid for by the government made up of outlets paid for

00:13:53.660 by the government. Two, cabinet ministers organizing a commercial boycott of a news

00:14:00.100 outlet they disagree with. Three, the justice minister musing about a legal response and the

00:14:07.540 founder of Orange Shirt Day saying she'll go to Ottawa to lobby for the law. That's not

00:14:12.220 reconciliation. That's a ministry of truth. One more thing, you know, Phyllis Webstad is calling

00:14:18.000 for us to be criminalized calling for a law based on our bad behavior and she particularly

00:14:24.500 mentions the monetization that's what billy moran said also let's talk about her accusation

00:14:29.300 she told the cbc our shirts are quote a direct attack on her work i'll be honest with you i had

00:14:35.460 never even heard her name until two days ago the justice minister's office says we're making a quote

00:14:40.160 cruel and grotesque attempt to exploit human suffering for financial gain profiteering in

00:14:46.600 other words off orange shirts well let me tell you about the orange shirt business every child

00:14:54.120 matters that's trademarked webstat runs the orange shirt society it owns the trademark on the phrase

00:15:03.440 every child matters she trademarked it its own website says no design or merchandise using these

00:15:11.260 assets may be used, sold, or distributed without OSS approval. You want to sell an official orange

00:15:18.120 shirt in this country? You need to pay her a licensing fee. And licensed shirts are everywhere. 1.00

00:15:26.000 Walmart, Canadian Tire, London Drugs, Winners, Rogers, Aritzia sold a $40 version. A lot of money,

00:15:33.940 You know, hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars, a $5 million deal with Tim Hortons.

00:15:42.220 And that's just what's being made public.

00:15:44.580 Walmart sent her $147,000 from shirt sales in 2021 alone, $300,000 last year.

00:15:52.300 That's Walmart's fourth year in a row.

00:15:55.580 One store in Williams Lake, Kit and Caboodle, sold 25,000 orange shirts in a single year

00:16:01.120 and sent in almost a quarter million of dollars in licensing fees. Rogers ran a t-shirt campaign

00:16:10.200 worth a quarter million over two years. Also, Tim Hortons, as I mentioned, five million bucks.

00:16:15.760 Boy, does she have a good game going here. These are just the ones that got a press release.

00:16:20.900 Add them up and the shirt money to fill this Webstat society from the published figures alone

00:16:25.920 is around a million bucks just from those five I can find.

00:16:30.220 The real number is certainly higher

00:16:32.300 because nobody publishes the rest.

00:16:34.440 Her Society is not a charity.

00:16:37.140 There's no public return to the check.

00:16:39.780 It's now trying to raise another $1.5 million

00:16:41.960 for a graduation event next spring.

00:16:44.420 And the federal government, Canadian Heritage,

00:16:46.440 the same department writing the trusted news list,

00:16:49.560 hands out Orange Shirt Day grants every September

00:16:52.300 through something called Commemoration Canada.

00:16:55.920 $10,000 here, $6,700 there to societies across the country to recognize and commemorate the

00:17:03.280 legacy of residential schools. Orange Shirt Day is a state-sponsored event with a trademark

00:17:11.580 protected uniform. She is a crony capitalist, and I think she's made more than a million bucks off 1.00

00:17:19.760 this. Now our shirts are 39 bucks, 35 for kids. We hold no trademark. We have no licensing deal

00:17:25.940 with Walmart and we're the profiteers. That's not an accusation by website. That's sort of a

00:17:32.120 projection on her part, a confession of what she's really doing. It's not that selling orange shirts

00:17:37.800 is wrong. It's a fine business and it's her business. It's that only one kind of orange

00:17:44.720 shirt is allowed. Only one opinion is allowed. Their opinion, the licensed one, and now they'd

00:17:49.680 like the police, to enforce the thought crime license.

00:17:54.020 Kids are being told at school that they have to wear the orange shirt.

00:17:57.220 Not may, they have to.

00:18:00.840 The only reason why we made shirts is for kids who would rather ask a question than comply.

00:18:06.620 That's why they come in kid sizes.

00:18:08.420 That's why Webstat called that sickening. 1.00

00:18:10.840 Well, she must be pretty sick because she has made millions selling shirts for kids. 0.99

00:18:17.180 I'll tell you what I find sickening.

00:18:18.400 a government that pledged $320 million for grave searches in 2021, has had five years,

00:18:24.500 hasn't produced a grave, and now wants to jail the people who noticed.

00:18:30.540 So here's my question for you.

00:18:31.900 They want to criminalize a t-shirt that says, dig deeper, and then want to hand you a list

00:18:36.680 of journalists you're allowed to trust.

00:18:40.420 Do you trust their list of who to trust?

00:18:43.200 Or would you rather dig deeper?

00:18:47.240 Stay with us for more.

00:18:57.240 How do you feel?

00:18:58.240 We're just going around talking to some of the students here today on the anniversary of Charlie Kirk's death

00:19:03.240 to talk to students about how they feel about the current state of free speech on university campuses.

00:19:09.240 We are pretty good to speak and everything.

00:19:12.240 I think it's very good.

00:19:16.240 i don't think so like we do have any restrictions or anything to uh like uh stop speaking for any

00:19:22.720 particular reasons yeah yeah yeah yeah i believe it's a lot more free than it used to be like i

00:19:30.800 think maybe it's just the community that we build but it encourages us to speak more about ourselves

00:19:36.880 like what we what we believe and stand on um i do think we shouldn't stop however like stop pushing

00:19:42.800 it forward stop allowing people to remember that their voice matters just as much as anybody else's

00:19:48.400 but i do believe that it's way better than it was before like we're making a lot of progress

00:19:52.640 not sure i kind of call you sorry i wasn't trying to excuse me how do you feel about the state of

00:19:59.040 free speech on campus uh i'm gonna be real i don't pay that much attention to a lot of things yeah

00:20:08.560 No comments. I've always had a good experience for me personally, but maybe other people haven't.

00:20:15.120 I think that we have a lot of right and freedom to talk about what we're thinking.

00:20:21.840 I feel that the state of free speech is very open and people are able to speak freely.

00:20:27.200 Well, look who I found here at the University of Calgary, Tamara Leach. It's great to see you.

00:20:30.880 We're in the rain, so we're just under an overhead pass here. What are you doing at U of C today?

00:20:37.040 I am up here today to ask the students of the university how they feel about the current state

00:20:42.400 of free speech on campus. And I think today is a very significant day to do that because

00:20:47.440 it is the anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk in the United States.

00:20:51.680 And he cared about Canada. His focus was the US, but I feel like he followed Canadian politics.

00:20:58.000 He would have me on a show from time to time to try and figure what was going on. He gave

00:21:02.560 us his best wishes so i feel that he was an advocate for our freedom up here too in a way

00:21:10.000 and it was a shocking act of terrorism that he was murdered but if perhaps a new wave of free

00:21:16.800 speech on campus by free speech clubs for example maybe that's the right way to deal with the loss

00:21:23.440 is to build build build i'm guessing that's what he would have done had had someone else been

00:21:30.720 lost in the battle of free speech he would have said we're just going to work harder we're going

00:21:34.400 to rebuild that's i don't know what do you think well i mean i think charlie kirk uh and tp usa of

00:21:39.400 course you know they spent they they put a lot of time into going to visit campuses and to really

00:21:43.900 talk to these students and and i mean charlie was a master debater like he really knew how to you

00:21:50.100 know answer these questions and and turn some of these questions right on their heads so i mean i

00:21:54.380 think he opened the door for a lot of these types of events and these types of clubs and i think one

00:21:58.660 thing that we're seeing that's lacking in Canada right now because of our

00:22:02.380 current political climate is a lack of conservative student clubs on campus.

00:22:07.720 You know there's there's conservative clubs on campus conservative by name but

00:22:12.760 they're usually affiliated with the party the conservative party and so a lot

00:22:19.000 of the time this is my experience when I was a student 30 plus years ago but I

00:22:23.940 just I see it now when we were trying to get you on campus earlier in the spring

00:22:28.420 A lot of these conservative campus clubs were afraid of being too politically correct and either damaging their own budding political careers or getting offside with party leadership.

00:22:39.100 So because they're sort of afraid, the conservative clubs don't talk in any way that could be deemed politically incorrect.

00:22:48.140 I know I'm painting with a broad brush there.

00:22:50.000 There's probably some exceptions.

00:22:51.460 But I think you need a pure free speech club that's not attached to any political party.

00:22:56.440 right yeah because then they don't have any they don't have anyone to answer to or they you know

00:23:01.160 um i was i have been really impressed here today obviously we're at the university of calgary which

00:23:06.280 i feel um is going to be you know considerably more conservative than say you know the universities in

00:23:12.280 bc or out in the east and we had a lot of great answers today and i think a lot of the students

00:23:17.160 here do feel like they have you know a lot of freedom of speech on this particular campus

00:23:22.280 We did have one student that said that political topics seem to be a bit touchy,

00:23:29.780 and she thinks that maybe that's one thing that gets a little bit suppressed here.

00:23:33.120 So there was a lot of good answers.

00:23:34.460 But overall, most of the students are quite happy with the state of free speech on this particular campus anyway.

00:23:40.040 Well, the reason we're here today is because the Democracy Fund is helping to start a new project

00:23:49.440 of student free speech clubs across the country.

00:23:53.260 Nonpartisan, you don't have to be a conservative.

00:23:55.460 You can be a liberal.

00:23:56.800 There are liberals who believe in free speech.

00:23:58.720 You've got to look for them sometimes, but they're out there.

00:24:01.540 And I hope, and we'll talk to the founding leader

00:24:06.740 of that free speech movement in a moment,

00:24:09.140 William Diaz Berthium, who's, I think, perfect for the job.

00:24:12.840 My dream is that in the next year,

00:24:17.280 Not just U of C, but universities across Canada, and including in Quebec, including French-speaking universities, have clubs that proudly say, we are for free speech, even spicy free speech.

00:24:31.020 And the Democracy Fund, remember, they have in-house lawyers.

00:24:34.240 So if student unions or even campus administrations try and stop this club,

00:24:40.340 William will have a team backing him up saying, hey, hey, hey, free speech is allowed in Canada

00:24:45.500 and pushing back against obstreperous administrators.

00:24:49.560 So that's my dream is it's UC today, but within a year that there's 10 of these.

00:24:55.280 Well, I hope so. I think that's a fantastic goal.

00:25:00.320 And I think, you know, these are our youth.

00:25:02.620 these are the people that are going to be the leaders of our country one day.

00:25:06.660 And I really hope for their sakes that, you know, like they were saying today,

00:25:11.260 they feel that there is a lot of free speech.

00:25:12.800 I hope that these types of clubs can encourage them to exercise their right to free speech,

00:25:18.680 to exercise their right to expression.

00:25:20.700 We did have one student today talking about the peaceful assembly.

00:25:25.080 They did feel like this was a great campus if you wanted to protest.

00:25:28.120 And there was actually also mention of the safety aspect after some pro-Palestinian protests here last year.

00:25:37.800 So there was some interesting chats today.

00:25:40.140 Do you feel like on campus, say, for example, on this campus, do you feel like you can express your political views, your religious views, if you have any, like controversial?

00:25:50.320 Do you feel safe talking about that stuff?

00:25:53.380 It kind of depends on who I'm talking to.

00:25:56.620 like i feel like there's some things that i might have to keep to myself only because i don't want

00:26:01.840 to hurt the person but it's like i believe that's maybe situational because there's a lot of people

00:26:07.680 who are like-minded versus people who maybe have different beliefs or viewpoints about life

00:26:11.300 so i guess it just depends on who i'm speaking to but there is times where i do need to like maybe

00:26:16.300 pull back and then pull forward in other places um i think it's okay yeah so far i haven't faced

00:26:23.080 any sort of craziness thus far, at least, yeah.

00:26:26.480 Good, good, I'm glad, and you?

00:26:27.620 Yeah, same thing, like, no one's really being oppressed

00:26:30.880 without, like, you say what you can't say,

00:26:33.320 no one's, like, preventing you from saying it.

00:26:35.620 I would say so for now, yeah, for sure.

00:26:38.520 The people here, I think, are a little more welcoming,

00:26:40.740 a little more open, so I can see that happening.

00:26:43.840 I feel like there's more nuance to that

00:26:45.740 than the question implies, because on the one hand,

00:26:50.280 harmful speech is should be defined as speech that incites violence or hate towards groups of

00:26:58.920 people or specific people speech that is simply just i don't like this you're allowed to say what

00:27:04.120 you want you're just not supposed to be exempt from the consequences of that really so um i'm

00:27:09.240 not particularly keen on censorship personally but i feel like that's a really long really big

00:27:14.840 can of beans to open yeah yeah not one i'm keen on getting into absolutely well that's a great

00:27:20.520 answer so thank you thank you very much have a great day sorry like hate likes to hate uh speech

00:27:28.360 that could be deemed as hate speech i guess is what i'm trying to say do you like if it's hurt

00:27:31.880 if it's hurtful to somebody do you feel that that type of speech should be censored yeah yeah okay

00:27:37.720 thanks yeah thanks like i probably think that it should not hurt someone else or someone else

00:27:43.720 feeling sick but the university doesn't oppose anything regarding that so like it's speaking

00:27:50.840 to public directly and and uh approaching them in a direct way do you think that even if it's

00:27:57.640 like controversial subjects like you know the residential school situation or transgender men

00:28:03.160 in women's bathrooms like do you think that that is something that the students here can speak

00:28:08.040 freely about i think i think they can speak freely about it yeah yeah i haven't heard anything about

00:28:12.360 them being too constricted about stuff like that but yeah awesome okay perfect thanks have a great

00:28:17.640 day ladies we are just talking to students about the current state of free speech on campus okay

00:28:24.840 thanks i think the teacher kind of um give students to have um

00:28:31.960 But a lot of the students can make this free speech in the class, but not too much involving

00:28:42.080 the political aspect.

00:28:45.120 I feel that the state of free speech is very open and people are able to speak freely.

00:28:50.520 That's excellent.

00:28:51.960 Do you believe that speech that people could deem as hurtful should be censored?

00:28:58.000 I think it should.

00:28:59.000 I don't really have a reason, but yeah.

00:29:11.860 Hey, welcome back.

00:29:12.800 Well, I'm back in Toronto.

00:29:14.120 I was out west.

00:29:15.200 I was down in Medicine Hat and I was in Calgary.

00:29:17.940 A lot going on to Mary Lee.

00:29:19.520 She's doing just great.

00:29:20.340 She put together a really great meetup in Medicine Hat on short notice with Pastor Patrick of one of the freedom oriented churches down there.

00:29:27.700 just a wonderful lunch. And yesterday I was in Calgary with Tamara Leach because we were starting

00:29:35.320 a student free speech club, Canadians for free, Canadian students for free speech. And our friend

00:29:43.940 William Diaz Berthium is leading that project up. We'll have to interview him soon. It was super

00:29:48.380 rainy. I was soaked to the bone. So that sort of scuppered the event, but it was flying the flag.

00:29:54.080 we found a dry place to stand. And here's our conversation. This was before we tried to go out

00:29:59.980 and talk to the kids one-on-one. It was, the weather really threw us for a loop. But I want

00:30:05.040 to show you a little bit of my conversation with Tamerilich yesterday about these ideas. Take a

00:30:10.120 look. We're going to keep going with that student club. And I tell you, I think there's a real

00:30:20.040 a man in Canada for freedom of speech. It goes back to the main story of my monologue, the

00:30:24.040 government wanting to tell you who you can trust and who you can't trust. I'm pleased to say that

00:30:29.260 the students show an independence of thought that the liberals will not like. Your letters to me,

00:30:35.540 I should tell you, I have a couple of letters on Alexa's latest report on Gabriel Lepage. You

00:30:40.900 might remember he is the Antifa member who threw incendiary devices, smoke bombs in a crowded

00:30:47.200 Christian church and just waltzed right out. He used to work. I think he may still, I don't know,

00:30:52.240 but he used to work for the Canadian military. Super creepy. Alexa had a report on it. He's

00:30:57.900 actually going to be in court on Monday, I understand. Chris Heward says, let's see if

00:31:03.300 this mischief is prosecuted like the convoy mischief. This is a hate crime. Oh, there's no

00:31:08.420 two ways about it. I mean, that could have been a disaster when you're throwing incendiary devices

00:31:12.820 in a room like they were smoke bombs the smoke uh what could have been a real issue but they

00:31:20.120 could have burnt the place and he just strutted out of there and it took months to get the police

00:31:25.900 or the prosecution to do anything about it and it's all because alexa was on the journalistic

00:31:31.560 beat uh mark clement says gabrielle lepage is a very high security risk and cannot work for the

00:31:38.280 government. He should also be on the no-fly list. I mean, I suppose he hasn't yet been convicted in

00:31:43.380 court, but my God, we all saw the footage of him throwing those devices, and he was so calm about

00:31:49.100 it. It's almost like he had done that before. I don't know if he has, but throwing smoke bombs

00:31:54.640 in a church and very slowly and casually walking out is not something that I think an ordinary

00:31:59.420 person could do, but he seemed to do it with ease. Well, that's our show for today on this

00:32:05.160 25th anniversary of 9-11, I was watching the coverage and my heart went out.

00:32:12.340 It was painful to re-watch the falling of the towers.

00:32:15.380 But this is something we talk about, frankly, all the time at Rebel News.

00:32:19.040 It's important to commemorate the big day.

00:32:21.660 But just like on Remembrance Day, sometimes we can take one day to remember those who have suffered and lost for us

00:32:30.240 and then forget about them the other 364 days a year.

00:32:33.480 here we try and remember the sacrifice of those citizens and to be on guard that's something we

00:32:39.640 think about every day well that's our show until next time on behalf of all of us here at rebel

00:32:45.840 world headquarters to you at home good night and keep fighting for freedom

Rebel News Podcast - September 12, 2026

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Orange Shirt Day founder wants Rebel News shirts criminalized

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