Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Our lawsuit against Steven Guilbeault makes national news

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. A lengthy story in the National Post and other, actually, a hundred other

00:00:04.980 newspapers about our lawsuit against Liberal Cabinet Minister Stephen Gilboa. I'll take you

00:00:11.140 through the report as it was written in the National Post, correct some of their errors,

00:00:14.980 and tell you why I'm hopeful about the case. But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber

00:00:19.120 to Rebel News Plus. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. It's

00:00:23.900 a video version of this podcast. And that eight bucks, by the way, we rely on it because we

00:00:30.320 obviously don't get any money from Stephen Gilboa, who we're suing. I'll tell you more about that in

00:00:35.900 today's show. Here it is. Tonight, our lawsuit against Stephen

00:00:53.880 Gilboa makes the national news. It's February 8th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:01.300 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:01:13.360 Big story on page three in the National Post today, and apparently in a hundred other newspapers

00:01:20.520 across Canada. That's how it is in the news business these days. They're really just wire

00:01:25.320 services that repeat the same thing all across the country. I couldn't find a hard copy of the

00:01:30.680 National Post in Toronto. That's where I drove up and down the street, went to so many convenience

00:01:35.320 stores. You really can't find a copy of it. At least I couldn't. I didn't go to a specialty store.

00:01:40.720 I would have liked to have seen it because the image I saw online looks sort of cool.

00:01:45.960 You can see the headline. The paper headline was LeVant argues minister violated charter rights.

00:01:54.700 Here's the website version with a different headline, which is liberal minister breached

00:02:00.260 charter by blocking rebel news chief on Twitter. Legal challenge. The case is raising novel

00:02:06.420 questions about government use of a social media platform, often called a digital public square.

00:02:10.940 Now, there's a lot of news in the article. It's actually very long. And as far as the news goes,

00:02:15.980 it's pretty good. But there's so much snark in there that's just so obviously gratuitous pot shots.

00:02:23.120 But it was the second most read newspaper, sorry, story in the National Post today, which

00:02:29.520 makes me laugh sometimes. I mean, we cover very interesting and we do very interesting things

00:02:34.440 at Rebel News. And we are obviously watched obsessively by the media party, but they either

00:02:40.840 can't or won't talk about what we talk about. They're simply not allowed to. But when they do, like

00:02:47.440 today, it goes viral. I think that's a quirky thing. So let me read to you the story from Tom

00:02:52.300 Blackwell, who obviously doesn't like us, but can't stop watching us. By the way, he never contacted

00:02:58.320 me for the story, which is, I think, unprofessional. I should tell you the text of the online version,

00:03:03.220 I think it may have changed a little bit throughout the day. I'm going to read to you the final

00:03:06.880 version, which I think he actually had some of the snark taken out of it. It happens every

00:03:11.700 day. Someone on Twitter gets fed up with criticism or abuse from another user of the social media

00:03:17.540 platform and blocks the person from their feed. But what if the Twitter account belongs to a

00:03:22.620 federal cabinet minister and jamming the other individual essentially cuts off access to a form

00:03:27.440 of government communication? It's a good question. Actually, I think that's a pretty good summary

00:03:32.100 of our lawsuit, isn't it? That question is at the heart of an intriguing constitutional challenge

00:03:38.480 by right-wing provocateur Ezra Levant, who alleges that environment minister Stephen Gilboa violated

00:03:45.980 his constitutional right to free expression when he Twitter-blocked the Rebel News head.

00:03:50.880 Levant called Gilboa a convicted criminal. Yeah, he is. Incompetent and stupid. Yes, I did.

00:04:01.100 In responding to the minister's post on Twitter, no, that's actually not accurate, and I'll prove

00:04:06.320 that in a minute, but says he had a right to follow and comment on the minister. His application

00:04:12.860 to the federal court says Section 2B of the Charter, which guarantees free expression and freedom of the

00:04:17.220 press, also protects access to government information in order that meaningful discussion

00:04:22.720 about it is possible. You know, there's a lot of reasons why we deserve access to Stephen Gilboa's

00:04:30.900 Twitter account. I want to make it crystal clear before I go on. I'm not talking about any personal

00:04:34.680 accounts, like his personal family account or a private account for friends. I'm not talking about

00:04:39.220 that. I'm talking about the government cabinet minister run by, you know, his office run by civil

00:04:45.600 servants and political staff, all in a taxpayer dime, using that Twitter account as a official

00:04:51.460 outlet of the government. That's what I'm talking about, just to be clear. I don't care about his

00:04:55.220 personal life. I care about, in fact, I don't even care about him. I care about him only in the fact

00:05:00.480 that he occupies the office of a cabinet minister, and especially when we launched the lawsuit, that

00:05:05.780 cabinet minister was a minister of heritage who had power over media companies like ours and people

00:05:11.760 like me. I'll keep reading. The case has yet to get a full hearing in court, but already is raising

00:05:18.040 novel questions about government use of a social media platform, often called a digital public square.

00:05:22.560 Fred Kozak, a leading Alberta media lawyer who has acted both for and against LeVette,

00:05:30.320 said he, I don't remember Fred acting against me, but I'll take the newspaper's word for it,

00:05:35.500 said he doesn't always agree with rebels' opinions or tactics, but believes there's merit

00:05:39.480 to the Twitter argument. Thanks, Fred. The courts have interpreted the free expression section as a

00:05:45.880 bundle of rights that covers more than just actual expression, he said. I don't think you can

00:05:51.360 identify and use a communications and access mechanism and then deny access to someone who

00:05:56.580 disagrees with your perspective, said Kozak. That is not how democracies are supposed to operate.

00:06:02.420 Fred's pretty smart, by the way. He represents so many media companies. He was our lawyer, just to

00:06:07.040 remind you, when the NDP government of Alberta banned Sheila Gunn-Reed from walking in the legislature.

00:06:14.240 I don't know if you remember that. They literally sent a sheriff with a gun to keep Sheila out.

00:06:19.180 Fred was our lawyer who got us back in. Here's that video clip, if you've forgotten about it.

00:06:23.400 Do you have a reputation for today's event?

00:06:28.400 Fred is a champion of the journalists. It's just a fact. Journalists across the spectrum,

00:06:44.000 by the way. In fact, I understand he represents the National Post sometimes. Let me get back to

00:06:48.140 the story. But Levant's own behavior might pose some obstacles in the case, says lawyer Kara Zwiebel,

00:06:56.200 director of the Fundamental Freedoms Program at the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

00:06:59.780 Oh, really? What behavior is that? I've never been suspended or banned from Twitter. I extremely

00:07:05.880 rarely even swear on the platform. I've never sworn it. Stephen Gilbeau, I don't threaten to harass

00:07:12.360 anyone. What on earth are you talking about? I'll keep reading. On the face of it, what Gilbeau did

00:07:18.040 seems to violate freedom of expression, she said, noting that courts in the U.S. ruled President

00:07:22.720 Donald Trump and other politicians had breached America's similar First Amendment by blocking

00:07:26.980 certain Twitter users. But the right in Canada is not as absolute, and courts here may rule that

00:07:31.620 online abuse is a legitimate reason for a government representative to block someone, said Zwiebel.

00:07:38.320 What are you talking about? No one, as literally no one has ever accused me.

00:07:42.360 Of online abuse. Criticizing a powerful government using peaceful language of protest

00:07:51.280 is not abuse, you strange civil libertarian. I'll keep reading. The charter allows some violations

00:07:58.860 if they're deemed a reasonable limitation on the right. There is a strong argument that public

00:08:02.740 officials have an obligation to communicate in a way that is open to people to respond to,

00:08:06.660 she said. Elected officials have to have a bit of a thick skin and be prepared to deal with the 0.99

00:08:12.400 criticism. But there is a point where the line gets crossed and personal attacks and harassment.

00:08:18.220 What are you talking about? I've never harassed anyone in my life. What? It's just, it's pitiful.

00:08:23.620 She made that up. I called him a convicted criminal. I don't even know if that's an attack. That's a

00:08:28.640 description. It's true. He was convicted. I don't know if you remember, he was a Greenpeace criminal

00:08:33.360 convicted in court. Is mentioning the cabinet minister is a criminal? I think that's very

00:08:39.260 newsworthy. In fact, not only do I think it's not abuse, I think I have a duty as a journalist to

00:08:44.100 mention that. Now here's another thing I said about him. I'm just showing you the toughest

00:08:48.620 things I said about him. For a convicted criminal, the only criminal I'm aware of who has ever been

00:08:53.380 appointed to a federal cabinet. Gibault is a terribly bad liar. Here, watch for yourself. And 0.99

00:08:59.540 then I played this video. The bill is about ensuring that these platforms that act like

00:09:05.040 broadcasters pay their fair share when it comes to Canadian culture. So it's about spending

00:09:09.700 obligations, spending requirements. It's not about content moderation. So I'm going to flip the

00:09:15.800 question for a moment here, minister, because it was important enough to put that exclusion there in

00:09:21.040 the first place. Now it's gone. Why was it important in the first place to put it there?

00:09:31.220 We're not interested. I mean, it's not what the bill is about.

00:09:34.760 I mean, I hear you saying you're not interested, but there literally was an exclusion that was put

00:09:38.540 in the original iteration of that bill, the thing that was reviewed, and then it got to committee,

00:09:43.860 and bingo, bango, bongo, the exclusion is gone. So why was it important to put it there in the first

00:09:48.840 place such that now the committee has removed it? Well, I mean, the committee decides what they

00:09:58.100 want. The bill, first of all, the committee hasn't even finished doing its work in terms of the

00:10:04.440 amendments. So we don't have a full picture of what the bill will look like when it comes back to the

00:10:11.820 House of Commons for third reading.

00:10:14.020 Would you like to see the exclusion back in there?

00:10:17.900 It's not necessary. I mean, so-

00:10:20.360 If it's not necessary, why was it there in the first place?

00:10:23.380 Well, you know, we've worked on this for many months. We came up with what we thought would be

00:10:30.540 the best possible bill, but bill can always be perfected. They will be amended, and it's not the

00:10:37.840 purpose of the bill. So it's not required to be there because, I mean, again, this idea that the

00:10:44.020 CRTC would start looking, would start doing content moderation has no basis in reality. In its 40 years

00:10:53.220 of existence, it has never done that. It doesn't have the power to do that. Bill C-10 doesn't grant

00:10:58.820 the CRTC the power to do that. So this whole conversation makes no sense.

00:11:02.260 But a former CRTC chair, Peter Menzies, has said, I'll quote here, granting a government agency

00:11:07.860 authority over legal user-generated content doesn't just infringe on free expression, it constitutes a

00:11:14.260 full-blown assault on it. That is from a former CRTC chair.

00:11:17.740 Yeah, that's, I think that's the toughest thing I've said about him. By the way, calling someone a bad liar

00:11:23.500 is kind of a compliment. That's not abuse. And I'll just show you one more. Reminder,

00:11:31.360 Guilbeau is a convicted criminal that Trudeau put in cabinet over police objections. He's the perfect

00:11:37.600 thug to be in charge of silencing Trudeau's opponents. Those are the two toughest things I've

00:11:44.040 ever said about him. I didn't swear. I didn't threaten. And if you understand Twitter, you'll have

00:11:49.940 noticed that I didn't tag him or name him. I didn't swarm him. I didn't have any pathway to him.

00:11:56.980 This would not have come up in his Twitter feed, I'm saying, unless he or his staff were positively

00:12:02.660 searching for people chit-chatting about him. I wish Kara Zwiebel and the Canadian Civil Liberties

00:12:08.960 Association cared more about civil liberties. I mean, it's nice to hear from her after her three-year

00:12:14.180 vacation during the civil liberties bonfire of the pandemic and the lockdowns. I guess

00:12:18.680 there was nothing important for her or the Canadian Civil Liberties Association to do during

00:12:23.360 that time, but she's alive and that's good to have some proof of life over there. I'll read some

00:12:28.800 more. Guilbeau's office and his personal lawyer declined to comment while the case is before the

00:12:33.500 courts. Rebel lawyer Chad Williamson was not available. The action originally also targeted

00:12:38.160 former Environment Minister Catherine McKenna and her own blocking of Levant. That's not true.

00:12:43.540 That's just a factual error. McKenna blocked Sheila Gunn-Reed. She's never blocked me.

00:12:48.620 You know, you'd think that Tom Blackwell would get his facts right, but he never bothered to call

00:12:53.540 me. Anyways, so that's an error here. But her name was removed from the case after she quit politics in 0.97

00:12:59.140 2021. Calgary-based Rebel News has long been a controversial loudspeaker for Canada's hard right.

00:13:07.880 Oh, really? Is it hard right to care about personal privacy and not being forced to comply with a

00:13:15.820 vaccine mandate or not being banned? Is it hard right to be worried about civil liberties? What a

00:13:22.160 loser Tom Blackwell is. Can't even get his facts straight either. As well as being a resolute doubter 1.00

00:13:27.920 of climate change and critic of COVID vaccines, the online outlet once promoted a conspiracy theory

00:13:34.620 that a Muslim had perpetrated the 2017 Quebec City mosque murder, reported sympathetically from

00:13:40.620 2020's racist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville VA before firing its correspondent there,

00:13:47.860 faced boycotts by conservatives and other politicians, and hosted Gavin McInnes, founder of the alt-right

00:13:53.760 Proud Boys. Again, Tom Blackwell is just sloppy. We don't deny climate change. Climate change is all the

00:14:01.740 time. If you've ever heard of the ice ages and know that we're not now under a kilometer of ice

00:14:07.940 in Canada, you know the climate changes. What a weird lie. We're not against COVID vaccines if you

00:14:13.580 want to take them. Fill your boots. We're just against COVID mandates. And on the Quebec City mosque 1.00

00:14:20.040 arrest, I don't know if you remember, but police originally arrested more than one person. They arrested

00:14:26.500 two people, one of whom went on to be convicted. The other person who was arrested and held overnight

00:14:31.780 was a young Muslim man. That's not a conspiracy theory. The police arrested him and then only later

00:14:39.180 said he had nothing to do with it. In terms of the Charlottesville event, again, Tom just has basic

00:14:45.820 facts wrong. That was in 2017, not 2020. And the reporter who went there did not go with Rebel News.

00:14:52.540 She was a rebel reporter, Faith Goldie, who went on her own accord, contrary to my direction. And when I saw

00:14:59.280 that she had participated with one of the alt-right groups at fire. So just weird gossip, mishmash, factual

00:15:06.480 errors from Tom Blackwell. Sort of embarrassing. I'll keep reading, though. Gilboa, who was heritage

00:15:12.100 minister at the time and introducing a bill on online hate speech, blocked Levant in early 2020. Rebel lawyers note

00:15:18.660 the liberal could have just instead muted Levant, which would have prevented the rebel tweets from

00:15:23.840 appearing on his timeline, but wouldn't block the commentator from seeing the minister's posts.

00:15:28.820 Again, Tom Blackwell gets his basic facts wrong. Muting someone doesn't prevent my posts from

00:15:34.860 appearing on his timeline. It just prevents Stephen Gilboa himself from seeing it. I don't know how

00:15:39.880 you get to be a newspaper reporter for such a senior newspaper as the National Post. And in every

00:15:45.920 paragraph you get facts wrong. I'm sort of embarrassed for him, but maybe it's because he never bothered

00:15:51.380 to call me for his story. I could have helped him get his facts straight, but I guess he's with the

00:15:55.760 media party and he doesn't really believe in calling the other side. Kozak noted that Levant could still

00:16:01.920 get access to the minister's tweets from someone who had not been blocked, but said the courts might view

00:16:06.800 that as weak justification for blocking someone. Well, not just that, but when you have access to

00:16:13.100 someone's Twitter account, you can interact with them. You can reply to them and have a banter with

00:16:18.760 them, a discussion with them. That's half the fun of Twitter, isn't it?

00:16:22.920 Zwiebel, though, said a 2010 Supreme Court of Canada ruling makes it difficult to argue that merely

00:16:27.840 blocking a person on Twitter breaches their rights if the same information is available elsewhere.

00:16:33.760 And then if you see on the story there, it's linked to a case. I clicked on that case.

00:16:38.000 It's got nothing to do with Twitter. Now, either Kara Zwiebel is wrong or you just have another

00:16:44.720 dumb error by Tom Blackwell. Let me read to you. This is a Supreme Court ruling. 0.91

00:16:50.120 This is called a head note, which is a summary of the case written by clerks of the Supreme Court.

00:16:57.060 So I'm just going to tell you the case that Kara Zwiebel allegedly referred to Tom Blackwell.

00:17:02.320 Tom Blackwell probably got it wrong because this makes no sense.

00:17:04.640 The trial judge ordered a state of proceedings in a murder trial, finding many instances of

00:17:10.760 abusive conduct by state officials. The Ontario Provincial Police investigated and exonerated the

00:17:16.240 police of misconduct without giving reasons for their finding. Concerned about the disparity between

00:17:21.220 the findings at trial and the conclusions of the police investigation, the Criminal Lawyers

00:17:25.580 Association, CLA, made a request under the Ontario Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act,

00:17:32.060 FIPAA, to the responsible minister for disclosure of records relating to the investigation.

00:17:38.580 The records at issue were a lengthy police report and two documents containing legal advice.

00:17:44.600 FIPAA exempts various categories of documents from disclosure, some of which may be disclosed

00:17:49.200 pursuant to a discretionary ministerial decision, including law enforcement records under Section 14

00:17:53.900 and solicitor-client privilege records under Section 19. Sorry, a secret and private legal opinion

00:18:01.580 for a police force is not the same as public tweets. I'm not asking for some special disclosure of a

00:18:11.860 secret. I just want access to Stephen Gilboa's public tweets. I think Kara Zwiebel has been on

00:18:18.160 vacation for too long. Or maybe, just as likely, the reporter, Tom Blackwell, just absolutely got his

00:18:26.240 facts wrong again. That case has nothing to do with my access to a public... I'm not asking the

00:18:32.600 government to divulge a secret legal opinion. If those are the people who are in charge of our

00:18:37.980 civil liberties and our journalism, we're in trouble in Canada. All right, let me get back to this shoddy

00:18:42.880 article. In that Ontario case, the top court said the charter's free expression section can require

00:18:48.440 governments to release information, but only if denying access to it effectively precludes

00:18:53.540 meaningful public discussion on matters of public interest. I'm not asking for the government to

00:18:59.740 release any secrets. What a stupid lawsuit to... a court case to refer it in. This is a terrible article. 1.00

00:19:07.420 Gilboa's office did not comment on why the rebel founder was blocked, but an affidavit filed by the

00:19:14.900 minister's lawyers contains a number of tweets posted by Levant about Gilboa. In some, he refers

00:19:20.240 without elaboration to the minister being a convicted criminal, an apparent reference to Gilboa's

00:19:25.060 conviction for public mischief after climbing the CM Tower for a climate change protest while working

00:19:29.960 for Greenpeace. Well, let me just stop there and say, it is true that I have never been given

00:19:35.900 an actual explanation for why I was banned from Gilboa's Twitter feed. I don't know if it's

00:19:42.840 something I wrote, if it's something I said, something I did, or if it's just who I am. We

00:19:46.800 simply don't know. And the thing is, I keep saying Gilboa's Twitter account, but it's actually not his,

00:19:51.720 is it? If it's run by and controlled by and staffed by and paid by civil servants on the taxpayer dime,

00:19:58.460 it really isn't his, is it? I'll keep reading.

00:20:01.780 Levant suggests in other tweets that Gilboa is one of the dumbest ministers, one of the most 1.00

00:20:07.820 incompetent, a terribly bad liar, and a perfect thug assigned to silence Prime Minister Justin 1.00

00:20:13.260 Trudeau's critics. In a legal motion decided recently, rebels lawyers urged the courts to 0.96

00:20:17.860 toss out the affidavit displaying the tweets, arguing it was prejudicial to their case, but of

00:20:22.820 little evidentiary value. Justice Alan Diner ruled against Levant saying prejudice has not been

00:20:28.620 demonstrated, and the evidence is not obviously irrelevant. But like I showed you before,

00:20:34.820 those tweets don't even tag Stephen Gilboa. But let's, let's say that those tweets were the reason

00:20:40.320 I was banned. We don't know that because Gilboa has refused to testify so far.

00:20:45.620 I think that those are terrible reasons to ban me. Because there's no swearing, there's no threats,

00:20:53.920 it's simply criticism, or, or calling him a convicted criminal, which I don't even know if

00:20:58.320 that's criticism, that's, that's who he is, to ban someone from getting access to a government

00:21:04.540 service, a public Twitter account, simply because he irritates you in a partisan political way.

00:21:12.120 How can you possibly allow that with no explanation? Banning for me from getting a service, not from a

00:21:18.500 secret memo, a service. Anyhow, very interesting story today, and it caused quite a ruckus. Like I

00:21:24.040 say, it appeared in a lot of places, very popular. Now, the comments on the National Post website were

00:21:30.180 a hoot. I read, I don't know, about a hundred of them. They were knocking Post Media for taking money

00:21:36.600 from Trudeau. They were applauding our news coverage and comparing it favorably to the National

00:21:42.080 Post. They pointed out the truth about Gilboa, how he was, in fact, a criminal. But then midday,

00:21:48.000 and this, as the story was getting traction, something happened, because all of a sudden,

00:21:52.160 hundreds of liberal bots, robots, or, you know, shills and partisans were unleashed, and what a hoot

00:21:58.880 they were. It was a big argy-bargy, a big back and forth. Here's what you need to know. This lawsuit is

00:22:09.060 proceeding to trial. The trial is just a few months away, in June, in Toronto. And I think we've got a

00:22:17.220 real chance. If you put aside the snark and the factual errors in Tom Blackwell's story, and if

00:22:24.760 you strip aside the snide remarks from the liberal robots, you have a case that on the face of it is

00:22:31.860 clearly a violation of my rights as a citizen. It reminds me a little bit of when Justin Trudeau

00:22:38.500 required any small business that wanted a summer jobs grant to sign an attestation that they agree

00:22:44.880 with Justin Trudeau on moral questions like abortion, had absolutely nothing to do with

00:22:49.420 whether or not they should receive a summer jobs grant, absolutely punished Trudeau's enemies,

00:22:54.780 and had nothing to do with summer jobs. It was just punitive. Well, that's what he's doing again

00:23:00.620 here, but he's not even going through the motions of giving an explanation or a rationale or publishing

00:23:05.440 the rules. He's just taking out his vendetta against one of Trudeau's harshest critics, me.

00:23:11.920 I don't deny that I'm a harsh critic of the liberal government, and that's my constitutional

00:23:17.020 right. And one of the ways I can express that right, in fact, some would say it's a duty of a

00:23:21.680 journalist to do that. One of the ways I can express that is to interact with the government

00:23:26.240 on Twitter. The tweets I showed you didn't actually interact with Gilboa at all. I didn't

00:23:31.340 reply there. I was just speaking in my own right. It would be quite something if I was talking about

00:23:36.420 Gilboa over here, not even to him, and I was banned from his Twitter account. I don't think

00:23:40.900 Gilboa will be able to avoid taking the witness stand in his own trial. That was that little

00:23:45.840 skirmish they talked about at the end there. Gilboa still has not sworn evidence under oath.

00:23:52.340 It'll be quite something to see that. If you think this interesting fight should be supported,

00:23:57.860 well, I should tell you, we need your help. The government's spending hundreds of thousands

00:24:02.740 of dollars stopping this. For some reason, they think it's extremely important that I be banned

00:24:08.100 from following Stephen Gilboa on Twitter. And you might say, what a much ado about nothing.

00:24:13.400 What a tempest in a teapot. And this is where I disagree with you if you said that.

00:24:18.860 Because if the government can ban me from getting a government service, information published by

00:24:24.820 civil servants using a government website, if the government can ban me for any reason or no reason,

00:24:31.620 not give me the reason, not give me any appeal, not communicate with me at all, just ban me,

00:24:36.600 if they can set that precedent, what other things can they ban me from? Can they ban me from having

00:24:45.460 a bank account? Can they ban me from getting a tax refund? Can they ban me from traveling places? I

00:24:53.220 mean, they're violating my fundamental freedoms of speech and journalism and the media. What other

00:24:57.620 fundamental freedoms can they ban me for? This is actually an extremely important case.

00:25:03.880 Because if we win, it's a message to the liberal government that no, they cannot use government

00:25:10.580 offices and government projects as their own party projects. I mean, if the liberal party, by the way,

00:25:17.120 the liberal party of Canada has not banned me from Twitter, funny enough. Maybe they should. I'm a

00:25:22.260 critic of theirs and they're not owned by the government. But if the government can ban me and

00:25:26.940 block me simply because they don't like me, well, then that's a road that we do not want to go down,

00:25:33.220 a road where the government is used for private interests, not public interests. If you want to learn more

00:25:38.200 or help us out, go to twitterlawsuit.ca. All right, here's our next interview with Rachel Emanuel. 0.86

00:25:45.320 Well, if you had the opportunity to shake Justin Trudeau's hand, would you? Well, if you are a

00:26:02.420 typical rebel viewer, I'm guessing your answer would be no. You might even do that silly high 0.98

00:26:07.840 school move where you put your hand out to shake it and then you brush your hair back. You would do 0.74

00:26:12.880 something sort of silly like that. But what happens if you weren't allowed to be disrespectful? If you 0.96

00:26:17.900 weren't allowed to flip them the bird, as so many Westerners do? Well, maybe you would do what Alberta

00:26:24.640 premiers do when they come face to face with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, just like a quarter century

00:26:31.340 ago when the Alberta premiers came face to face with Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. They made it clear that

00:26:37.940 in the name of the office and provincial federal harmony and following the Constitution and respect for the

00:26:43.940 Queen, they would, in fact, meet the Prime Minister and they would, perhaps grudgingly, shake his hand. Here's Jason

00:26:51.120 Kenney scowling a bit while shaking Justin Trudeau's hand. Danielle Smith, who is much firmer when it comes to 0.98

00:27:00.440 provincial rights and criticizing Justin Trudeau, firmer than Jason Kenney, it looks like she didn't even want to shake

00:27:07.000 hands. But Trudeau reached down to her hand and shook it anyways. Here's how that went down.

00:27:20.120 Yeah, I think, I think that that was just the right tone. It reminds me a little bit of when

00:27:26.240 Stephen Harper was at a international summit and Vladimir Putin came right up to him with his hand

00:27:33.680 out for a handshake. And Harper said, I will shake your hand, but I'm opposed to what you're doing.

00:27:39.900 And I thought that was just the right tone. I'm not comparing Justin Trudeau with Vladimir Putin,

00:27:44.400 although both share similar authoritarian instincts. But I like the fact that Danielle Smith let it be 1.00

00:27:50.980 known through her body language that she was no friend of Justin Trudeau. And although that was

00:27:56.800 condemned by the Twitterati and the fainty dainties who thought that she embarrassed Alberta, I think the opposite.

00:28:05.000 I think the fact that she so viscerally rejected Justin Trudeau was probably her finest moment yet,

00:28:12.360 at least in the eyes of Alberta patriots, which is her base.

00:28:17.580 Joining us now via Skype from the Wild Rose Province is our friend Rachel Emanuel,

00:28:21.720 who writes for various outlets, including our friends at True North. Rachel, great to see you.

00:28:26.880 You're actually out there. I'm out here in exile in Toronto. And I was cheering on

00:28:31.000 Danielle Smith when she didn't shake Trudeau's hand. How did it go over there when Danielle Smith

00:28:36.960 clearly was sort of resisting shaking Trudeau's hand?

00:28:40.720 I think this type of thing plays very well with Danielle's base. Of course, in Alberta, you know, 0.94

00:28:45.200 they're no friends of the Liberal Party, especially the United Conservative Party. They hate the Trudeau

00:28:49.360 Liberals. They hate what Trudeau has done to this province through some federal legislation. So I

00:28:53.780 think this type of thing plays very well with her base. Of course, there's going to be the

00:28:57.460 Laurentian elites that have negative things to say about it and want to teach Danielle a lesson on 0.84

00:29:01.600 how to shake your hands. But I think it was rather intentional. And I think it's going to play over

00:29:05.500 well for her. Now, I know that some of this is for public consumption. Danielle Smith wants to put on 0.79

00:29:11.640 the record how she feels. But provincial premiers and federal PMs, they just simply have to work 0.86

00:29:18.260 together on so many things. And when they do so, I presume the goal is to be constructive. I presume

00:29:24.040 that the kind of squabbles we see in public are probably not there in a business phone call to get

00:29:29.860 through an item of to-dos. That's what Trudeau was doing. He had a list of things he wanted to do.

00:29:37.720 I don't think it was the same as a list of things that Danielle Smith wanted to go through. Here,

00:29:41.880 let me play a clip for you of Danielle Smith talking with Trudeau looking somewhat uncomfortable. 0.86

00:29:47.700 Now, the audio here is rough, but I understand this is the best audio that exists for this clip.

00:29:54.040 So do your best to make it out as she talks about stopping Trudeau's often repeated desire to phase

00:30:02.180 out the oil sands and the jobs that go with it. Here, take a look.

00:30:06.480 I'm delighted to be able to have an opportunity to talk about some areas of common interest,

00:30:12.820 maybe some areas of diversion, to see if we can find some common interest. We have, I think,

00:30:17.760 a lot of shared goals in addressing issues of Indigenous health care and health addiction,

00:30:23.760 home care, community-based care, as we transform our health care system. So I'm pleased that we'll be

00:30:28.480 meeting with all the other bringers today. But of course, I did write a letter to the Prime Minister

00:30:36.480 a couple of weeks ago expressing concern about some of the major initiatives that have been announced

00:30:43.760 without much consultation in Alberta that stand to have a huge impact on our products. The just transition,

00:30:50.960 the Prime Minister, the impression that the energy sector is going to be phased out and it's not going

00:30:56.960 to be phased out. We're transforming away from high-intensity emissions to lower emissions,

00:31:02.880 and we have some shared priorities on that. LNG exports to reduce emissions using a green transfer

00:31:10.160 mechanism to get credit here. That would also help Rich Columbia, working on critical minerals, hydrogen,

00:31:17.680 geothermal. I think there's a lot of opportunity for us to find some common ground. I'm also concerned

00:31:24.480 about the green electricity regulations. Our province has 90 percent of our electricity grid on

00:31:30.640 natural gas, and so a third phase out of natural gas is just simply not going to result in a reliable

00:31:36.960 and affordable option for our province. And also a proposed emissions cap on the energy sector. We've

00:31:44.800 said very clearly that being an aggressive emissions cap, such as it was initially proposed, would

00:31:50.560 really be a production cap, because there isn't a feasible way for us to achieve that within eight

00:31:56.160 years. So with that, we'll find some common ground on some of those issues today, because I think it's

00:32:00.480 going to be important for all of Canada that we need to find common ground so that we can continue to move

00:32:07.680 more. Well, Rachel, was this the case of two ships passing in the night that really weren't talking

00:32:16.880 to each other? Or was there any common ground? Did they engage on anything?

00:32:23.360 I wouldn't say it's two ships passing in the night. I want to say that there was some agreement made. As

00:32:27.440 you mentioned, the Prime Minister did look extremely uncomfortable while Danielle was making her comments

00:32:32.160 there. But as she's saying, you know, we're not going to be phasing out the energy sector, we see Trudeau

00:32:36.640 nodding along, kind of conceding to some comments that she's made. Later on in her remarks, he looks

00:32:41.280 arguably a bit more uncomfortable. I'm sure they didn't agree on everything. But I think it's safe

00:32:45.200 to say we did see some concessions from the Prime Minister. And I think the Premier is coming back to

00:32:49.440 Alberta with a good message. And I think she's proud of what she was able to deliver on during her visit to

00:32:53.840 Ottawa. Tell me what some of those concessions were. I know that Danielle Smith campaigned on the

00:33:03.840 Sovereignty Act, which got a lot of dramatic coverage from the CBC and others. But my read of

00:33:09.520 it is just basically applying the Constitution the same way Quebec has, which is to make sure there's no

00:33:15.360 intrusions on provincial jurisdiction by the feds. Was there any, were there any interesting concessions? I know

00:33:22.480 that there was a recent firearms concession by Trudeau basically admitting that he was going to tackle

00:33:28.720 hunters and he backed down from that. Other than the firearms back down, what else did Trudeau back down on?

00:33:35.280 Well, I think the interesting thing we see there is that when the Premier is saying we're not going to

00:33:38.640 see a phasing out of the energy sector, we see the Prime Minister nodding along in agreement. So they've

00:33:43.440 reached some mutual territory there. Of course, the firearms one was a big piece of drawback that we've

00:33:48.320 seen from the federal government lately. I was actually really surprised to see that. It seems that the Trudeau

00:33:53.760 government hasn't been listening to Canadians lately. No matter how loud the criticism is, they are very

00:33:58.800 loathe to withdraw unpopular legislation. So it was interesting to see them withdraw this amendment. Now, you

00:34:04.560 could say that's a concession for now, although I'm not sure that we won't see reintroduced at a later date in some

00:34:09.840 other form. So it'll be interesting to see where we go for that. And you're absolutely right. The Sovereignty Act was so

00:34:14.960 controversial when the Premier was first voted in and made actions on that. But really, her plan is to

00:34:19.680 achieve the same autonomy that the Quebecers have. Now, there's still some other movements that need

00:34:24.560 to be made. There needs to be some changes in health care. And of course, the provincial police

00:34:28.080 force would allow the province to have some more autonomy, as Quebec does. So there's still a lot of

00:34:32.160 work to be done on that. But I think we're seeing that the Sovereignty Act wasn't as controversial

00:34:36.160 as it was initially pegged to be. And it's since been passed, and there hasn't been as much

00:34:39.920 conversation about it as we've seen. Yeah. It has not escaped my attention that opinion polls,

00:34:47.200 including opinion polls taken by liberal-affiliated pollsters like Abacus, show that Trudeau has a

00:34:55.440 statistically significant shortfall in his popularity far behind Pierre Pagliau's conservatives. I mean,

00:35:03.760 it's not just a point or two. It's almost a double-digit lead now. That's got to be spooking

00:35:09.600 some liberals in marginal seats. I mean, if you're in downtown Toronto or Montreal,

00:35:14.800 they'll be voting liberal almost no matter what. But it's in those more marginal areas,

00:35:19.840 the suburbs, even parts of British Columbia, some rural strongholds for the liberals in Ontario,

00:35:28.320 Manitoba. Those liberal MPs are going to lose if these poll numbers stand up. Do you think that

00:35:34.320 that is motivating Trudeau to maybe give up some of those ideological eccentricities?

00:35:40.640 I think to an extent, I think what we're seeing, if you read media reports, there's been reports in

00:35:47.520 recent weeks of people within the Liberal Party actually turning on Trudeau. I think within his

00:35:52.000 own party and among his MPs, we're finally seeing him lose support and popularity. For the first time

00:35:57.440 since 2015, we're seeing that people in the Liberal Party are finally standing up. They're seeing,

00:36:01.600 as you just pointed out, that their seats are at stake. And I think they're pointing that out to him,

00:36:05.440 and I think they're very angry. And so maybe what we're seeing with the withdrawal on the firearms

00:36:09.440 amendment is Trudeau is under a lot of pressure from within his own party for the first time.

00:36:14.320 And he's worried for his own position and that he might have to resign if things continue

00:36:18.240 the way that they are now. I don't know if he's looking and he's actually caring about other MP seats,

00:36:22.080 but I think he's taking a lot of heat from within his own party in a way that he never has before.

00:36:27.920 You know, I saw a fascinating tweet today by a journalist, I think for the Epoch Times,

00:36:32.640 an internal PMO document showing the number of letters that the PMO receives by subject matter

00:36:41.120 and hundreds of thousands of letters, but they categorize them. And I notice that it's all

00:36:47.600 lockdown issues, government mismanagement of COVID, the carbon taxes on there, all the things that,

00:36:53.440 quote, severely normal people care about. I notice not on the list of issues are global warming,

00:37:00.240 climate change, you know, a just transition off oil and gas, none of the woke transgenderism or 1.00

00:37:07.520 feminism. It's just such an incredible difference between what the Liberal Party wants to do, 1.00

00:37:14.640 which is often a cultural war, versus the bread and butter issues that Canadians care about. And I think

00:37:21.120 more and more, if we head into a recession, it's going to be cost of housing, cost of mortgages,

00:37:25.840 interest rates, inflation, things like that. I don't know. I think that for the first time,

00:37:30.640 you know, I mean, it's been eight years since Trudeau was elected. Maybe he's starting to wear

00:37:35.280 on people's nerves a bit. It's almost like in Canada, they don't vote prime ministers in,

00:37:39.360 they sort of chuck the old one out when they get tired of them. I want to ask you one last question

00:37:44.080 about Alberta, though, before we go. And by the way, Rachel, it's great to have you here. We love True

00:37:47.920 North very much. You're based in Alberta. And for the longest time, the public face of lockdowns,

00:37:55.600 even more than the Premier Jason Kenney at the time, even more than Tyler Shandro, the health

00:37:59.520 minister at the time, was the public health officer. And that was, I think, a wise strategy

00:38:04.720 by politicians. Make the unelected bureaucrats the bad guy for everything. At first, they were treated as

00:38:11.120 heroes. But then as the mood turned, they were the scapegoats. Dina Hinshaw was Alberta's public

00:38:18.480 health officer. She was sacked by Danielle Smith. And maybe I shouldn't be surprised, but she popped 1.00

00:38:25.280 up. She was snatched up by British Columbia. She went over there and she's the deputy provincial

00:38:32.080 health officer. I'm not sure how many provincial health officers we need. There seem to be hundreds

00:38:36.160 of these people across the country. And I really don't know what they do other than repeat Anthony

00:38:40.800 Fauci's latest press release. But what do you have to say about Dina Hinshaw moving from Alberta to BC

00:38:45.600 and being welcomed with a six-figure job? Yeah, I'm not really sure what they do either,

00:38:51.520 other than lock down and tell average people in Albertan businesses that they're not allowed to

00:38:56.320 operate while they're collecting a $228,000 COVID bonus. I think BCers should be asking themselves

00:39:02.720 why they're picking up Alberta's sloppy seconds right now. Let's not mince word. Dina Hinshaw was fired 1.00

00:39:07.840 for her poor handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. So I think that BCers are absolutely correct to be 1.00

00:39:12.880 outraged that she's now being hired in BC to do who knows what. I think it's a bit laughable that

00:39:17.840 she's just been able to transfer over to this province after doing such a poor job with Alberta's

00:39:22.240 handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. And let's not forget, as I just mentioned, that $228,000 bonus that

00:39:27.840 she pocketed in 2021, the same year that she shut down Alberta businesses, she took home over almost

00:39:33.920 $600,000 in 2021. That's well over half a million dollars while she was shutting shuttering Albertan

00:39:39.760 businesses. So it's just laughable that she's been able to take a job in BC so quickly. I don't know

00:39:45.120 what they were thinking. I don't know what they were thinking in terms of optics, but it seems that

00:39:48.400 there's some people in the system who have found a way to survive in Justin Trudeau's inflationary Canada.

00:39:54.400 And, you know, maybe you just have to respect them for doing whatever it takes to find a way

00:39:58.400 to support themselves and have a good life while the rest of Canadians are suffering.

00:40:02.160 Yeah. Yeah. You know, with those stats, I have them in front of me. She was earning in 2021 0.57

00:40:06.640 a $363,000 salary. But then she got a bonus, as you mentioned, of 228 grand for a grand total of

00:40:16.240 $591,000. And I don't know what she did other than read out statistics

00:40:23.360 every week of how many cases there were. I mean, like I say, every city, every municipality,

00:40:29.040 every province had these public health officers. It drove me nuts when they were referred to as

00:40:34.240 top doctors, but they didn't have any patients. They're not the best doctor or the, you know,

00:40:39.520 the smartest. They are doctors, but they don't have patients. They're just bureaucrats with an MD.

00:40:45.280 And the idea of a bonus of 228 grand, it's like she's a stockbroker who made $10 million profit. So

00:40:53.680 they gave her a quarter mil bonus. I don't know what bonus, like what did she do so well to give 1.00

00:41:01.280 her a bonus of that size? There were, just like there are profiteers in a military war, Rachel,

00:41:07.920 there absolutely were profiteers during the COVID crisis, which was often likened to a war. And

00:41:15.840 Dina Hinshaw is one of them. Good news for Alberta that she's gone. I pity the BCers who have to pay 1.00

00:41:21.280 for it. Last word to you, Rachel, what do you think we should look at in Alberta in the months ahead?

00:41:27.060 How far away is that provincial election? It's a fixed state election. It's not far away now, is it?

00:41:32.560 Yeah, the provincial election is coming up. It's scheduled for late May. I think that's where

00:41:37.460 everyone's eyes are turning right now. We're already seeing some of the discussion change to

00:41:41.600 that pre sort of election campaigning. I think we're going to see the NDP really try to paint

00:41:47.200 Danielle Smith as someone who is crazy, as someone who doesn't know what she's doing in government,

00:41:50.860 and who's simply not up for the job. And we're going to see the Alberta UCP party try to paint the 0.67

00:41:57.420 NDP as a party that's closely affiliated with Justin Trudeau by nature of the federal

00:42:02.380 NDP, which currently has an agreement to hold Justin Trudeau and his government in power.

00:42:07.140 And so we're going to see them make those connections. It's similar to how Jason Kenney

00:42:10.260 did it when he ran for the leadership and how he won the election. So we'll see if they're

00:42:14.500 successful in that. We're already seeing the polls switch in Danielle Smith's favor. So I'm

00:42:18.260 interested to see if we continue to see that upswing. Certainly the numbers are looking much better

00:42:22.720 for the UCP than they were under Jason Kenney. So we'll see if Danielle Smith has what it takes to 0.99

00:42:27.160 form government for the first time. All right, Rachel Emanuel, great to see you.

00:42:31.180 We'll follow you at True North. And it's nice to have you. Pop by here, Rebel News. Stay with us.

00:42:37.000 More ahead.

00:42:49.000 Hey, welcome back. Your letters to me. Mark Beerly says about the balloon. This report raises some

00:42:55.120 very disturbing questions. If our defense department was not aware of this balloon, the minute it launched

00:42:59.160 from China, that indicates a serious flaw in our intelligence gathering. If the defense department

00:43:03.360 was aware of the balloon and chose not to inform the president, that would mean that our military

00:43:07.500 has been compromised by the CCP. I have not heard a single report as to when Biden was informed.

00:43:15.700 But given the fact that he has been certainly being compromised by the CCP and the fact that he

00:43:20.560 is a pathological liar, I would be willing to bet that he was told days in advance by Xi himself

00:43:25.340 that they were going to launch a balloon and that he had better ensured safe passage over 0.97

00:43:29.360 the United States. No, I think you go too far there. I don't think that Xi Jinping would have

00:43:36.020 informed Biden of sending the balloon over. Not at all. And I don't think it's reasonable to track

00:43:41.480 every weather balloon that's launched over China. China is a huge country and there are legitimate

00:43:45.980 reasons for launching weather balloons. Now, as I showed you on the map, it should have been detected

00:43:52.380 when it approached Alaska and as it came down B.C. And it surely was. I don't know when Biden would

00:43:58.800 have been briefed. I mean, let's be honest. Biden isn't exactly the decision maker there. They probably

00:44:02.580 briefed someone else at the White House. Someone whose nickname is maggotism says it's war, Ezra.

00:44:10.320 Israel does the same. Does the same with what? Are you talking about balloons? Are you talking about 0.87

00:44:17.980 the war between Russia and Ukraine? I'm not sure what you mean. Like I said yesterday,

00:44:23.400 I'm generally against war, but there are some things that war is better than. War to preserve

00:44:30.740 your freedom, war to preserve your independence, war to get your independence or freedom.

00:44:35.900 Many countries are born in revolution, including the United States. Canada, we're one of the lucky

00:44:40.960 countries that evolved into our independence. Israel, unfortunately, has had many wars of survival.

00:44:47.980 If Israel were to lose even a single war, that would mean its end. Luckily, it hasn't had a 0.99

00:44:52.720 serious war in years other than the slow-burning terrorist war. I'm not sure what other analogy

00:44:58.520 you're trying to make there. I was hopeful and impressed, but then obviously immediately dashed

00:45:04.960 to learn that Israel's PM was involved in negotiating a peace treaty between Russia and Ukraine.

00:45:10.300 And then I was dashed to hear that it was, you know, scuppered by Joe Biden.

00:45:13.600 There's a lot of intrigues afoot, aren't there? I'm glad we live in a safe place in Canada.

00:45:19.620 That's our story for today. Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World

00:45:24.080 headquarters to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

Rebel News Podcast - February 09, 2023

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Our lawsuit against Steven Guilbeault makes national news

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