We won a freedom of speech battle against the police and prosecutors in Quebec, and I'm pretty excited about it. I'll tell you about it, and why you should be too. You're ready for freedom, you censorious bug?
00:21:21.100They have a talk about different forms because we actually had three different forms, but I'll just read this part.
00:21:27.540Another letter, D5, also signed by Ezra Levant, president of Rebel News in Toronto,
00:21:31.920stipulates that during the curfew decreed by the Government of Quebec, the person identified in this document is recognized as an essential resource
00:21:39.440and that Mr. Sidney Fouzard must therefore travel between his home and his place of work or any place where the presence and the professional capacity is required.
00:21:46.760This letter, obtained only after the police officer's testimony, is dated March 18, 2021, and valid from March 19 to April 30, 2021.
00:21:54.860Finally, a third letter is produced and has the same effect as the previous, but dated March 5, 2021, and is valid from March 6 to March 8.
00:23:34.720And the fact that this was pursued by the police and the prosecution for 30 months shows that, yeah, they absolutely were in the business of deciding who is and isn't journalists.
00:23:51.020Snobbery by the police of prosecution and, I would say, by the judge, too.
00:23:54.040Back to the ruling, questioned about his status as a journalist during the trial.
00:23:59.460Mr. Fouzard admits, not having done any study for his job since before being hired at Rebel News, he was a cook.
00:24:07.680It therefore appears that no training is required to be able to grant yourself the title of journalist and obtain accreditation from Independent Press Gallery of Canada.
00:24:17.020As in, Sidney didn't go to journalism school.
00:24:20.680What do you think they teach you at journalism school for four years?
00:24:28.400You don't have to spend four years being indoctrinated in order to have the right to film what police are doing in the dead of night to poor Montrealers.
00:24:36.360Oh, and he was a cook before he worked for us.
00:24:38.820How dare a lowly cook have the audacity to think that he could be a journalist?
00:24:45.160Oh, and that shot at the Independent Press Gallery.
00:24:46.860Well, by the way, you don't need a journalism degree to work for any media outlet.
00:25:13.120At the time of the events, none of the people arrested with the defendant use equipment normally used for reporting.
00:25:21.760They just film police intervention using their cell phones.
00:25:26.160Moreover, it is clear that their presence at outside during curfew mainly aims to provoke police intervention to film it and offer it as a report to Rebel News.
00:25:42.760The camera in a basic smartphone in 2023 or back in 2021 is far superior than a quarter million dollar over-the-shoulder TV camera from 10 years ago.
00:25:54.920And by the way, you can edit and publish right from your phone too.
00:25:58.960What a bunch of technologically illiterate boomers.
00:26:03.440You can't do journalism with just a cell phone.
00:26:05.600Hey there, you kids, stop doing journalism with your cell phone.
00:26:09.020And you aim to provoke police, really?
00:26:12.060Sort of sounds like these police are the ones who are trying to provoke us.
00:26:15.720That they're the ones with access to the grind.
00:26:17.600They're the ones expressing a view on whether or not we can't be journalists because of our right-wing views.
00:26:23.340I mean, how dare we report on something when there's nothing to report on?
00:26:26.600And the police have given us their word that there's nothing to report on.
00:26:41.980In order to demonstrate that Rebel News is a real media outlet, the defendant's lawyer invokes a decision of the federal court of Newfoundland.
00:26:49.600In which the judge ordered the leaders' debates commission to give Rebel News Network Limited the required accreditation to allow a journalist to participate in person and tend others to participate in virtual mode like other media in the leaders' debate for federal election.
00:27:06.300That was the second time the federal court of Canada struck down Trudeau's ban on us.
00:27:10.880And the judge, in this case, here in Montreal, seems to have taken it to heart, despite her bizarre criticisms of our journalists.
00:27:19.020The leaders' debate commission, I'm reading from the ruling again, refused this accreditation based on the guidelines issued by the Canadian Association of Journalists regarding conflicts of interest.
00:27:28.740The commission has identified several elements constituting conflicts of interest, according to her from Rebel News, such as the Vaccine Passport Legal Fund, the Stop the Censorship Petition, the No COVID Jails Lawsuit, the Bring Back Harper Petition, the Open Saskatchewan Lawsuit, and the Autotracker Letter.
00:27:46.140So, basically, the Montreal judge was saying that the debates commission tried to kick us out because we have these petitions.
00:27:53.300But then this Montreal judge says this.
00:27:56.720In this decision, the commission states that its mandate is to maintain the public confidence in media coverage and expresses the view that activities that could lead to conflicts of interest risk harming the trust.
00:28:07.220This fear is possibly well-founded, but the responsibility for determining who is a journalist and who is not, and how to report in accordance with journalistic standards, are not within the purview of this court.
00:28:20.520Usually, these are the orders professionals bringing together all members of the same profession, who provide a form of regulation of the said profession.
00:28:28.540This makes it easy to check who is a member, in good standing, with a professional order.
00:28:34.140Unlike other professions, however, who exercise their profession, journalists do not have an obligation to be part of a professional order, who can establish what is acceptable and what is not, keep a list of members in good standing, and sanction misconduct by imposing fines, suspensions, additional training, or even removal from the order.
00:28:50.700Of course, there is the press council, but this body does not have the same powers and duties as those assigned to a professional order.
00:28:59.440So basically, this judge is saying, yeah, journalists are not like doctors or lawyers or accountants or engineers.
00:29:49.080In our country, freedom of expression is protected by our laws whether or not we agree with the opinions expressed.
00:29:56.600Consequently, and although the defendant's behavior during the curfew is perplexing,
00:30:02.700the fact remains that the evidence indicates that Rebel News probably assigned to Quebec to cover this event if we are to believe the documents filed as evidenced by the defense without objections from the prosecutor.
00:30:16.020In this context, the court cannot conclude that Mr. Fazzard was not in the exercise of his journalistic functions during his arrest.
00:30:23.840For these reasons, the tribunal says the defendant is acquitted of the offenses charged.
00:31:00.240And this case was another victory for Rebel News.
00:31:05.600Hey, how much money did you think that foolishness just burnt up?
00:31:11.180How much tax money for the police, the enforcement, for the police to show up at trial, for the prosecutors' two-and-a-half-year vendetta, for the court's time?
00:31:57.180If the cops told them there's nothing to report on in this police sector, they'd obey.
00:32:02.740And that's why they'll never report on this court victory for Rebel News or the embarrassing and gross prosecution of our reporter in the first place.
00:32:13.840Because really, if any given journalist at the CBC had been the judge in this case, our reporter would have been convicted.
00:32:21.320Stay with us for more with the reporter, Sidney Fazzard.
00:32:27.340Well, joining us now is the reporter in question who was victorious in a Quebec court last week.
00:32:44.400Sidney Fazzard joins us from Calgary City.
00:33:43.700I still remember the conversation with one of the officers where one of the tickets was being handed out.
00:33:49.160And even though, you know, our tiny camera wasn't really a big enough camera to be considered proper, it was still something he requested that we turn off.
00:33:57.300And I can only imagine what the repercussions would be if we would actually stop recording these engagements.
00:34:03.040Yeah, I mean, I don't care what a policeman's opinion is on the size of a camera.
00:34:09.140I mean, this cell phone that I have, I mean, it's a couple of years old.
00:34:13.420It's as good a camera as when I worked at Sun News Network 10 years ago.
00:34:17.840We had quarter million dollar cameras.
00:34:31.080I only mention it because it shows how gross they are.
00:34:33.960They brought up the fact that you were a cook, they said, before you worked as a journalist, as if that somehow discredits your work, as if no one who was a cook.
00:34:46.340Like, I don't even know what point they're making other than some class snobbery implying that journalists are some priestly elite.
00:34:55.560And if you don't have a degree or if you didn't don't have the right background, you're not allowed to do it.
00:36:19.960They, I think the grossest part of that entire ruling, and I was not at your trial, but the judge recounts it, is when the cops said, there's no news in this sector.
00:36:33.420You know, it's like I'm watching that old sci-fi movie, Robocop.
00:37:36.760If you were to go out at 4 a.m. and film a street in normal times, that would not particularly be newsworthy, although it's your civil right to do so.
00:37:46.880And if a cop told you to stop, you'd say, you know, jog on.
00:37:51.320But it absolutely was newsworthy during a lockdown.
00:37:55.240I remember when we finally came out, like, first it was Yankee and then Efron and Lincoln and Mocha and yourself.
00:38:02.400So we sent one and then two and then three and then four people out.
00:38:05.740Then finally, I think 17 of us went out there because we were so grossed out by these cops.
00:38:11.200And you did see the odd person on the street, you know, essential services.
00:38:23.840And I think that this court case is an acquittal for you.
00:38:30.740But it's a conviction against the other media that they didn't find it interesting enough to show their viewers what life was like, to ask questions.
00:41:25.660Maybe you could say that the officers were less confrontational.
00:41:29.280But by how many there were and by how many police vehicles there were that showed up at this next incident, it's questionable as to their intentions, which we saw we got four tickets for.
00:41:38.840This was an incident where myself, Yankee Polak, and a few of our other co-workers were driving through the streets of Montreal.
00:41:47.960Yankee Polak, of course, he goes through the streets.
00:41:50.580At the time, he was going there every night, and he was investigating the curfews.
00:41:56.100And we found that there was a minor in the back of a police vehicle that, I guess, was, I don't want to say forced into being escorted home, but that did seem to be the situation.
00:42:05.480We did seek clarification, but the officers were not having any of it.
00:42:09.000And they did identify us as Rebel News.
00:42:10.800And Yankee, of course, being a Rebel News employee and having a kind of rapport, I guess, with the officers, that struck out to them.
00:43:42.780What's that got to do with how policing is done?
00:43:45.480What's that got to do with whether or not we have an exemption?
00:43:48.340So the very fact that the police were complaining about our right wing point of view, I didn't know that civil liberties was a right wing thing, but I guess I'm learning so much from these cops.
00:44:01.140The fact that the cops mentioned their perception of our ideological take as relevant shows that they are, in fact, the biased ones.
00:44:11.080It's funny that they accuse us of being biased.
00:44:13.200We're just doing our journalism, minding our own business.
00:44:15.120Because they're the ones hassling, arresting, physically roughing up journalists because they're too right wing.
00:44:23.140Apparently, you can do that if there's a journalist that's right wing.
00:44:25.680These cops are gross, but they're just cops.
00:44:29.900The prosecutors ran with this for 30 months.
00:44:48.000I mean, in a way, I imagine it was very educational learning experience.
00:44:52.640I mean, I wouldn't recommend to anyone being put on trial, but to go through it and to win is surely a very informative thing for a journalist.
00:45:28.080And I really do want to emphasize the role of our donors and those who support Rebel News, because as an independent outlet, we went out there on the streets to cover what was happening.
00:45:38.020The police, as you mentioned, with somewhat perhaps a political bias to the situation, were issuing us $1,500 tickets for being outside past a certain time.
00:45:53.940But some of our co-workers we know had many more.
00:45:56.220And, you know, the one thing I want to say to that is, you know, I'm very thankful that our journalism was protected here.
00:46:01.460But how many people in Quebec suffered through a $1,500 ticket or multiple $1,500 tickets because they were doing things that were essential after hours deemed okay by the government?
00:46:12.860These are people, if you're faced with a $1,500 ticket, that's rent for a month.
00:46:16.280That's a very difficult thing to overcome.
00:46:18.700And as much as the process is the punishment, many of these people, they ended up taking excruciating fines just to go about it.
00:46:24.820Yeah, the punishment was the punishment also.
00:46:26.720And in your case, it's doubly crazy because you actually had the exemption letter properly filled out in French, signed by me.
00:46:42.600And I don't think a single other journalist in the country is going to acknowledge it because, as I said in my monologue, I think any other journalist had been the judge, they would have convicted you just because they don't like Rebel News.
00:46:53.920And like these cops, they think that only journalists you agree with get freedom of speech.