Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Rebel reports live from Lethbridge to cover the 'Coutts Three' trial

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. I'm in Lethbridge, Alberta, covering the trial of the so-called Coutts III.

00:00:04.460 That's the leadership group, according to the prosecutors, behind the blockade in Coutts,

00:00:08.940 Alberta, two years ago. But before we get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber

00:00:12.860 to Rebel News Plus. That's the video version of this podcast. Just go to rebelnewsplus.com,

00:00:17.880 click subscribe. It's eight bucks a month. Good value for all the content, but more importantly,

00:00:22.000 you help us stay independent. We don't take a dime from Trudeau, and it shows. All right,

00:00:26.580 here's today's show.

00:00:30.000 Tonight, the leaders of the Coutts border blockade are in court. I'll have all the

00:00:47.140 details. It's February 26th, and this is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:50.740 You fighting for freedom! Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:00.000 Good morning, everybody. Ezra LeVant here for Rebel News. As you can see, I am back 0.59

00:01:09.360 in Lethbridge, my home away from home. I think I've been to this town maybe 20 times since the

00:01:14.800 pandemic, all for the same reason. This is the courthouse that is handling all the charges

00:01:20.060 emanating from protests, including the very momentous blockade at the border between Coutts,

00:01:25.700 Alberta and Sweetgrass, Montana. Dozens of charges emanated from that. Most of them were

00:01:31.220 minor offenses, but some were more serious. We're here today because there's a pre-trial hearing

00:01:37.040 in a case that really reminds me of that of Tamara Leach in Ottawa. It's the so-called leadership group

00:01:43.560 of the blockade at the Coutts border almost two years ago exactly, and it's really snowy and cold

00:01:49.040 today, which is how it was at the blockade two years ago. The three men who were being prosecuted

00:01:56.800 are Marco van Heugenbos, who actually at the time was a local town counselor, and two other men, Alex

00:02:01.680 van Heurk and George Jansen. They were part of the Truckers Council that was sort of like a ad hoc

00:02:08.000 democratic governance of these truckers in the blockade. They've been charged by police with

00:02:13.520 various mischief-like offenses, and Rebel News is doing two things. We are covering their trial,

00:02:21.380 and I'll introduce to you the gentleman next to me in a second, and importantly, we're also

00:02:25.820 crowdfunding their legal defense. Each of the men has their own lawyers, so there are three lawyers

00:02:31.180 that we are crowdfunding. I'm delighted to say that because this is a civil liberties case,

00:02:37.340 our crowdfunding funds go through the Democracy Fund, which issues a charitable tax receipt,

00:02:42.020 so if you want to make a donation, you can do so at coots3.com. At that same website, you can help us

00:02:48.980 cover our journalistic costs, which are completely separate, and which brings me to the two journalists

00:02:53.860 standing next to me, Robert Krejcik, who's come in from Ottawa, and Sidney Fizard, who has come down

00:03:00.060 from Calgary. Let's start with Sid. Nice to see you. Sid, you were there embedded in the blockade

00:03:06.400 pretty much the whole time. Why don't you recap for our viewers what you saw and heard and experienced

00:03:12.580 in real time at the blockade? Well, absolutely. I was there for 16 days in total. It was 18.

00:03:19.400 We arrived on the third day, roughly, and from there, obviously, it was a peaceful protest,

00:03:23.740 as many people know much, like the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa. That persisted, and there was quite

00:03:29.140 literally nothing the RCMP could do to end demonstrations. Likewise, political messaging,

00:03:33.420 especially from the former premier, to end all vaccine mandates was expected to be a big win for

00:03:38.020 them, but that didn't work either. So political avenue failed, the enforcement avenue failed,

00:03:41.980 and then eventually the blockade did end peacefully to prove that message loud and clear. And in September,

00:03:48.940 months after the blockade, there were three individuals who Alex, Marco, and George alleged

00:03:52.260 to be key participants of the blockade, facing mischief charges over 5,000 now.

00:03:56.760 Well, I'm so glad you went down there, and I remember when you and Kian Simone went down,

00:04:01.280 we thought it would be like a day trip or two, but you guys wound up staying, as you said,

00:04:05.040 for more than two weeks. It was bitter cold. Tell us a little bit more about what it was like on the

00:04:10.640 ground. Coots is a tiny town. It's not even a town. I think it's a village. There's a saloon.

00:04:15.900 There's some border, you know, crossing buildings. It really is a small place, and I think that's one

00:04:21.300 reason the men were able to hold out for so long. In Windsor, Ontario, in Ottawa, Ontario,

00:04:25.880 there's massive police presence very close by. There's a lot of tow trucks. There's a lot of

00:04:30.920 machinery. Coots is miles away from really anything, and I don't think the police or other

00:04:37.200 officials could muster the sheer physical power to push the guys out. What was it like when you

00:04:42.600 were there at the saloon? Well, that's absolutely it. It was a barren wasteland. Not to say it was a

00:04:46.640 wasteland. I respect the town of Coots. It's a very lovely place, but it was absolutely empty,

00:04:50.880 and one of the key things I think here is that what a lot of people don't realize is the RCMP

00:04:55.600 barrier that was set up around the Coots blockade nearer to the town of Milk River,

00:05:00.060 where we saw thousands of people come to show their support, they were being stopped there from

00:05:03.960 going into the blockade. But likewise, those people who were there since day one, who were the, you

00:05:08.220 know, blockade as it were, and their supporters, if they were to leave with their vehicles, there would

00:05:12.480 be no going back to the Coots blockade. So after 16 days, these guys had been there the whole time

00:05:17.660 because they weren't allowed to leave and come back. And likewise to the conditions today, it was

00:05:21.520 negative 35 worse with horrible winter conditions and wind that was coming across. And one of the big

00:05:28.000 requests early on was simply to get food and fuel and other such essentials to the blockaders because

00:05:33.860 police were blocking everything off. And now after 16 days, we see that these alleged key participants may

00:05:39.680 have just been the most vocal in the bunch that were trapped there, as opposed to being, you know, the

00:05:43.520 supreme underlord organizers of such a gang. Very interesting. So it's almost like the police

00:05:48.140 had a siege wall around the whole place. Not very close to it, but I remember Milk River.

00:05:53.180 I remember the efforts that some of the protesters made to bring food down there because you have

00:05:58.000 all these men. It's not a custom. Now, I want to switch gears for a second. Robert, you've just

00:06:02.820 arrived in Lethbridge last night. I think your greatest contribution to Rebel News so far has been

00:06:09.500 your daily intensive coverage of the trial of Tamara Leach and Chris Barber. Tamara Leach,

00:06:16.080 very famous for being, I call her sort of the spiritual leader of the Ottawa convoy. Very

00:06:22.300 mild-mannered, soft-spoken. She was thrown in prison for 49 days before her hearing. She was treated

00:06:26.920 very abusively, in my mind, by the government. Very political trial. The trial has been stretched on,

00:06:32.840 the process and the punishment. My theory, Robert, is that what you see here in Lethbridge will draw

00:06:38.760 upon the lessons you've learned in your coverage of Tamara Leach. That's my theory.

00:06:43.300 What do you think? Well, to be determined, as I observe events as they unfold beginning today and

00:06:48.920 across this week and several weeks in April, we'll see whether or not that commonality, that

00:06:53.760 common thread is accurate. I suspect that it will be. And given what Sid was just saying about the

00:06:58.520 role of the defendants that will be appearing today, they were the sort of leaders, the most vocal,

00:07:04.560 I think, is the way you describe them, relative to those who were attending this blockade and

00:07:07.500 coots. And that applies, of course, in a parallel sense to what we saw from Tamara Leach and Chris

00:07:12.700 Barber, in that they were both, to use your term for Tamara Leach, spiritual leaders. They were

00:07:17.660 organizational heads of this freedom convoy, which, of course, could not be tolerated by the

00:07:22.680 authorities, given their political investment in what I call the COVID-19 enterprise. So if that's true,

00:07:28.940 then we'll see that these men are being targeted with these charges, including mischief and some other

00:07:32.920 lower-level charges, because of their prominent roles and in order to send a message. But that

00:07:39.160 will be determined as events unfold.

00:07:42.120 Now, tell me a little bit about the routine you got into in Ottawa, covering the trial. I attended for

00:07:47.960 one day and my eyes glazed over because they were bringing witnesses that didn't know anything

00:07:53.080 about Tamara Leach, never met her, never talked to her. It was clear they were just to talk out the

00:07:56.920 clock and just a fog machine. I'm not sure how it'll go here. Like you say, to be determined. I mean,

00:08:04.120 one of our mottos at Rebel News is follow the facts wherever they lead. Are there any things that really

00:08:10.600 left an imprint on you from covering the Tamara Leach trial about prosecutorial zeal, about political

00:08:18.840 motivations of prosecutions? Because I have to say, I think that if there wasn't politics behind the Tamara

00:08:24.760 Leach case, I think it, I don't know if that case would have ever gone to court at all. And if it

00:08:28.920 did, it would have been a half-day trial and would have been over. I really think we're seeing the

00:08:33.080 politicization of prosecutions. That's something we normally associate with the banana republic. 0.85

00:08:38.520 Okay, I agree with your assessment. I wasn't paying close attention at the time that the previous

00:08:42.360 prosecutor for the Tamara Leach and Chris Barber trial was there. His name was what, Karimji?

00:08:48.360 Remind me. Moise Karimji. And he was, he was a senior Liberal Party donor. He was so vengeful and

00:08:56.120 emotional. Thankfully, the government replaced him as a prosecutor just a few months before trial,

00:09:00.920 which is such a rare thing, I got to tell you. They worked on that Tamara Leach investigation and

00:09:05.080 prosecution for more than a year. And then they dropped the lead prosecutor before trial because he

00:09:10.840 was obviously out of control. I think there's something similar going on here. There's a prosecutor

00:09:15.160 named Stephen Johnston who's going after pretty much anyone who did anything in Coots. He was the

00:09:19.400 prosecutor who went after Pastor Arthur Pawlowski. I get the same vibes from him. He's angry. He's

00:09:25.320 thin-skinned. This has become, you know, it's like he's searching for Moby Dick or something. This is a 1.00

00:09:31.720 quest for him. I don't think that's how prosecutors ought to be. And I don't think Danielle Smith wants to 1.00

00:09:38.760 meddle in prosecutions and she probably shouldn't. But boy, it feels like it's a personal mission rather

00:09:43.960 than a public mission. So I'll share a broad observation and then I'll go into some specifics

00:09:47.560 about your original question on the day-to-day. I think in general, there's a lot of politicization

00:09:52.520 of these so-called justice systems, not just in Canada, but the United States and the broader

00:09:56.920 Anglosphere. And as you were describing the previous prosecutor in the Tamara Leach and Chris Barber

00:10:01.400 trial, it's not just a vendetta in my view. Again, I'm engaging in some mind reading here,

00:10:05.160 but they view it as a political opportunity to develop themselves, to create brands for themselves

00:10:10.280 that can then sort of monetize for greater political gain. And you see, you see this in

00:10:14.840 the U.S. with respect to Donald Trump and a bunch of other cases. Now, in terms of the day-to-day

00:10:19.080 occurrences and what I observed in terms of political aspects or the nature of the process

00:10:23.960 that you found unbearable. By the way, I've got a thick skin so I can endure that sort of tediousness.

00:10:29.320 The prosecutors that replaced the previous prosecutor themselves were much more measured. So

00:10:34.040 if the government's intent was to diminish the likelihood of them appearing overzealous and

00:10:39.640 overaggressive and personality-driven and political, then they did that in terms of demeanor and style.

00:10:44.200 Because Siobhan Westshire and Tim Radcliffe, the two prosecutors in the Tim

00:10:48.280 Erleach and Chris Barber trial, again, are very well put together and professional in their demeanor.

00:10:53.560 Now, but what about the specifics? The nature of the evidence was very much absurd. You had a bunch of

00:10:58.520 witnesses, okay, Ottawa residents, who were invited to testify about the harms they claimed to have

00:11:04.440 suffered as a function of the Freedom Convoy demonstration in Ottawa. And none of these people

00:11:09.160 had even encountered Chris Barber, Tim Erleach. That's quite crazy. They cannot provide specific

00:11:14.280 evidence or observations or anecdotes about the very two people as defendants. They were going through

00:11:21.720 a therapy session, not a prosecution of two individuals whose liberty was hanging on the line.

00:11:26.280 Yeah, absolutely. And even one of the protesters, sorry, not the protesters, one of the

00:11:30.680 witnesses, what was her name again, Zenshi Li, she was like a sort of professional protester. 1.00

00:11:37.160 She had gained notoriety among us, those of us, let's say in the freedom movement, if I can use

00:11:41.480 that term, but she had developed a reputation for herself on the left, if I'll call them that, 0.99

00:11:46.280 as being this professional victim and whining about supposedly being threatened and harmed,

00:11:51.080 no evidence provided. And then she was elevated in some other ways, uh, as far as her initiation of

00:11:57.320 this lawsuit, which brought upon this, what was the term? It was like a sort of a judgment,

00:12:02.360 sort of a prohibition against honking in Ottawa. I think they call that an...

00:12:07.160 An injunction. Now, I got to say, and I was, I was in Ottawa for a few days for the trucker convoy,

00:12:12.520 the honking was loud. And I actually think that the judge who said, look, no honking in the residential

00:12:18.040 areas. I, I can't, I can't say I'm mad at him. I mean, honking is a way of expressing yourself,

00:12:25.400 but I think it did lower the temperature. And, and there were some people who couldn't sleep. I

00:12:30.520 think that that was exaggerated. That was the worst thing the truckers did. They got some parking

00:12:34.840 tickets and they honked their horns. And then they had a bouncy castle and the hot tubs. I sort of love

00:12:39.560 the fact that the horn honking was the worst they did. In fact, they, they really didn't get out

00:12:44.600 of their trucks. They didn't go into any building like the January Sixers did. And the fact that

00:12:50.120 horn honking was the worst they could say about him shows how peaceful it was. And one, uh, and,

00:12:57.160 and I think that was the trait of the blockade at Coutts. It was peaceful. And Rebel News sent down a

00:13:03.240 tag team of lawyers, Chad Williamson and his colleagues. They sort of rotated through the blockade at

00:13:08.920 Coutts talking to the men one-on-one telling them their rights, uh, giving them suggestions and 0.99

00:13:14.520 warnings. Don't bring firearms was something they said every day. And, and I think that the lawyers

00:13:20.520 we sent helped lower the temperature there and, um, we'll see what happens in court. Now, Sid,

00:13:26.920 since you knew the men, even before these charges were contemplated, you went down there, you were

00:13:31.960 embedded in, um, the protesters. We've already published one documentary that people can see

00:13:38.360 at rebelnewsplus.com about the Coutts blockade. We published several documentaries about, um, the

00:13:44.600 convoy movement. You're working on a biographical piece. Just give us a little bit of a heads up of,

00:13:51.400 uh, I mean, these three men, Marco, Alex, and George, I don't know them very well. I've met them

00:13:56.520 a couple of times. You spent some time with them. What story are you going to tell in your biographical

00:14:02.280 piece that you're working on? Uh, well, in preparations for their trial, uh, I had sat down

00:14:06.520 and done a long form interview with Alex, uh, Van Herc, Marco van Hugenbos, and George Jansen,

00:14:10.920 the three accused of, uh, mischief here. Uh, so this is to give people a bit of perspective on who they

00:14:15.880 are. It'll be three reports, you know, to individualize them, uh, because oftentimes in these

00:14:20.440 stories people get clustered together. Uh, but George was a person. He's a real estate agent. He, he lives in

00:14:25.960 small town, Alberta. He's got a bunch of kids. He loves his family and that's what he does every

00:14:29.240 day. He, he works for his family and he, he got caught up in the coots blockade demonstrations,

00:14:33.960 like thousands of people across Alberta to say the least. Uh, and he was one of the individuals

00:14:38.520 who was quite literally stuck there. If he were to have left, then it was game over for him and

00:14:43.720 protesting. So he stayed and now he's being punished because perhaps as he mentioned, 75% of the people

00:14:49.000 that went down there roughly were truckers, at least in the beginning. Um, he's a real estate agent.

00:14:53.000 He talks to people every day. He, he sells houses. I'm sure he's going to be a much better communicator

00:14:57.640 than a bunch of truckers who not, not to disrespectfully, but they'll spend most of

00:15:01.320 their time isolated. Whereas you've got a real estate agent, you've got a, a Fort McLeod town

00:15:05.720 councillor, another person who's going to be a good, good at communicating. Um, and then Alex Van Herc,

00:15:10.840 uh, he just seems like a great, uh, Southern Alberta entrepreneur. And it seems largely like they are

00:15:15.480 being targeted because of just simply being upright people. Um, and that's hopefully what we'll dispel here is

00:15:22.120 that they weren't some violent criminal organization. It was simply a bunch of guys

00:15:25.480 who showed up at the border, uh, uh, save organization. It was very grassroots.

00:15:29.880 Yeah. And the very fact that the prosecutor, I heard him last week describe these three men as

00:15:33.560 the leadership group suggests that the leadership is what they did wrong, not a crime. Their crime was

00:15:41.000 leading a political protest, the most effective peaceful political protest. We should remember

00:15:47.240 that these two protests, the Ottawa convoy and the, the Cooch blockade, I think were the most

00:15:54.040 effective political protests in modern Canadian times. In the case of the Cooch blockade, I think

00:15:58.680 it is directly responsible for Jason Kenney dropping his mandates and frankly, a few months later being

00:16:04.120 booted out of his party. And in Ottawa, if you look at the polling, that's when Justin Trudeau started

00:16:09.800 to trend down because when he brought in the emergencies act in an unforced error, it showed his authoritarian

00:16:15.080 nature. It showed that his happy days, sunny ways was just a facade. And by the way, it also got rid

00:16:22.520 of Aaron O'Toole as the leader of the conservative party and installed through a democratic process,

00:16:27.400 a more conservative conservative leader. I think those are two enormous changes. And that last one,

00:16:32.280 we have yet to see the fruits of it. I think it might have actually spelled the doom for Justin Trudeau.

00:16:36.600 So I think that when, when the prosecutor calls them the leadership group, it's their leadership he hates,

00:16:42.040 not the crime of hanging out in the saloon. And maybe if I can just add one point to that,

00:16:46.120 is it really was probably the most democratic thing I've ever seen at the Cooch blockade because

00:16:51.080 out of the 50, 60 or so truckers, they all came in to have a meeting about every decision.

00:16:55.000 And it wasn't necessarily that Alex, Marco and George were deciding what's on the roster.

00:16:58.760 No, everyone was deciding what's going to happen here. They were simply the guys who understood what

00:17:02.760 everyone was agreeing to. Yeah. And you know, it's interesting because we've learned from the other

00:17:06.760 cases that there were undercover cops in there. There were uniformed cops in there. There was all

00:17:11.640 sorts of, you know, it was all sorts of, uh, people, some of whom knew each other in advance,

00:17:16.760 some of whom didn't, some were interlopers, just looking for some excitement somewhere rooted in

00:17:21.480 the community. We're going to learn a lot more about it. Well, listen, I'm so glad you guys are

00:17:25.000 here. Sid, you were there literally before it, you know, right when it started and you

00:17:31.400 and Kian actually signaled to us at rebel world headquarters, we need some help here.

00:17:36.520 And that's when we crowdfunded the lawyers to go embed in the blockade. And to this day,

00:17:41.240 the lawyers have been defending the men. Robert, this is your first trip to Lethbridge. Am I right?

00:17:45.640 Yeah. First time here. And I haven't been to Alberta since I was a kid with my parents on a road

00:17:48.840 trip to like Banff and Jasper. So yeah, I'm sorry. It's so cold to welcome you out here,

00:17:52.920 but I think you'll find the people warm. Um, all right. So that's our sort of our scene

00:17:56.840 setter. We've got a few days of pretrial hearings. We have to be very careful that we follow the

00:18:01.320 publication bans and there's good reasons for publication bans is because you don't want

00:18:05.640 untested evidence to be circulating in the community. If there's going to be a jury,

00:18:09.720 you don't want them to be tainted by that. So we want to follow those rules. Uh, all three of us,

00:18:15.160 I know Sydney and I are accredited with the Alberta court of Kings bench. And, and I know that you're

00:18:19.640 registering as official media. Also, one of the things you have to do is promise to keep, uh,

00:18:24.600 publication bans. And we absolutely will because we want to follow the rules and we don't want to

00:18:29.160 jeopardize the trial. So that may limit some of the things you can report. Um, because we're friends

00:18:35.800 with the lawyers and friends with the men, we can talk to them about the case. But again, we want to be

00:18:41.160 careful. We don't want to interview the three men in a manner that would get them to say anything

00:18:47.080 that would be harmful to their case. And I think they're big boys and they know that also.

00:18:50.760 So I think we would keep our conversations with them fairly general. And, um, you know,

00:18:55.720 there's going to be the three lawyers for the men that we can talk to. I know that in Ottawa,

00:18:58.920 you really got into a good rapport with Lawrence Greenspan, the lead lawyer for Tamara Leach. And I

00:19:03.240 thought that was very helpful for your journalism. So there you have it. That's our scene center.

00:19:07.080 It is so cold. I'm losing a feeling in my fingers. We're going to go in the hearing starts at 10.

00:19:13.400 We'll be in there a little bit early to make sure we get seats because they're having this

00:19:16.360 tiny courtroom. Alex Van Herk told me the other day, his, his family alone would fill up that

00:19:23.000 courtroom. So I don't know why they're having it in such a tiny courtroom. A conspiracy theorist

00:19:27.880 might say they don't, they don't want a large public presence. Guys, I'm counting on you to

00:19:32.440 do great journalism here. This is a story that rebel news has owned from the beginning,

00:19:36.200 not just as observers, but as people who stepped in to fix the problem. I truly believe in my bones

00:19:42.120 that had we not sent lawyers into the blockade, bad things would have happened.

00:19:47.160 I believe our lawyers helped lower the temperature, let the men know their rights and act as sort of a

00:19:51.400 lubricant between them and the cops. I also think that our, uh, journalism here is going to be very

00:19:58.600 factual. We're sympathetic to the men. Obviously we're helping them, but we also going to follow the

00:20:02.200 facts. We're over the lead and we're going to recall it like we see it. And finally, I'd like to say to our

00:20:06.360 viewers, if you want to help pay for the defense of these three men, you can do so at coots3.com.

00:20:13.480 There's two different buttons on that page. One is to chip in to the lawyers who are defending the

00:20:18.280 three men. The other is to chip in to our economy class accommodation here in Lethbridge. Robert flew

00:20:25.160 in all the way from Ottawa. He's staying in the economy Wyndham Suites. Is that right? It's like

00:20:30.280 about a hundred bucks a night or something.

00:20:31.800 Some way either way. The point is it's not free. It's not free, but, but it is modest. I mean,

00:20:37.160 listen, it's Lethbridge. There's no five-star hotels here. It's not a luxury town. We're here

00:20:40.920 to work. If you can help us cover the costs of our excellent journalistic team, please do.

00:20:45.800 If you want to help cover the costs of the lawyers, please do. You can do all of that

00:20:49.800 at coots3.com. Thanks for your support. We're going to go in now.

00:20:52.920 Well, that's the video we recorded this morning. Here's a video that my colleague Robert Krejcik

00:21:05.320 did with two of the defendants, Alex van Herc and Marco van Heugenbos.

00:21:09.480 So I'm here with Alex. I'm also here with Marco, two of the defendants whose

00:21:15.400 proceedings began today. Just want to let you guys know out the gate that there is a publication ban

00:21:19.160 issued by the judge. So we cannot discuss the proceedings of today. And that publication ban

00:21:25.640 is put in place in order to prevent any tainting of the jury. In other words, if we were to speak

00:21:29.880 about proceedings today publicly and people who would end up on the jury ended up seeing it,

00:21:34.760 it may prejudice their thoughts going in. So gentlemen, you've been waiting two years for this day.

00:21:40.760 Why don't you tell me what's going on? What's on your mind, difficulties, the families,

00:21:45.080 these sorts of things, and what it feels like to be here today? Well, I'm definitely thankful that

00:21:50.200 we're here and that we're finally moving forward with this prosecution. These charges have been

00:21:55.320 laid since September of 2022. And it's been a long time coming. And even though, you know,

00:22:02.600 the future is uncertainty with a charge this serious and the possible ramifications of that charge. And

00:22:10.600 to some degree, life has been put on hold for myself, for my family. And you get used to the

00:22:18.440 constant overbearing pressure of this all. But I'm really thankful that finally we're here in court to

00:22:24.200 address some of these pretrial applications. Without speaking to what happened in court,

00:22:29.080 I feel that my defence did a phenomenal job in presenting themselves. And I, for the first time,

00:22:36.280 I was able to experience the justice that has been appointed to our prosecution. And so far,

00:22:43.320 I think things have gone very fair, very orderly. And that's a good start. That is ultimately what

00:22:48.600 we're looking for here, is that justice be done. And that it's not us having to remove our guilt,

00:23:00.760 but that we are here able to, for them, that they have to challenge our guilt and not that we have

00:23:08.840 to prove our innocence. So Alex, same question for you. Yeah, like I say, I'm thankful for the

00:23:14.040 supporters that came in this morning to support us. We really appreciate that. Like I say, we got both,

00:23:20.360 all got big families. Yeah, there again, our defence did a great job of articulating what we're after

00:23:28.760 here. And without, like say, getting into the detail, I felt they did a good fight of trying to

00:23:35.640 articulate what we want and what we'd like the jury to be able to do, to get a fair and honest jury,

00:23:42.680 and what their abilities could be. So yes, no, I appreciate, you know, Rebel News supporting us and

00:23:48.440 and being here for us. And like I say, I hope that people keep remembering why we stood there,

00:23:55.080 why we stood on that line for 18 days, and, you know, stand by us with being here in court.

00:24:02.840 Okay, you're getting ahead of me with my last question, because I know it's freezing outside,

00:24:05.640 we all want to go for lunch. So Alex, on that point, in terms of why you were here, why you were

00:24:10.040 demonstrating over at that Coutts border crossing between Alberta and Montana, the US and Canada,

00:24:15.080 tell us, what was that about? What was the motivation behind that? What was the purpose

00:24:18.280 of that? What incited you guys to go and do that protest? Well, it was the mandates that were

00:24:22.920 being imposed upon the truckers and all Canadians. It was, it was, they were illegal. There was,

00:24:28.520 you can see now, as after this happened, of all these mandates that were being imposed,

00:24:34.600 that if we went to stood up, do you think how many lives would have been lost more?

00:24:39.480 So thankfully, you know what, the mandates were lifted and changed and how many people weren't,

00:24:43.960 you know, got to see and we're, had to stop of getting the jab and being able to go across the

00:24:49.400 line and drive truck again. So I feel we saved a lot of people's lives and, and we changed,

00:24:55.160 I think, history from what was happening in our tyrannical government. We were living in a tyranny at

00:25:02.200 that time. Marco, you want to add to that? Yeah, I'm not, not to repeat anything my friend here

00:25:07.880 mentioned. And when I say friend, he actually is my friend and not the way they use the word friend in

00:25:12.120 the courts. This kind of makes my stomach turn at times. But to be honest, the convictions we had

00:25:17.240 while we were there are, are still there. And if anything, they, those convictions have been,

00:25:24.360 they've been, become mainstream in the public. You know, we see the Ingram decision. We see that in

00:25:31.160 Alberta, the mandates and the health measures that were passed down and approved by the politicians

00:25:36.600 are now deemed to be illegal. They did not have the authority to do that. So while we are here,

00:25:41.400 in front of the courts where they're looking to prosecute us for those 18 days on the border,

00:25:47.800 I say to, I say to the public and I say to them, what about the prosecution of those who forced

00:25:53.880 blue collar and white collar law abiding individuals to, to behave in such drastic measures?

00:25:59.880 Where is the accountability for those who were elected to represent us? And that to me is, is,

00:26:05.560 is the big fight. And unfortunately, um, that is a, that is a focus that mainstream media, uh,

00:26:12.200 doesn't want to, or legacy media doesn't want to focus on. But that has to be the question moving

00:26:16.840 forward. That while we can prosecute all of those who, who may have behaved in, in, in, in a manner that

00:26:22.680 isn't, um, approved by society during an event that was tyrannical, like my friend mentioned.

00:26:29.720 In a preamble of our charter of rights and our human rights is actually, it says, whereas it is

00:26:35.880 essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse as a last resort to rebellion against

00:26:42.200 tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law. Yeah. Um, where is

00:26:48.680 the accountability and where is, when will those in, in positions of responsibility hold those who were

00:26:54.760 in positions of responsibility to account? Well, that's a bit of the flavor of today, but I'm frustrated

00:26:59.400 that I can't give you more details. That's because it's under a strict publication ban.

00:27:03.800 The reason for that is they don't want to compromise the jury and fair enough. But Robert

00:27:08.360 will be here covering the totality of the trial of the Coutts three. Unlike the Coutts four or the

00:27:13.080 Coutts five, there's a bunch of different, similar trials, but the Coutts three are what the

00:27:17.640 prosecutors called the leadership group. Not only will we be doing our journalism, but in fact,

00:27:22.680 through the democracy fund, we are crowdfunding the lawyers for these three men to learn more,

00:27:27.240 go to Coutts three.com. Well, that's our show for today from frosty Lethbridge. I'm going to head

00:27:34.040 on back to our world headquarters tonight. So I'll see you next from our studio there until next time

00:27:39.080 on behalf of all of us here at rebel news to you at home. Good night and keep fighting for freedom.

00:27:52.760 You

Rebel News Podcast - February 27, 2024

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Rebel reports live from Lethbridge to cover the 'Coutts Three' trial

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