Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Tamara Lich and Chris Barber convicted of mischief

00:00:00.000 Tonight, Tamara Leach's years-long trial finally comes to an end, and I'm here to report it to

00:00:21.920 you. It's April 3rd, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:00:24.860 Shame on you, you censorious bug.

00:00:39.740 Well, court is done for the day. Let me check the time. It's just about 4 p.m. We started 0.93

00:00:44.740 just after 10 a.m. The judge basically read through the meat of a 105-page ruling. There

00:00:51.560 were a number of counts, a number of charges against both Tamara Leach and Chris Barber.

00:00:56.880 They were acquitted on most of them, including intimidation, obstructing police, but they were

00:01:01.840 convicted on mischief, and in the case of Chris Barber, he violated a particular court order that

00:01:06.860 applied only to him. So I suppose from one point of view, as one fellow in the gallery said to me,

00:01:13.020 he said, that's a great outcome. Most of the cases were acquitted. I don't feel it's a great outcome

00:01:18.820 at all. It's like being shot at with six bullets and only one hitting you. That's a disaster.

00:01:24.120 I think this is a disaster for civil liberties. And some of the language used by Chris Barber,

00:01:30.620 Tamara Leach's co-accused on TikTok, the language was harsh, and I could imagine that it would hurt

00:01:36.000 a judge's ears to hear things like, we're shutting down this city, we wrecked this city, like very

00:01:41.740 boastful language about doing nuisance, committing a nuisance to the city. It would be hard to look

00:01:48.600 at that without getting a feeling that Chris Barber was meaning to commit mischief, as opposed to just

00:01:54.660 a peaceful protest. But what did Tamara Leach ever say? Literally, hold the line was the worst thing

00:02:00.940 that the prosecution could come up with. And the judge, bizarrely, said that hold the line can be

00:02:06.060 wonderful, like when police say it. And she quoted on several occasions where police said, hold the

00:02:11.680 line. And that was considered fun and playful and positive. But when Tamara Leach said, hold the line,

00:02:17.440 well, that's proof of her mental intentions to commit a crime. I found that unpersuasive and appalling.

00:02:23.600 And I really feel like there's two tiers of justice in Canada right now. If you are a Hamas supporter, 0.91

00:02:30.100 if you are even a foreign national in Canada supporting Hamas, you can walk down the streets

00:02:35.600 and chant Intifada Revolution, which means the violent pogrom against Jews. You can chant

00:02:40.520 from the river to the sea. You can do all that with complete impunity. And more than that,

00:02:45.780 you can block the streets. If you've looked at the pro-Hamas protests in places like Ottawa,

00:02:52.300 Toronto, and Montreal, they always block the streets. And sometimes they have a prayer in the

00:02:58.040 middle of the streets. Of course, there's 100 mosques in Toronto and Montreal. The prayer in the

00:03:02.400 streets is not a religious act. It's a political act of domination, of blocking the streets. And

00:03:08.000 that is never prosecuted. Have you once ever seen police even ticket people if they're pro-Hamas

00:03:14.480 extremists taking over the streets? And yet that is exactly what Tamara Leach and Chris Barber were

00:03:19.620 found guilty of. Like I say, two-tiered justice. And the problem with two-tiered justice is it erodes

00:03:26.280 public support for the system. And we have this grand compact, this grand agreement in Canada

00:03:32.420 that we all submit to the rules of the game, and we accept the outcomes because the rules are fair

00:03:37.880 enough, and we trust the people who implement them enough. But, you know, I was in the courts in

00:03:44.200 Lethbridge, Alberta. I was in the courts in Lethbridge when I saw the Coutts 3 convicted,

00:03:50.340 and the Coutts 4 were convicted, and Arthur Pavlovsky was convicted for giving a sermon

00:03:56.340 in support of the truckers. And again and again and again, our side of the equation is criminalized

00:04:04.340 and sentenced in some cases to long jail sentences, lengthy trials. But the other side isn't. They get a

00:04:12.820 police escort. If Tamara Leach, the gentlest grandma you'll ever meet, who the judge read some of her

00:04:21.480 comments full of love and spirituality, if that is a crime, then it's like Lavrenti Beria of the NKVD

00:04:29.580 said, show me the man and I'll find you a crime. If you can hang a crime around Tamara Leach's neck, 1.00

00:04:35.660 you can hang that crime around anybody. And I am demoralized by it. But you know what? I'm built

00:04:40.560 for fighting. It's called rebel news. It's not called establishment news. We get back up. And I

00:04:45.220 think I told you, I spoke to Tamara yesterday and today over lunch. I briefly spoke to the lawyer,

00:04:51.280 Lawrence Greenspan, and we agreed that we would crowdfund the costs of her appeal. We're not going

00:04:57.260 to let her face this by herself. It's an enormous uphill battle. I counted nine lawyers in the room.

00:05:02.640 That's an enormous battle force. And of course, the government spent $10 million between the policing

00:05:09.480 and the prosecution. The least we can do is help Tamara Leach. And I promised her that we would

00:05:14.740 crowdfund for her. And she accepted the help. And so did Lawrence Greenspan. So that's the thing.

00:05:21.320 You know what they say? Don't get mad. Get even. Get ahead. And what I want to do is help her get

00:05:25.640 ahead. I want to help cover the cost of her appeal. Remember, this was a serious judge who took the case

00:05:31.780 seriously. I won't deny it. But it is the lowest courts. And you can appeal this ruling to a higher

00:05:37.360 court. And that, too, can even be sought to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. So it's a loss.

00:05:43.740 Absolutely it's a loss. But the game is not over. Well, I'm about to go back to Toronto now.

00:05:49.880 It'll be interesting to me if any of the political candidates remark on this. I don't think they will.

00:05:55.200 But I think this is a very important case. This can be seen in part by the fact that there's so many

00:05:59.320 mainstream media here, as well as actually so many independent citizen journalists, too.

00:06:03.580 And that's my report from Ottawa. Keep watching Rebel News and keep fighting for freedom every day.

00:06:22.500 Summation of the day, Mark.

00:06:24.420 Better afternoon than morning, that's for sure.

00:06:27.400 Yes.

00:06:28.620 There's a meatloaf who said two out of three.

00:06:30.340 Five out of six ain't bad. I can't comment on the mischief charge or any of the aspects of the

00:06:39.240 judge's decision while the matter is still pending for sentence. And that's about all I can tell you

00:06:45.340 at this point.

00:06:46.020 Are you expecting a similar sentence to packing?

00:06:48.520 I won't comment on that. No.

00:06:52.300 Fantastic, sir. Awesomely done. It was a master class.

00:06:56.420 Thank you.

00:06:57.040 Well, I mean, it's bittersweet. We were hoping for full acquittal. She was, of course, convicted.

00:07:05.460 Tamara Leach was convicted for mischief and counselling mischief. But the counselling mischief 0.88

00:07:09.720 was stayed at the behest of the Crown. So really, it's one for six when you take into account the fact

00:07:15.840 that she was not guilty for intimidation, counselling intimidation, obstructing police, and counselling

00:07:22.040 obstructions. So technically, it's about one for six, which some would say it's a pretty good result.

00:07:27.800 Obviously, we were hopeful for no convictions at all. Because she read her judgment, it's often difficult to

00:07:35.560 process or digest everything because it was about five hours of her reading and going through the dense case law.

00:07:43.000 She mentioned some court of appeal cases, some recent freedom protest convictions.

00:07:50.680 And so obviously, she's bound by precedent there. So we're going to have to go through

00:07:55.640 and look to see how that lines up with Tamara's case.

00:07:59.720 She did say that a couple of recent cases expanded the notion of a mischief to include not just people

00:08:10.280 who actively, physically block the road, but those who are around the event and are integrated with it

00:08:18.520 sufficiently. So that's how it seems that Ms. Leach was drawn into the conviction. But we're going to have

00:08:26.040 to review that and see whether or not, you know, the client wants to appeal and, you know, what her lawyers wants to do.

00:08:35.400 They mentioned that the

00:08:39.160 when Tamara said 1.00

00:08:41.800 hold the line, it's had a big impact on the decision. Tell me, can you tell me more about this?

00:08:48.760 Sure. So that was a phrase that you heard throughout the Freedom Convoy and it was actually used by the police.

00:08:55.400 And Justice Perkins has made a point of saying that that's ambiguous, just as a plain phrase.

00:09:03.320 So you have to look at when it's said and in what context it's said.

00:09:08.840 And so for the mischief charge, she looked at that,

00:09:12.760 those words and said that contributed to the element of the offence, the mischief and the counselling

00:09:18.040 mischief. But when it came to intimidation, that phrase and obstructing police, that phrase was,

00:09:25.320 didn't have a single meaning such that she could attribute it to the element of the offence.

00:09:31.720 So it was ambiguous in that context, whereas in the context of the mischief, it wasn't ambiguous.

00:09:37.320 It allowed her to draw a conclusion that they were counselling

00:09:40.600 people to interfere with or obstruct the road.

00:09:43.400 So that was a key phrase. And she did mention it several times. And both the defence and the Crown

00:09:50.120 had pointed to that to support their own case or the defence.

00:09:53.320 As Rob mentioned, we are ready to go to court of appeal. What do you think about this can be better?

00:10:07.880 Well, if you're asking me to speculate as to what the client's going to do and what the court might do,

00:10:15.000 I'm not going to do that. But I can tell you that both the defence counsel and the Crown will look at

00:10:21.560 that as they always do and determine whether or not they're going to appeal. They have to say

00:10:26.120 what their likelihood of success is, whether or not they feel that Justice Perkins may have got the

00:10:31.160 law correct, you know, what their chances are on success. And of course, it's going to eat up more

00:10:36.360 judicial resources either way. So yeah, we can only wait. They have 30 days. The Crown has 30 days to

00:10:42.440 make their decision. So we'll see. I'm disappointed, obviously. It's a lot to digest. It's not the outcome

00:10:49.720 we were hoping for. But I think the disturbing part about this more than anything else is the fact that

00:10:57.560 the standards that the general public are held to are exceptionally high. And the politicians down the

00:11:04.680 street, the standards for them are exceptionally low. I mean, how many scandals does the Liberals have

00:11:10.760 to be involved in? And not one of them have ever been accountable for the fact that thousands and

00:11:15.880 thousands of Canadians felt the need to leave their homes, to travel across Canada, to come here to push 0.51

00:11:21.400 back the actions of the government. And none of them have been held accountable. But Chris and Tamara, oh, the

00:11:26.600 standard is just so high for them, right? So this is what really is disturbing and frustrating about the

00:11:33.720 whole thing. But I'm not a lawyer. But you'd have to talk to a legal expert like Eva to understand that

00:11:40.200 more than I do. What do you feel about today? Well, I'm just going to echo what Tom had to say. And I

00:11:45.880 don't think that this should be something a lawyer has to say. But on behalf of Canadians, I think our

00:11:51.480 government needs to be held to account and not Canadians. Thank you. 1.00

00:12:02.040 Hey, it's April the first, otherwise known as April Fool's Day. And bizarrely, Canada's government

00:12:07.000 chooses this day every year, not only to raise our taxes, but to raise their own parliamentary

00:12:13.080 paycheck. It's, it's like they're making a fool of us. It's like they know what they're doing

00:12:19.320 is a joke, but they're doing it anyways. I find that the date astonishing. And I refuse to believe

00:12:24.040 it's a coincidence. But it's a happy coincidence that our friend, Franco Terrazzano, the Canadian

00:12:28.760 Taxpayers Federation, is making today the day he tells us about the details of his new book,

00:12:34.680 a book called Axing the Tax, the rise and fall of Canada's carbon tax. And Franco joins us now.

00:12:41.960 Franco, great to see you again. Congratulations on the new book.

00:12:44.680 Hey, thank you so much, Ezra. I really appreciate that.

00:12:47.800 April Fool's Day. Like it, it really is crazy that that's the one day a year that they choose

00:12:54.280 to raise so many of their taxes, including alcohol taxes, MP pay, senators pay is, I don't know,

00:13:02.760 I just can't get over the coincidence. Maybe it's just me, but it, it feels like an insult added to

00:13:08.520 injury. Tell me though about your book, because you guys are really the number one watchdogs in Canada

00:13:13.960 against tax hikes. Take it away. Tell me about your new book. You can get it on Amazon. Make the case

00:13:21.240 to our Rebel News viewers for why they should pick up a copy of Axing the Tax. Well, you know,

00:13:27.720 Prime Minister Mark Carney wrote a book hundreds of pages long praising the carbon tax. Here is the book

00:13:35.160 showing you why the carbon tax always was and always will be a scam for the ordinary Canadians who are

00:13:42.680 forced to pay the bill. And Ezra, as you know, as your listeners know, yes, Canadians force the 0.95

00:13:49.640 Liberal government to back down on their own consumer carbon tax. But look, folks, the fight

00:13:54.920 against carbon taxes is not over yet. And that's one of the main reasons why I wrote this book,

00:14:00.600 right? Because you can already see the carbon tax activists trying to spin this like, oh, well,

00:14:06.840 the carbon tax was a good idea. Trudeau just bungled the policy or he messed up the communications.

00:14:13.160 But you know, that couldn't be further from the truth. The carbon tax is always going to make your

00:14:18.360 life more expensive. And it won't work to reduce emissions, especially in a place like Canada,

00:14:23.880 where we are 1.4% of global emissions. So I wrote this book for two reasons. Number one,

00:14:30.120 to show you where the carbon taxers are going to fight in the future, they're going to relabel,

00:14:35.400 repackage and try to force hidden carbon taxes onto Canadians. But number two, Ezra,

00:14:41.560 I also wrote this book because this was really a David versus Goliath fight, right? For years,

00:14:47.480 you had the politicians, the bureaucrats, the taxpayer funded academics, the media talking heads,

00:14:53.320 even big businesses telling Canadians to sit down, be quiet and pay your carbon tax bill. But ordinary

00:14:59.960 Canadians fought back. They went to rallies, they signed petitions, they emailed politicians,

00:15:05.480 and they deserve to know that all their hard work paid off and that, you know what, if we keep

00:15:10.680 fighting, we are going to end all carbon taxes in Canada. Now, I want to point out that when Mark

00:15:17.960 Carney signed his fake executive order, like he sort of copied that Trump style of signing a document

00:15:24.440 in a lovely leather bound booklet. If you read what he actually signed, he said that he was rescinding

00:15:35.320 the consumer side carbon tax, not because he disagreed with it, not because it was wrong,

00:15:40.520 not because it was counterproductive. He, he simply said it was divisive, divisive, that it would,

00:15:45.720 that it divided us against each other, which is obviously true. Now, I think the division is like 0.96

00:15:50.120 80-20 people who are against it. But the reason I mentioned that, Franco, is that he's not

00:15:56.440 disavowing it. He's not saying this is a bad idea. He's just saying, I've got to get through an election.

00:16:02.760 An election, I need to, I need to get as many stones under my shoes as I can before I start this race.

00:16:11.160 Pierre Pauli has been working on the carbon tax for years. Let me take his issue away from him.

00:16:15.240 And I'm not going to say I'm against it. I'm just going to say for now, it's divisive. So I think

00:16:19.320 even the way he signed that fake order should chill us to the bone, because the moment he's not

00:16:26.280 worried about division anymore, I think he's going to spring it back in. And that's the thing,

00:16:30.440 he didn't repeal the underlying legislation. Parliament has not reconvened. He's just,

00:16:35.320 I don't even know if he has the power to do it. He's just said, I'm not going to collect it for a while.

00:16:38.680 Well, Ezra, you're very right to pick up on that and to keep an eye on it, right? So like, first of

00:16:44.440 all, up until what, six minutes ago, the liberal government was bragging about the carbon tax,

00:16:50.920 right? They're telling you, if you care about the environment, you got to pay the carbon tax.

00:16:54.360 The carbon tax will make you richer somehow. So all but six minutes ago, those same politicians

00:17:00.280 were praising the carbon tax. And Ezra, you are very right in your analysis, right? So what

00:17:06.920 Carney did is he set the consumer carbon tax rates to zero. But the legislation is still on the books,

00:17:15.400 which means that after the election, technically, politicians could come back to the House of

00:17:20.200 Commons and crank up that carbon tax again. And remember, folks, Carney, he's not scrapping carbon

00:17:28.760 taxes. He made it very clear during his liberal leadership campaign that he wants to change the

00:17:34.920 carbon tax, right? Relabel, repackage, hide the carbon tax. So what Carney wants to do is he wants

00:17:42.280 to hammer Canadian businesses with huge hidden carbon taxes. And he hopes you won't notice when

00:17:49.160 they pass those costs on to you through higher prices. And again, in this book, Axing the Tax,

00:17:55.560 the rise and fall of Canada's carbon tax, why I think your readers will like it so much,

00:18:00.120 it's not just about the history of the carbon tax or the politics of the carbon tax, but it shows your

00:18:06.600 viewers what they need to look out for as politicians try to relabel and hide carbon taxes, as academics

00:18:13.800 try to do the same thing, but also as international organizations try to force carbon taxes on the

00:18:20.760 global citizenry. Okay, all of that is in this book. You know, I'm so glad you mentioned international

00:18:26.760 organizations, because Mark Carney is the NGO VIP. He was on the board of the World Economic Forum.

00:18:36.280 He has not one, not two, but three passports. He calls himself European at a recent World Economic

00:18:43.000 Forum panel. Last year, he told the US Congress he lives in the UK. And I think he's being honest. I think

00:18:49.320 he thinks of himself as a man bigger than any one country, but not just that he's big,

00:18:54.360 that like Gulliver in Lilliput, you know, voters are those little pesky creatures trying to tie him

00:19:00.840 down. And he's bigger than that. So it's not just that he thinks of himself as bigger than Canada.

00:19:06.280 It's that he doesn't believe in the, you know, the little people, the peasants, being able to steer, 0.71

00:19:13.320 like he would rather listen to policy wonks at the World Economic Forum in Davos,

00:19:17.720 than to listen to what Joe Average has to say on the factory floor in any given town in Canada.

00:19:23.160 I think there's, I'm not going to call it snobbery, but it's sort of a vision of the elite

00:19:27.960 governing sort of like a council of high priests versus the populist conservative referendum style

00:19:34.840 of government that is popular, let's say in Alberta. Well, you know, I'm a couple of things.

00:19:41.160 Let me touch on. Okay. Because, you know, there's other media organizations, these big,

00:19:45.720 important people in the media who actually let the cat out of the bag, so to speak. Okay.

00:19:51.160 And we reference this right in the book where they say, well, maybe it is time to go to a hidden

00:19:56.440 carbon tax because then at least the rubes won't be all up and frustrated about the carbon tax that 0.54

00:20:03.000 they can see directly on their home heating bill, right? So look, they aren't for ending carbon

00:20:09.240 taxes. They just don't want you to know that you're paying carbon taxes, right folks. And it's,

00:20:15.480 and it's not just politicians or media in Canada. It's also the international media lead. You have

00:20:21.640 organizations like the WEF, the United Nations, the IMF pushing for these types of global carbon taxes.

00:20:29.400 And I think there's a lot of ammunition in this book to help you do two things. Number one,

00:20:34.280 fight back against any claim that the problem with the carbon tax was Trudeau. That is false. The

00:20:39.880 problem with the carbon tax is the carbon tax. It makes the necessities of life more expensive,

00:20:45.240 and it doesn't do anything to reduce global emissions. It just makes Canadians' lives more

00:20:50.920 expensive. But number two, it allows you to see where the next fight is going to be and how to be

00:20:57.000 prepared for it. We're talking about Axing the Tax, the new books by Franco Teresano of the Canadian

00:21:04.120 Taxpayers Federation. Now, you mentioned reducing emissions. And earlier, I think you said

00:21:11.080 combating climate change, or you might have said something to that effect. And that's really the big

00:21:16.760 rationale for the carbon tax, is it's designed to modify your behavior to get you to use less energy and

00:21:25.880 reduce carbon emissions. So turn down your thermostat in the winter, drive less, have a smaller house,

00:21:32.040 a lower carbon footprint. They're even trying to get cows to fart less because there's methane in there.

00:21:37.880 But that's all based on the theory that if we reduce man-made carbon emissions, that's going to change

00:21:45.400 the temperature of the world. Like, that's why they're doing it. So when they say, get your emissions

00:21:50.840 down, that's not actually the goal. That's the secondary thing. The primary goal is reduce the

00:21:57.560 world's temperature. But none of these taxes do that. In fact, if you listen to the United Nations,

00:22:04.840 if every single human in the world stopped emitting all carbon, if we just shut down and went back to a

00:22:10.520 stone age economy, even that would not cause the earth to cool. Because for more than 10,000 years,

00:22:16.920 the earth has slowly been emerging from the last ice age. And that's why I think the left uses words like

00:22:24.520 combating climate change, or climate action. They don't talk about an actual result. They just want

00:22:30.600 to see the busy work that justifies their tax. What do you make of that? Like, that's a

00:22:35.320 first principles of tax, saying, what are we even doing this for? You're saying we're doing this to

00:22:41.320 cool the earth, but it will not even do that if even we all did it. Well, Ezra, there's actually

00:22:48.600 another reason. And look, if these big-brained economists were honest with you, they would agree,

00:22:53.720 they would agree, or at least have to acknowledge this basic principle, and it's called inelastic demand.

00:22:59.800 Okay? Essentially, what that means is that you can't tax away people's necessities. Okay?

00:23:06.280 So when you tax their ability to get to work, when you tax their ability to heat their homes,

00:23:11.640 when you're taxed their ability to afford groceries, you're not reducing emissions,

00:23:16.680 you're reducing the amount of money that people have in their budgets. Okay? And look, look,

00:23:22.040 even if you just take them at their claims, right? The BC government, they brought in the first

00:23:28.600 economy-wide carbon tax all the way back in 2008. They said, look, we're going to reduce emissions

00:23:34.520 big time. In fact, they brought in legislation that the carbon tax would reduce emissions by a

00:23:41.560 third by 2020. Yet the BC government's own data shows that emissions have gone up. So even if you

00:23:49.000 take them at their words, it's very clear that the carbon tax makes people's lives more expensive,

00:23:54.840 and it doesn't work. But Ezra, let me just flip to one other element here, because we all know of

00:23:59.640 the consumer carbon tax. Now the issues around this hidden carbon tax on businesses, the industrial

00:24:05.480 carbon tax is coming to light. But you know, there's many of these environmental policies and

00:24:10.680 regulations that also use carbon taxes. Okay? The oil and gas cap, right? The production cap on the oil

00:24:17.880 and gas sector that uses the tool of a carbon tax. You've probably heard of the clean fuel regulations,

00:24:25.320 the so-called clean fuel regulations, Trudeau's term, that uses the carbon tax as its main tool.

00:24:32.200 So not only is it important to push back against the consumer carbon tax, the one we all know about,

00:24:37.560 but there's many of these different hidden carbon taxes and all these different environment or energy

00:24:43.400 regulations that governments are forcing on the people. You know, I was thinking about the United

00:24:49.480 Kingdom because I saw a crazy headline. Did you know that there's only one last steel mill in the

00:24:56.600 United Kingdom? It's owned by British Steel, but British Steel isn't even British anymore. It's owned

00:25:00.840 by a Chinese company. It's the last blast furnace in the UK that can create what they call virgin steel.

00:25:08.360 There's a few others that sort of melt down scrap and reform things, but it's the last, because to

00:25:15.480 make steel from scratch, you need a heat so hot only a coal-fired steel mill will work. You can't do it

00:25:23.080 through electricity. And now because of their obsession with what they call net zero over there,

00:25:30.280 the last steel mill in the UK may be shut down. Not that it's inefficient, not that it would fail on its

00:25:37.400 own, but because they just can't make a steel mill without coal. And it's sort of crazy to me,

00:25:45.080 Franco, that the birthplace of the industrial revolution is also the grave site of the industrial 0.55

00:25:50.120 revolution. Are you worried that this carbon tax could do the same to our steel industry and the

00:25:56.760 aluminum industry needs an enormous amount of energy? Also, are you worried about the last of the

00:26:04.200 hearty manufacturing in this country, moving probably to the United States where they have

00:26:08.760 cheaper power? Well, of course, I'm worried about the carbon taxes driving away jobs in

00:26:14.120 manufacturing in Canada. And I'm glad you brought this up because this really shows why Carney's

00:26:19.240 hidden carbon tax on business is the worst of all worlds, right? It'll mean higher prices for you

00:26:25.400 as refineries, utilities, fertilizer plants pass on costs to consumers at the end of the day.

00:26:31.240 But what it also means is this carbon tax on Canadian business will push businesses to cut

00:26:37.960 production in Canada and set up shops south of the border. Why is that? Well, number one,

00:26:44.840 it doesn't matter who occupies the White House, whether it's a Democrat administration or Republican

00:26:50.280 one, they're not imposing national carbon taxes in the United States. So like we've heard Trump say many

00:26:56.200 times, right? Let's get manufacturing into the United States, more American jobs, more investment

00:27:01.640 in the US. Well, guess what? Carney's carbon tax on Canadian businesses are going to help Trump do just

00:27:08.520 that, right? It punishes Canadian businesses. And of course, it'll lead to fewer production in Canada,

00:27:14.360 more production in the United States. And that means less job opportunities for Canadians right here at home.

00:27:20.040 The man is Franco Teresano. The book is called Axing the Tax, The Rise and Fall of Canada's Carbon Tax.

00:27:28.040 I wish you good luck. I am very worried as it stands right now. I mean, I feel like the carbon tax net zero

00:27:36.840 man himself might win. I'm talking about Mark Carney. I mean, he literally was the co-chair of a global net zero

00:27:43.720 alliance. I think your book is more urgent than ever. And I'd like to encourage our viewers to find it

00:27:48.680 at amazon.ca. Anywhere else they can get it? Can they get it at the Taxpayers Federation website too?

00:27:55.000 No, the best place to pick up this book, folks, Axing the Tax, The Rise and Fall of Canada's Carbon Tax

00:28:00.600 is at amazon.ca. You can order it, buy it right now. Well, we absolutely must. Franco, great to

00:28:07.240 spend some time with you. Thanks very much. Hey, I really appreciate this, Ezra. Thank you.

00:28:11.240 All right. There he is, the man who is fighting with his team. And what I like about them is they don't

00:28:16.120 take any money from the government. That's the only reason you can trust them. Because anyone else

00:28:21.080 who takes government money, well, they're just, you know, if you pay Peter, if Peter pays Paul,

00:28:27.320 you know how the saying goes.

00:28:35.400 Ezra Levant reporting for Rebel News. I'm standing outside the Ottawa courthouse.

00:28:39.160 I'm surprised. For months, I had thought that Tamara Leach would be acquitted. She, of course,

00:28:45.800 was the spiritual leader of the trucker convoy in January and February of 2022 that so gripped the

00:28:53.240 nation. Gripped the nation because how unique it was. A peaceful protest by ordinary working class

00:28:59.880 Canadians wasn't supported by any political party or any lobby group. It wasn't funded by anyone. In fact,

00:29:05.800 its crowdfunding was shut down twice. It was ordinary Canadians who said enough of the pandemic

00:29:11.880 lockdowns, enough of the bullying people who didn't want to be jabbed, enough of the no-fly list,

00:29:16.520 enough of the curfew, enough. And it caught not only the attention of Canadians, but around the world.

00:29:22.920 For one beautiful moment, the entire world looked at Canada and thought they are an inspiration for

00:29:28.200 freedom. And I can tell you, in my travels around the world, everyone refers to the trucker convoy

00:29:33.720 to this day. And one of the reasons it was so peaceful is because of Tamara Leach. She's not a 0.97

00:29:40.040 trucker herself, but she joined the truckers and she was in charge of logistics and she helped with 1.00

00:29:45.160 crowdfunding. But mainly she would make these beautiful statements in writing, in video, telling

00:29:51.960 people to keep their hopes up and their spirits up and insisting that they stay peaceful. And you know

00:29:56.760 what? They did. She was part of the Freedom Convoy Corporation. They actually incorporated a company,

00:30:03.560 I'm not sure why, but they dealt directly with the police and the city of Ottawa on a daily basis.

00:30:09.640 And what I mean by that is they would help move trucks around, move them out of residential areas

00:30:14.760 and into business areas where they wouldn't upset people who were living. There are a lot of people who

00:30:20.280 live in apartments in downtown Ottawa, typically bureaucrats who work in the civil service. They

00:30:26.680 worked with police in the city to move the trucks to Wellington Street, which is the big road next to

00:30:31.720 Parliament, where no one lives. And frankly, no one worked. Of course, civil servants in Ottawa still

00:30:36.680 haven't gone back to work. There's a lot of work from home, even though it's 2025. But my point is that

00:30:42.120 they had a daily collaboration with the police, not daily, hourly. And they, in fact, when truckers came

00:30:49.640 into Ottawa, they were given directions by the Ottawa police of where to go, what streets to go to and

00:30:55.480 which streets not. There was a honking issue, but there was a civil injunction issued by another judge and

00:31:02.280 it was obeyed immediately. It was not an illegal movement. From time to time, you hear critics saying

00:31:09.400 the illegal trucker convoy, it was never deemed illegal in any legal manner, other than by,

00:31:16.120 I don't know, politicians. It wasn't a riot. The Emergencies Act did not ban peaceful protests.

00:31:24.040 And the Emergencies Act itself, the invocation of it was deemed to be illegal and unconstitutional

00:31:29.960 by the federal court. So supporting people whose really only offense was parking infractions,

00:31:36.200 keeping it that peaceful was an astonishing achievement. And I saw the nearly 50-day trial.

00:31:46.040 I'm not going to call it a sham trial, but I suppose it was because Tamara Leach never took the stand.

00:31:52.440 You might recall that in criminal law, the burden is with the prosecution. They have to prove you're

00:31:57.080 guilty. You don't have to prove you're innocent. So Tamara Leach didn't take the stand because she was 0.99

00:32:01.880 confident that the government couldn't prove she didn't, she did anything. And indeed she didn't.

00:32:07.160 She didn't drive a truck. She didn't block anything with the truck. She didn't encourage violence. 1.00

00:32:11.560 The opposite. She encouraged peace. And her co-defendant helped organize the truckers to be more in,

00:32:19.160 to conform with what the police wanted. I'm just astonished that she was already jailed for 49 days.

00:32:26.680 And then the trial itself had almost 50 days worth of hearings. This whole thing's been going on for

00:32:32.520 three years. And I thought, surely the judge will see that this is not in the public interest,

00:32:37.320 that this is an abuse of the law, that this is turning the process into the punishment, that allowing

00:32:44.120 this endless series of witnesses who had no direct contact with Tamara Leach. What was astonishing to me

00:32:50.440 as I listened to the hearing in the days I attended was that the people the Crown called had never met

00:32:57.480 Tamara Leach, never seen her, never talked to her, never emailed back and forth with her. How are you

00:33:02.040 a witness in her trial if you never even met her before? Like, aren't witnesses supposed to give

00:33:08.360 evidence about what they saw or heard? Instead, it was witnesses giving evidence about how they felt.

00:33:13.400 There was this one civic official. I think his name was Mr. Ayotte. I watched him testify. He just would

00:33:20.280 talk about how he went for a walk and he would hear horn honking or see trucks. He didn't take notes.

00:33:25.640 He didn't take videos. He just sort of had a dear diary. Today I saw a big bad truck. And I listened

00:33:31.720 to almost a day of his testimony and I was astonished that this was even allowed. I thought to myself,

00:33:36.760 and I said, that the judge is only allowing this mockery of a trial so that the Crown doesn't have

00:33:44.760 grounds to appeal. The judge is deferring to the prosecution in every aspect so they can't later

00:33:52.200 complain that it was an unfair trial. But the joke's on me. The judge was with the prosecution.

00:33:59.240 Now, there's still about 30 pages left for the judge to read in her ruling today.

00:34:05.000 But we know that she's been convicted on the first count. She'll surely be convicted on others.

00:34:09.400 And it really doesn't matter. Convicted on any of them is a scandal. Last night I talked to Tamara Leach

00:34:14.840 about the possibility that she would be convicted. And she agreed to accept the help from the

00:34:20.200 Democracy Fund to help crowdfund her legal defense. As you may know, our partners at the Democracy Fund

00:34:26.360 who have been defending Tamara Leach at great expense. It's an enormous trial. There's Edward Greenspan,

00:34:35.160 the top lawyer in Ottawa, and two deputy lawyers. So there was three lawyers the Democracy Fund was

00:34:41.400 paying for. And by the way, there were nine lawyers in the court. It's been an astonishing waste of

00:34:46.120 resources. But look what the government can say. They can say Tamara Leach is a criminal. I know in my 0.97

00:34:51.080 bones that's not true. And I found the explanations of the judge astonishing, frankly. I just can't get over

00:34:58.920 that one thing the judge said. Because Tamara Leach was helping de-escalate the situation. That's what 1.00

00:35:05.400 the judge said. Because Tamara Leach was helping to put in a better plan for truckers that didn't 1.00

00:35:11.560 interfere so much with people. Because she was helping de-escalate. Said the judge, that proved that she 0.51

00:35:19.480 knew there was a crime afoot. That proved she knew there was mischief afoot. So even though she was

00:35:25.000 helping lower the temperature. Even though she was helping to fix the problem. Well, that just shows

00:35:29.640 she knew there was a problem. And thus she should be convicted of mischief. I am frankly astonished.

00:35:35.400 And I want to be really honest with you. I spend a lot of time in the courts,

00:35:38.920 both as a journalist reporting on what I see, and actually as someone in courtroom battles. As you know,

00:35:44.600 Rebel News goes to court quite often to fight for freedoms. And sometimes we're sued ourselves.

00:35:49.240 This is what a real dent in my belief of the administration of justice is fair and balanced

00:35:56.440 in this country. I now feel, and I have to be honest with you, I feel like there are two tiers

00:36:01.640 of justice in this country. I feel like if you're an actual criminal, say in my city of Toronto,

00:36:08.840 the police, their response to home invasion robberies is literally to tell citizens,

00:36:14.600 leave your keys near the front door so the home invasion robbers can find them more easily and

00:36:20.520 don't ransack your house. That's literally the advice that the Toronto Police Service gives to

00:36:26.200 homeowners in that city for violent criminals. I mentioned already, if you're a foreign national 1.00

00:36:32.840 promoting Hamas riots, the police will actually give you an escort. But if you're a peaceful Métis 0.77

00:36:39.560 grandma from Alberta who says, hold the line, police and the courts will interpret that as a call to

00:36:45.720 violence, or a call to law breaking at least, and you'll be convicted of mischief. I'm astonished today

00:36:53.400 and I'm worried. I'm worried about Canada's future as a place for free speech for certain people. It'll

00:36:59.880 remain a free place for criminals and for foreign nationals coming here as part of the anti-Semitic 1.00

00:37:05.800 crime wave. I don't know. I'm disappointed. But I do know this. We're going to keep fighting. Where

00:37:12.200 there's life, there's hope. If you want to help me crowdfund the appeal of her conviction to try and get

00:37:17.240 an acquittal in the appeal court, help us out at helptamara.com. As you know, all the money goes

00:37:22.120 to the democracy fund. You'll get a charitable tax receipt. That said, it's always an uphill battle

00:37:27.400 to appeal a court ruling. And this is a ruling of over a hundred pages long. It's quite likely that the

00:37:33.160 judge has written it in sort of a legally bulletproof way. So I don't want to, I don't want to mislead you.

00:37:39.400 Appealing this ruling will be an uphill battle. I think we have to do it though. If we won't, who will?

00:37:44.600 For Rebel News at the Ottawa Courthouse, I'm Ezra Levance with some bad news.

00:38:03.160 segway

00:38:08.760 of

00:38:11.400 We'll be doing it.

00:38:11.720 if we find out

00:38:14.920 we find out

00:38:16.120 we have to do it.

00:38:16.600 we

00:38:17.720 on

00:38:19.320 we

Rebel News Podcast - April 03, 2025

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Tamara Lich and Chris Barber convicted of mischief

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