Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT ｜ Tensions rise in the chaotic final days of the Trucker Commission

00:00:00.560 Hello, my Rebels. Today, we talk about the Trucker Commission of Inquiry. It's in its final week.

00:00:05.820 Things are getting rambunctious. The liberals are testifying now. It's not just police.

00:00:11.040 And the police, I think, have been pretty honest over the last month. There was no national emergency.

00:00:15.340 They didn't need martial law. Here come the liars, though. Marco Mendocino, Bill Blair, and soon enough,

00:00:20.800 Justin Trudeau himself will take you through the latest.

00:00:24.300 But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus. It's the video version of this podcast.

00:00:29.040 Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe, $8 a month. Come on, help me out, because that's how I pay our payroll here.

00:00:35.680 We don't take any money from Trudeau or any other government. And, of course, we're demonetized by YouTube,

00:00:40.880 so we really depend on you as subscribers. That's rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's today's podcast.

00:00:59.040 Tonight, tensions rise in the final days of the Trucker Commission. We'll have the latest.

00:01:06.000 It's November 2nd. This is the Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:08.940 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:11.920 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:14.960 Mayhem at the Trucker Commission in Ottawa. Here's why. It's been going on for a month already.

00:01:29.420 And it is required by law that whenever the Emergencies Act is invoked, which happened in February,

00:01:36.740 so it's nine months ago now, well, we knew it was coming.

00:01:41.320 But Trudeau is rigging the rules. See, he's dumping hundreds of documents, thousands of pages,

00:01:47.540 on the commission and its lawyers only now, as in, like, last night, like today.

00:01:53.800 There's no way that the lawyers for the commission or the lawyers for the truckers or the judge himself

00:01:59.560 can read through these hundreds or thousands of documents in time.

00:02:03.640 And not just that, the documents are blacked out, not by the judge,

00:02:07.020 not after a back and forth over whether they're confidential or disclosable.

00:02:10.460 It's just Trudeau deciding that he doesn't want his more embarrassing words or deeds to be revealed.

00:02:16.220 I said before that I believe this judge has generally done the right thing in this inquiry,

00:02:21.040 but mainly it's been the police witnesses who have generally done the right thing,

00:02:24.960 senior cops from the Ottawa Police Service, from the Ontario Provincial Police, from the RCMP,

00:02:30.280 from other governments like Alberta and Ontario, even Saskatchewan.

00:02:33.700 Not a single police chief has said that they needed martial law to solve the problem of the protesters.

00:02:42.460 There was a big border crossing at the big bridge between Windsor and Detroit,

00:02:47.200 cleared peacefully without martial law.

00:02:49.380 Same with the blockade at the Alberta-Montana border.

00:02:51.920 No cop needed martial law.

00:02:53.600 And that's an important test in the Emergencies Act.

00:02:57.060 There needs to be an extreme danger to the country.

00:03:00.240 And part two, that danger cannot be solved by any other law.

00:03:05.200 Neither of these two parts of the test were met.

00:03:08.100 And all the cops so far have been honest enough to say so.

00:03:11.100 But it's the end of the honesty part as the political liars take the stand.

00:03:15.400 Bill Blair, the disgraced ex-cop who ran the G20 Civil Liberties Bonfire when he worked in Ontario

00:03:21.320 that saw hundreds of innocent people being kettled and physically abused by police.

00:03:26.120 But Trudeau, being a bully, is considered a plus to him, not a minus when it comes to policing.

00:03:32.280 So the cops disclosed their records to the commission.

00:03:35.040 The cops testified more or less honestly, I think.

00:03:38.720 But now come Trudeau's liars and their late disclosure.

00:03:41.640 There are two ways to handle documents that you have to turn over but you don't want to in a legal process.

00:03:48.420 One is to pretend that they don't exist, to just lie and to hide them or to delay.

00:03:54.780 That's usually what Trudeau does, for example, with access to information.

00:03:59.580 But that might be too obvious here since all the police forces have disclosed theirs.

00:04:03.600 So the other way is to wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait to the night before the hearing

00:04:08.240 and then over-disclose to give hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of pages,

00:04:14.400 maybe in huge banker's boxes or huge PDF documents and make people try to find the needle in the haystack

00:04:20.200 the night before the hearing or show them where the needle in the haystack is but black it out,

00:04:25.020 make it so there's no time for the judicial inquiry to consider the matter.

00:04:29.900 Here's how that meltdown went today.

00:04:31.660 Good morning, sir.

00:04:32.520 My name is Keith Wilson, counsel for the convoy organizers.

00:04:35.960 I apologize for my voice.

00:04:37.400 I'm recovering from a cold.

00:04:38.600 I have a bit of the same.

00:04:40.760 Thank you, sir.

00:04:42.280 Sir, we're not in a position to proceed with CROSS at this time and there's two reasons.

00:04:46.840 One is the federal government has disclosed over a week ago an extension volume of documents

00:04:56.020 that are highly redacted.

00:04:57.560 It is obvious from the face of the documents that they don't meet the criteria for lawful redactions.

00:05:05.640 A motion was made last week for those redactions to be lifted.

00:05:10.680 The submissions closed on Thursday evening.

00:05:13.800 We still have no ruling.

00:05:15.940 A number of days have passed.

00:05:18.440 For the cross-examination and the discovery of truth process to be valid and effective,

00:05:22.960 the parties require access to the documents.

00:05:27.420 We don't have that.

00:05:29.140 So we would appreciate some indication as to when the commission is actually going to rule on that

00:05:35.000 and hopefully compel the proper disclosure of the records so that cross-examinations can be effective.

00:05:42.540 I emphasize that these documents are not related to future witnesses but present witnesses.

00:05:48.480 So we're making the process inefficient with all due respect by not allowing the parties to have access to unredacted documents.

00:05:57.260 Second reason we're not in a position to proceed with our cross-examination at this time with this witness

00:06:02.820 is our lead counsel, Mr. Brendan Miller, who had prepared for the cross.

00:06:07.940 As you know, sir, has been removed from the room by you when he was raising a motion

00:06:12.380 to find a way around the absence of a ruling on the redaction.

00:06:17.200 So we're just not in a position to proceed on cross, sir.

00:06:22.000 Okay.

00:06:22.640 Well, just on your first question,

00:06:25.020 it is expected that the ruling will come out during the lunch hour.

00:06:33.820 It's there have been a fair amount of back and forth without going into detail.

00:06:39.840 There's some, let's say, innovative type of issues that had to be dealt with.

00:06:50.160 So that should come out at lunchtime, which I'm happy to, I will do my utmost.

00:06:57.480 It's going to come out, unfortunately, probably, and not on the record, the website,

00:07:03.600 because it won't be translated, which is one of the issues we have to deal with.

00:07:07.660 But we will, in light of what you say, we'll issue it in English only for the moment,

00:07:13.180 and it will become, be posted when it's bilingual.

00:07:17.440 But I understand that submission.

00:07:20.100 So that should enable you so we can put off the cross-examinations till after the lunchtime.

00:07:27.420 In terms of the other problem, that's not something I can deal with.

00:07:32.200 I've dealt, I'm trying to deal the best I can with the situation.

00:07:36.940 And, quite frankly, if the issue had been raised the way you have now,

00:07:44.340 I would have given the answer I'm giving now.

00:07:47.800 So what I propose then, since this witness will be here after lunch,

00:07:52.800 we simply delay till after lunch.

00:07:55.040 If you could endeavor, because I see you have, Mr. Will, you have a co-counsel,

00:08:01.540 so you can sort out how that can be done, that would be appreciated.

00:08:04.960 Now, maybe it doesn't matter.

00:08:07.360 I'm pretty sure that any judge would rule on the preponderance of evidence

00:08:10.860 that there was no legal basis for martial law.

00:08:13.540 I think that's pretty well established by now.

00:08:15.720 I think all Trudeau is doing is hiding his most crass, his most abusive,

00:08:19.820 his most embarrassing comments and deeds from the media.

00:08:23.720 That's Trudeau.

00:08:25.000 He thinks he's above the law.

00:08:27.120 It reminds me of when the federal court ordered him to accredit Rebel News

00:08:29.800 as journalist for the leaders' debates.

00:08:31.340 And we showed up, and the judge had ordered that we be accredited as journalists

00:08:36.580 literally hours earlier.

00:08:38.380 But to Trudeau, that court order didn't apply to him.

00:08:42.240 That's just some judge.

00:08:44.520 He's Trudeau.

00:08:45.820 He does what he wants.

00:08:47.120 First of all, questions around accreditation were handled by the Press Gallery

00:08:51.820 and the consortium of networks who have strong perspectives on quality journalism

00:08:58.520 and the important information that is shared with Canadians.

00:09:02.440 The reality is organizations like yours that continue to spread misinformation and disinformation

00:09:14.660 on the science around vaccines, around how we're going to actually get through this pandemic

00:09:22.180 and be there for each other and keep our kids safe is part of why we're seeing such unfortunate anger

00:09:30.880 and lack of understanding of basic science.

00:09:34.920 And quite frankly, your, I won't call it a media organization,

00:09:39.700 your group of individuals need to take accountability for some of the polarization that we're seeing in this country.

00:09:49.920 And I think Canadians are cluing into the fact that there is a really important decision we take

00:09:57.000 about the kind of country we want to see.

00:09:59.360 And I salute all extraordinary, hardworking journalists that put science and facts at the heart of what they do

00:10:06.940 and ask me tough questions every day, but make sure that they are educating and informing Canadians

00:10:14.700 from a broad range of perspectives, which is the last thing that you guys do.

00:10:19.920 I mean, Justin Trudeau takes bribes from foreign lobbyists.

00:10:22.880 That's the ruling by the ethics commissioner, but he doesn't give a damn.

00:10:27.200 Justin Trudeau sexually assaulted Rose Knight, doesn't deny it, but says she just experienced it differently.

00:10:33.740 Again, I've been reflecting on the actual interaction.

00:10:37.680 And if I apologize later, then it would be because I sensed that she was not entirely comfortable with the interaction we had.

00:10:48.600 Like I said, I've been working very hard to try and piece it together.

00:10:52.760 And even when the original editorial came out at the time, I was fairly confident, I was very confident that I hadn't acted in a way that I felt was in any way inappropriate.

00:11:10.140 But like I said, part of the lesson that we all have to learn through this is respecting that the same interactions can be felt very differently by different people going through them.

00:11:25.780 And we have to respect that.

00:11:27.440 I apologize in the moment.

00:11:32.200 I certainly feel that if, again, I don't want to speak for her.

00:11:39.600 I don't want to presume how she feels now.

00:11:42.820 I haven't reached out to her.

00:11:44.140 No one on my team has reached out to her.

00:11:46.220 We don't think that would be appropriate at all.

00:11:47.980 So I'm responsible for my side of the interaction, which certainly, as I said, I don't feel was in any way untoward.

00:11:58.540 But at the same time, this lesson that we are learning in, and I'll be blunt about it, often a man experiences an interaction as being benign or not inappropriate.

00:12:11.400 And a woman, particularly in a professional context, can experience it differently.

00:12:15.680 And we have to respect that.

00:12:17.260 Why would Trudeau be different now?

00:12:20.060 I mean, Trudeau is a bit of a fascist, just like his father figure, Fidel Castro, just like his favorite political party in the world, the Chinese Communist Party.

00:12:28.220 There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say, we need to go green as fast as we need to start investing in solar.

00:12:46.160 I mean, there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he could do everything he wanted.

00:12:53.160 Today, Marco Mendocino, the laughable public safety minister, testified he's such a comical figure, the kind of guy who's such a klutz, he falls out of a chair.

00:13:01.440 That's not me being mean.

00:13:03.440 I think that's a fact.

00:13:04.440 I think that's how everyone sees him in the government.

00:13:06.240 Here's a pitiful text message where he's complaining that his own deputy minister drafted up a plan to deal with the truckers and circulated it widely amongst other government offices, but never bothered to show him.

00:13:17.240 He only found out about it later and then asked to see it.

00:13:20.440 No one in the government treats Marco Mendocino with any respect.

00:13:23.660 They laugh at him.

00:13:25.080 He's not really in charge.

00:13:26.320 Even his own staff don't report to him.

00:13:28.480 What an embarrassment.

00:13:30.840 And look at this part of his statement.

00:13:33.240 There was no violence that he saw that would make martial law necessary.

00:13:37.860 He saw none.

00:13:38.700 He only saw reports of violence.

00:13:40.920 Reports as in some reporter, some online gossip generated by the media party that was all on the government payroll.

00:13:48.260 Well, anyways, they saw a report yesterday.

00:13:51.420 There were documents shown of ceases talking about all the reporters who would pretty much write whatever the government told them to write.

00:13:58.640 One of them works for the Globe and Mail.

00:14:00.160 How can the Globe and Mail still keep her on knowing that she is basically just a repeater for whatever Trudeau tells her to say?

00:14:07.920 I mean, how can how can she show her face in public as a journalist anymore?

00:14:13.860 That's an easy one.

00:14:14.780 And the Globe and Mail takes more money from Justin Trudeau and the newspaper bailouts than any other newspaper in Canada other than the Toronto Star.

00:14:21.260 It's easy for them to run Trudeau propaganda.

00:14:23.880 He already rents them.

00:14:26.180 One of the grossest things is that Mendocino, who works with soldiers and police all the time, said one of the things that he hated the most about the truckers is that there were military veterans amongst them.

00:14:37.060 Stop for a moment. You and I, when we think of military veterans, we think of people who have risked their lives for us.

00:14:44.580 They fought in wars as recently as Afghanistan.

00:14:46.840 Maybe they were wounded.

00:14:48.520 They serve us.

00:14:49.500 They were willing to die for us.

00:14:51.540 Some of them are still injured to this day because of their war wounds.

00:14:54.240 But to Mendocino, they're a threat.

00:14:57.080 They're terrorists.

00:14:57.800 They're radicals.

00:14:58.060 Because they actually believe in freedom and the right to protest.

00:15:01.700 It reminds me of this guy.

00:15:03.180 Because honestly, Mr. Prime Minister, I was prepared to be injured in the line of duty when I joined the military.

00:15:10.760 Nobody forced me to join the military.

00:15:12.940 I was prepared to be killed in action.

00:15:17.260 What I wasn't prepared for, Mr. Prime Minister, is Canada turning its back on me.

00:15:22.240 So, which veteran was it that you were talking about?

00:15:33.500 Thank you, sir.

00:15:34.660 Thank you for your passion and your strength and being here today to share this justifiable frustration and anger with me and with all of us here.

00:15:45.640 Thank you for having the courage to stand here.

00:15:48.100 And thank you for listening to my answer.

00:15:49.740 Thank you, sir, on a couple of elements you brought up.

00:15:53.500 First of all, why are we still fighting against certain veterans groups in court?

00:16:00.160 Because they are asking for more than we are able to give right now.

00:16:05.140 They are asking for more than we...

00:16:07.600 Well, no.

00:16:08.760 Hang on.

00:16:10.540 You're asking...

00:16:11.160 You're asking for honest answers.

00:16:15.300 This trucker commission is interesting.

00:16:16.860 We started at the margins and are working our way to the center, sort of getting closer and closer to the middle of the bullseye.

00:16:22.500 The local police forces first, then the national police force, then ceases.

00:16:26.380 Now the cabinet.

00:16:27.560 Soon it will be the master liar himself, Justin Trudeau.

00:16:30.860 If you think the trickery and insults are thick now, you ain't seen nothing yet.

00:16:36.000 Stay with us for more on today's Ongoings.

00:16:38.640 Okay.

00:16:52.380 NES spoke with NSIA, it looks like, and Jody Thomas, but the NSIA is Jody Thomas.

00:16:58.800 Section 2 of the CESIS Act, violence not met.

00:17:02.440 Wonder if we need full 30 days if Ottawa cleared.

00:17:05.140 I suppose the question would be, Minister, were you aware that it had been concluded that Section 2 of the CESIS Act was not met?

00:17:18.800 Was, sorry, what is the date of this note?

00:17:23.600 I'm afraid I don't know.

00:17:25.620 Well, look, leaving that aside, yes, I was...

00:17:28.880 It says it's before the speech Monday morning, which is the date that they announced the invocation.

00:17:33.620 That might assist.

00:17:34.820 Okay.

00:17:36.120 Yes, I was aware that CESIS had concluded that Section 2, under the CESIS Act, was not met.

00:17:44.940 I was aware of that fact.

00:17:46.440 Well, I had the pleasure of visiting our pop-up studio in downtown Ottawa.

00:17:50.620 As you know, we've rented an Airbnb just a stone's throw from where the judicial inquiry is happening.

00:17:57.220 And we've turned it into a studio, and there's four bedrooms there, so some of our reporters have been cycling through there.

00:18:03.140 Sheila Gunn-Reed is there recently.

00:18:04.980 Celine Glass, Efron Monsanto has been there.

00:18:08.340 A whole crew has passed through.

00:18:10.040 I was there for one day.

00:18:11.080 I loved it.

00:18:12.320 And we're going to be there for the duration.

00:18:13.800 If you want to help us out, go to truckercommission.com.

00:18:16.200 You can see all of our work and help us cover the cost of the Airbnb and the snacks for the fellas.

00:18:22.060 It's serious business, though.

00:18:23.780 I'm joking around a bit, although it is really fun for us to have an office right downtown.

00:18:27.560 Of course, William Diaz Bertheon is our Ottawa-based reporter.

00:18:31.300 He's just really shone like a rising star, hasn't he?

00:18:34.460 But things have turned a little bit darker as we move from the police to the politicians.

00:18:39.140 I think the police were abusive on the ground in many cases.

00:18:42.680 Of course, they shot our reporter, Alexa Lavoie.

00:18:46.360 Thousands of protesters, thousands of police.

00:18:49.160 You tell me, is it a coincidence that the one person shot by police happened to be a Rebel News reporter?

00:18:58.060 Is that likely to be just random chance?

00:19:02.760 We'll find out we're suing that police officer.

00:19:05.260 But back to the hearings, the police, I think we're fairly honest.

00:19:10.060 They don't need to carry water for Justin Trudeau.

00:19:12.140 I doubt any real police like Justin Trudeau.

00:19:14.940 Every one of them, down to the last officer, said, no, no, we didn't need martial law to solve these law enforcement issues.

00:19:22.620 We had plenty of power under the criminal code, under provincial offenses, and under parking tickets.

00:19:28.600 But now the liars have come, and they're saying, oh, no, no, no, no, we needed this.

00:19:32.480 Bill Blair was saying one of his motivations was that there were embarrassing pictures of Ottawa in the news around the world.

00:19:39.580 Well, I think that putting the country under martial law is even more embarrassing.

00:19:43.900 But what is happening in the last two days?

00:19:47.160 Well, let's call in a lawyer for the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.

00:19:53.280 I have to say that JCCF has really been the star of the show.

00:19:57.280 Of course, our friends at the Democracy Fund, in the form of Alan Honner, has been a lawyer there as well.

00:20:02.140 But I think the JCCF has had six or seven lawyers on the ground there, really making sure that the commission asks the right questions.

00:20:12.320 And joining us now via Skype from our nation's capital is Rob Gitteridge, one of the JCCF lawyers.

00:20:19.380 Nice to see you, Rob.

00:20:21.200 Nice to see you as well, Ezra.

00:20:23.060 Well, tell us a little bit first about yourself.

00:20:25.360 We've had the pleasure of talking to a number of JCCF lawyers.

00:20:28.180 I think our viewers really know the JCCF well, but they probably don't know you.

00:20:34.000 Give me a 30-second biography.

00:20:36.760 Well, I joined the JCCF about a year ago.

00:20:40.260 Prior to that, I was primarily an intellectual property lawyer, but got a little frustrated with the fact that the Copyright Act keeps getting eaten away by secret trade treaties and wanted to move into something a little more, I guess, impactful on the charter rights of Canadians.

00:20:56.860 And I was lucky enough to get involved with the JCCF about a year ago.

00:21:01.600 We were, as you know, on the ground in Ottawa during the protests, as I believe Democracy Fund lawyers were in Ottawa and in Windsor as well.

00:21:11.900 And when the opportunity came up to apply for standing at the commission, my colleague Adam Kira and I filled out the application, you know, and went through that process.

00:21:24.520 And here we find ourselves in the middle of this historic inquiry, which seems to be actually going surprisingly well as it shakes out.

00:21:34.260 Yeah. Well, I think it has been so far, but I think that's because the facts are so striking.

00:21:40.760 There has been, I mean, it's going well because the protests went well.

00:21:45.040 There was no violence.

00:21:46.220 The protesters were there in good faith.

00:21:48.460 They cooperated with the city to move the trucks away from residential areas to keep lanes clear.

00:21:53.260 I remember they were shoveling snow when they had downtime.

00:21:58.700 I think the reason the hearings are going well is because the truckers were so well behaved.

00:22:02.700 And every cop who's honest says, yeah, we didn't need the Emergencies Act.

00:22:07.060 But tell me how it is turning now that Bill Blair and Marco Mendocino and soon the prime minister himself.

00:22:14.920 Tell me what's going on now.

00:22:17.040 What about this document dump?

00:22:18.860 What about holding government files, all of which were generated in February?

00:22:24.940 Why are they being held to late November and then dumped on the commission and the lawyers mere hours or even minutes before the hearings?

00:22:34.800 Well, it's hard to speculate why, or maybe it's a little easy to speculate why.

00:22:41.540 But there's been a bit of an ongoing document dump.

00:22:44.580 It's tough for us to talk about that in too much detail because we're bound by a fairly strict confidentiality undertaking.

00:22:52.660 So anything that's not in evidence, we can't speak about too specifically.

00:22:58.740 But let's just say there's been a fair amount of last-minute document review going on in the last little while.

00:23:04.320 And that work has only picked up as the witnesses are getting more and more high level in government.

00:23:10.040 I think just to touch on a point that you made a minute ago, you can hardly ask for a cleaner set of facts here.

00:23:18.340 As it happened, I think this was a confluence of, you know, a coincidental confluence of events in a lot of ways.

00:23:27.060 It just so happened that Justin Trudeau upset a group of people who drive very large and hard-to-move vehicles.

00:23:35.420 And I think that was important in, you know, coincidentally making it easier for them to get entrenched in a way that made it hard to move them along.

00:23:44.780 But coincidentally, too, all of the people that came together at the top of the protest movement happened to be extremely reasonable people who were doing their best to encourage nonviolence.

00:23:58.080 And as we headed into an inquiry into their behavior, as well as the government's behavior, really, there's not a lot to point to that's particularly, you know, bad behavior on the part of the protesters.

00:24:12.420 While the same cannot necessarily be said for our federal government, as we've been moving through the hearings, the first stage or earlier on, we were hearing from the police, who's, I guess, real dog in the race here is just to kind of pin the blame on another police force.

00:24:33.340 And none of them were particularly argumentative about the idea that they had powers available to them.

00:24:41.560 They had tow trucks available.

00:24:43.640 They arranged for tow trucks.

00:24:45.320 It kind of turned into a tow truck inquiry into a tow truck emergency at one point where basically every cross-examination we were doing was about whether and where tow trucks were obtained and how much they were available.

00:25:00.240 But the testimony of the police established pretty clearly that there were plenty of powers at common law and statute law outside of the Emergencies Act to handle the protests.

00:25:13.180 It just wasn't being handled properly by, you know, each police force was pointing to some other police force that mishandled it.

00:25:20.780 But as we get into, so that's one of the key ingredients here is in order for the Emergencies Act to be lawfully invoked, there has to be no, the situation has to be one that couldn't be effectively controlled with existing laws and powers.

00:25:37.300 And the first stage of the emergency established that those powers existed.

00:25:41.920 And as we head into the federal government witnesses, we're starting to get more into the question of whether there was a threat to the security of Canada, as that term is defined in the CSIS Act, in existence as a result of the protests.

00:25:57.700 And what we're hearing so far from government witnesses, and what it looks like we'll continue hearing, is that they have conveniently expanded the definition of a threat to the security of Canada.

00:26:11.980 And it means something other than what it means in the legislation, apparently, to them.

00:26:17.700 And that, I think, is going to be the second piece of why the invocation turns out to be unlawful.

00:26:25.140 And I think we're really getting there at this point.

00:26:27.700 Yeah, it's pretty plain when every cop says, no, there was little to no danger, and no, we didn't need extra help to solve it.

00:26:38.720 In fact, I forget which witness it was who was saying that the state of alert today is identical to what it was back then in terms of danger.

00:26:47.400 I mean, what a lot, by the way, Ottawa is still under partial lockdown today.

00:26:51.120 So I think the politicians like drama, and that's one of the interesting things, is you see these internal chats amongst politicians, and they knew they were going too far, and they talked amongst themselves, and they never thought that it would be published.

00:27:07.600 They never thought that their text would be revealed about how they have to gin up narratives, how they have to whip up the January 6th insurrection theme up here, how they had to reach out to their pet reporters to get them to say that this is a dangerous...

00:27:25.600 You could see that they didn't believe it was a crisis, because they were working to make it look like a crisis that they knew it wasn't.

00:27:35.040 And I think that they're given away by their own internal records.

00:27:39.240 It wasn't bad.

00:27:41.220 They knew it wasn't bad.

00:27:42.960 They wanted it to be bad.

00:27:45.960 So they could demonize their opponents as violent.

00:27:50.220 They wanted...

00:27:51.140 Go ahead.

00:27:52.240 I think that attempt to demonize in general has been a part of the...

00:27:58.440 I mean, it was part of the election platform of the Liberal Party.

00:28:01.860 It's been a part of what appears to be their political strategy since at least the election in 2021.

00:28:09.240 I think to those of us who are watching these protests with an open mind, it's hard to see what was happening on the ground in the way that it was portrayed in the media, whatever the term you guys like to use, the legacy media, whatever.

00:28:27.100 Certainly didn't reflect what was seen on the ground.

00:28:33.320 You know, these are legitimate frustrations being aired by Canadians just like you and me who've been, you know, under the boot of their government like never before, and who've decided to come to Ottawa to protest.

00:28:45.220 And the best that the government can do, because they can't admit that they've gone too far in terms of their COVID policy or in terms of the mandates that they decide to impose, the best that the government could do was to paint these people as terrorists or as violent or as racist or as misogynist or all these other things.

00:29:05.520 I think that was apparent to anybody watching with an open mind, but it's really interesting to be in the seat where I'm at and watch the sausage get made a little bit.

00:29:17.380 And it turns out that that's exactly what it looks like they were doing.

00:29:20.020 It's hard to capture that in a specific text or a specific document, but a number of documents are in evidence already that talk about strategizing to, you know, get on a narrative of painting these people in a certain way.

00:29:39.420 And there's a I can I can't talk about what what's in store, but I can say that there are a few more documents that we intend to bring out.

00:29:46.420 Yeah, you know, if there's a real crime spree, you don't need to have a planning meeting to strategize on convincing reporters that it's a crime wave because the crime is the wave.

00:29:59.260 You know, the horrific mass serial killer, Paul Bernardo, you didn't need strategizing to tell journalists what was going on.

00:30:09.780 They could see it was horrific.

00:30:11.600 If you have here's a pro tip.

00:30:13.840 If you have to have meetings and call up reporters and plant ideas in their minds that these are violent people, odds are it's not violent people.

00:30:22.580 That's how it was back in February.

00:30:24.220 But here we are in November.

00:30:26.380 And I'm watching either directly or through Sheila Gunn-Reid's Twitter feed what's going on in the commission.

00:30:33.540 And I see how we're covering it every day at Trucker Commission dot com.

00:30:36.660 I see how some other independent media like True North are covering it, Rupa Subramania at National Post and a handful of others.

00:30:44.240 But I also see those same propagandists that the government was orchestrating in February.

00:30:50.340 I see they're still orchestrating it today.

00:30:52.120 Rachel Gilmore, the TikTok gal for Global, for example.

00:30:55.860 It's like she's still being directed.

00:30:58.440 I mean, she's absolutely part of the PMO talking points machine.

00:31:03.120 And so here's my question to you, Rob.

00:31:06.600 Those who are awake to this, the people who follow Rebel News or True North, people who are in the Trucker Convoy, see this commission as absolute vindication.

00:31:16.120 But most people don't follow Rebel News.

00:31:19.240 Most people don't follow the news at all.

00:31:21.600 Those who do follow it, they probably get CTV or Global or just see the headline in the Toronto Star, the largest newspaper in the country.

00:31:28.840 Is the truth of this commission, is it coming out through those legacy media papers, through those regime media outlets?

00:31:39.880 Are ordinary people who are not really, really dialed in, like Rebel News viewers are obsessed with this, as I am.

00:31:45.820 It's the most important civil liberties issue in our generation.

00:31:48.260 But for severely normal people for whom this is just interesting and not much more, are they hearing and seeing what's really going on?

00:31:55.200 Or are you worried the media party is lying to them again?

00:31:57.500 I think the narrative is pushing through even into those old, you know, the legacy media or the, you know, the funded, the government funded media, whatever you want to call them.

00:32:08.520 But at the beginning of the hearings, you would see, you know, what appeared to be some real effort to take, you know, something that a commissioner of police said or something that whoever said and twisted in the most anti-protest way possible.

00:32:27.420 These days, though, the headlines that I'm seeing in newspapers, in the Toronto Star, even, are really starting to question the legitimacy of the invocation of the Act.

00:32:39.420 And I think that the narrative is really picking up.

00:32:43.180 The veneer is being taken off of this a bit.

00:32:46.960 And it's becoming harder and harder to defend this as a legitimate, as a lawful invocation of the Emergencies Act.

00:32:54.700 And I mean, you see a lot of, I guess, what you think about, you know, the protesters on the ground seems to, up until recently, have informed, you know, the perception that a given person might have about whether the Emergencies Act was justified or not.

00:33:12.440 If you don't like the horn honking, then absolutely it was justified.

00:33:16.600 But the narrative is starting to cut through that now.

00:33:19.680 And I think I came into this hopeful that, I guess I had sort of set a measure of success for myself.

00:33:28.400 Like, I wanted to put together a record that no matter what the outcome of the hearings was,

00:33:35.400 I wanted to put together a record and a set of submissions that made it clear that the resources that were needed, the powers that were needed to clear these protests existed at law outside of the Emergencies Act.

00:33:48.680 And my measure of success was, regardless of how the commission comes down, regardless of the commission's, commissioner's decision and findings in all of this,

00:33:58.640 I want there to be somewhere in the annals of history submissions by, you know, authored by Rob Goodridge that made it clear that, you know, the one ingredient that's necessary for the lawful invocation of the Emergencies Act,

00:34:16.400 the fact that there was no, there were powers available at ordinary law, to make that clear for the purpose of history.

00:34:24.540 And I thought that would be a measure of success.

00:34:27.000 At this point, it's getting very hard to see how the commissioner has any option but to condemn the invocation of the Emergencies Act as unlawful.

00:34:37.160 Because we're getting very clear pictures.

00:34:39.860 We've already got a very clear picture from the police that powers were available.

00:34:44.360 And we're starting to get an extremely clear picture that what was considered to be a threat to the security of Canada in contemplating the invocation of the Act actually was not a threat to the security of Canada,

00:34:58.900 as that's defined in the CSIS Act and the Emergencies Act requires a threat under the CSIS Act definition.

00:35:06.060 So it's going to be very difficult as, you know, slanted or biased as a newspaper may be.

00:35:14.960 It's going to be pretty hard to report on a finding of condemnation in a way that caters to the pro-government perspective entirely.

00:35:27.160 So I think the narrative is really cutting through.

00:35:29.220 Well, of course, we know that Justin Trudeau, you know, water off the duck's back, he's been convicted how many times of violating the Conflict of Interest Act.

00:35:37.680 Oh, well, you know, he was caught sexually assaulting Rose Knight in Creston, B.C.

00:35:41.880 Oh, well, she experienced it differently.

00:35:44.460 He wore blackface so many times he can't keep track. 1.00

00:35:48.440 Oh, well, it's a good learning opportunity for the rest of us.

00:35:50.660 You know, I think that even if he is found not to have had justification here, oh, well, well, we did what we could at the time and always do what's right for Canadians.

00:36:02.120 And it's a time to reflect on civil, you know, I mean, he he in a way is a sociopath and that he he has no conscience about this stuff.

00:36:12.080 It's all, you know, he admires Castro.

00:36:14.960 He admires the Communist Party of China.

00:36:17.040 And they, you know, they break some eggs to make some omelets and it's the ends that justify the means to him.

00:36:22.020 That's my personal view.

00:36:23.540 Rob Kitteridge, it's a pleasure to talk with you and introduce you to our viewers.

00:36:27.140 And I say again that the JCCF team has been absolutely indispensable.

00:36:31.900 And a large reason why the commission has been as successful as you describe is because of the excellent cross-examination of the witnesses done by you and your fellow lawyers.

00:36:42.240 I really don't know what would have happened if you guys weren't there.

00:36:46.360 Are you really?

00:36:51.380 Hey, welcome back.

00:36:52.380 Your letters to me.

00:36:53.420 Someone with the nickname Healing Man said, has everyone forgot Elon is creating Neuralink?

00:36:59.800 The Internet is a great way for him to collect data for Neuralink.

00:37:02.840 Data is the preferred weapon of today.

00:37:05.260 Simple use of your God-given common sense tells you this.

00:37:09.380 That's something that James Lindsay referred to yesterday.

00:37:11.520 He said that Elon Musk sort of gets ahead of things the government is thinking about.

00:37:15.420 Neuralink is, I don't know that much about it, but it's what would be called transhumanism, connecting machines to our bodies and then even to our minds.

00:37:23.860 And it is terrifying.

00:37:24.920 I think it's the thing I'm most worried about with Elon Musk, in fact, that and his exposure to China.

00:37:32.460 Someone named Awaiting the King says, any news outlet who keeps on posting articles and talking about Musk only gives him more power.

00:37:38.560 Anyone with an ounce of intelligence and integrity and a voice for a news website would not keep doing this.

00:37:43.680 Well, Twitter is the digital public square as, you know, there are right-wing echo chambers like Gab is one.

00:37:56.260 There are left-wing echo chambers.

00:37:58.160 But the thing about Twitter is everyone's there, the right and the left and entertainers and politicians and sports people.

00:38:05.580 So that is the place to go to engage, to build a following.

00:38:10.380 If you already have a following, you can do like Trump has done, truth social.

00:38:15.060 There are no liberals in truth social other than some hecklers.

00:38:19.480 For Trump to win and to expand, he needs something like Facebook or Twitter where there are undecideds or independents.

00:38:26.420 That's why Twitter is so important, is there really are people in the middle.

00:38:31.040 And they are there to learn and watch and listen.

00:38:33.760 And they are a prize to be won in terms of hearts and minds.

00:38:36.660 J.P. Roscoe says, astute assessment, in my opinion.

00:38:41.900 James is a key critical thinker.

00:38:43.340 Thanks, Ezra and Rebel.

00:38:44.360 I love talking to James.

00:38:45.560 And even when we only schedule it for 10 minutes, it turns into half an hour.

00:38:48.820 I think we even went longer yesterday.

00:38:50.320 He's a smart cookie.

00:38:51.880 Well, that's our show for today.

00:38:53.720 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.

00:38:58.660 And keep fighting for freedom.

00:38:59.720 Hey, everyone.

00:39:00.940 William Diaz here with Rebel News once again here in Ottawa.

00:39:05.040 And today, we'll take a look at what went on during the 26th of the Emergency Act Inquiry, which took place on November 18, 2022.

00:39:11.580 There's only one week left until the inquiry is over.

00:39:14.140 Yeah.

00:39:14.640 The inquiry, let's remember, is taking place because back in February, Justin Trudeau used a never-seen-before anti-terrorism law called the Emergency Act on peaceful protesters who were part of the Freedom Convoy here in Ottawa.

00:39:25.300 A movement that protested government overreach and the federal COVID-19 mandates.

00:39:30.440 Now, on November 18, we heard from four witnesses in total.

00:39:33.700 We heard four from Deputy Secretary of Emergency Preparedness and COVID-19 Recovery Jacqueline Bogdan, Jeff Hutchison, Senior Advisor of Emergency Preparedness, Jacine Charette, the Clerk of the Privy Council, and Nathalie Drouin, the Deputy Minister of the Department of Justice.

00:39:48.180 Now, Bogdan and Hutchison both testified together on the first panel of the day, while Charette testified alongside Drouin later on in the afternoon.

00:39:56.460 Let's first take a look at the opening testimony of the day.

00:39:59.160 Obviously, PCO plays, you know, as it does in many different situations, helps to coordinate the federal government response to any given situation.

00:40:09.600 And the same would be true in this case.

00:40:13.060 And so what we're trying to do in coordinating that response, we'll convene departments and agencies together.

00:40:21.500 We're trying to develop a common understanding, a common kind of up-to-date understanding of the situation and assess that situation.

00:40:29.520 We're determining, you know, what are the actions that the federal government needs to take in response to the situation or might need to take.

00:40:39.720 Alan Honor from the Democracy Fund was the first lawyer to cross-examine the two witnesses, and he was then followed by Brendan Miller, counsel for Freedom Corp., the organization that represents the key leaders of the Freedom Convoy.

00:40:52.500 Both pressed the witnesses very well on different topics, and the witnesses did not appear super keen to answer every question they were asked.

00:41:00.560 Take a look.

00:41:01.700 The situation in BC, and was that the situation with the truck, which apparently broke through the blockades?

00:41:08.820 Yeah, it was a military-style, that's my recollection, it was a military-style vehicle that had tried to break through the blockade.

00:41:17.220 And I believe that made it into the Section 58 explanation, that there was a military-style vehicle that broke through the blockades.

00:41:24.700 That may be, you could verify that.

00:41:27.860 And you are aware that by military-style vehicle, they meant a vehicle that was painted in camouflage?

00:41:34.040 Yeah, that may be.

00:41:35.580 Thank you very much. Those are my questions.

00:41:36.880 Can you agree in this circumstance, you're aware that the Emergencies Act requires for its invocation, for there to be a finding, that there to be a threat to the security of Canada?

00:41:58.140 I'm aware of that, yes.

00:41:59.600 Okay. And can you agree with me that a threat to the security of Canada in the Emergencies Act, from your understanding, has the same meaning as it does in Section 2 of the CSIS Act?

00:42:13.880 I'm going to decline to answer this question, I'm sorry.

00:42:17.820 I don't feel that in my current responsibilities and my knowledge and understanding that I can answer that question for you.

00:42:27.220 The Council for the Government of Saskatchewan then cross-examined the witnesses as well, and it was fairly interesting.

00:42:33.260 We learned during his cross-examination that the government allegedly only began discussing the use of the Emergencies Act a few days prior to its invocation, on February 9th.

00:42:43.380 Okay, so when would the Privy Council Office have started to do its homework on the Emergencies Act?

00:42:49.080 When would you or somebody in your office have first started to look at it as a potential option?

00:42:57.220 It would have probably been on or around the 9th.

00:43:09.080 Okay, so it would have been only a day before the first meeting of the Incident Response Group when it was being discussed there?

00:43:20.080 Yep. I think that's right.

00:43:22.120 No work was done on the Emergencies Act before that.

00:43:25.960 So I can't say that definitively.

00:43:30.600 You know, work would have been being done by a lot of different people on an anticipatory basis that, you know, making sure, as I said, that we've done our homework and we would be in a position to answer questions, right?

00:43:43.220 Like, if the government turned to the public servants and said, what's involved with invocation of the Act, you need to be able to answer all kinds of first-order questions, right?

00:43:53.720 Everything from the threshold that's to be met to what's the parliamentary process, you know, what kinds of considerations do you want to be thinking about?

00:44:02.260 So I can't say definitively who was working on what.

00:44:06.360 I wasn't directing that work.

00:44:07.880 So I'm not being evasive.

00:44:09.140 I'm just trying to understand it was all hands on deck at that point.

00:44:13.380 And I can't speak to every part of the public service.

00:44:17.300 Following their testimonies, Natalie Drouin and Janice Charette took the stand and began testifying.

00:44:23.740 Take a look at what they had to say.

00:44:25.060 This was all happening in Ottawa, a lot of it on Wellington Street.

00:44:30.820 You're looking at the coverage in the media.

00:44:32.800 You were seeing the parliament buildings behind it.

00:44:35.460 So there was a lot of questions being asked of federal ministers.

00:44:38.620 What are you doing?

00:44:39.400 What are you doing?

00:44:40.140 What are you doing?

00:44:41.320 And so certainly we had the sense coming out of the meeting on the 8th.

00:44:46.060 They were impatient to know what they could do.

00:44:48.320 And that was my direction to the town at this meeting.

00:44:53.860 We owned it publicly, but we didn't have jurisdiction to address the situation.

00:45:01.480 So asking ourselves, what can we do to have jurisdiction and really to support?

00:45:06.900 On top of, you know, supporting municipalities, supporting provinces.

00:45:11.960 But that was also the type of questions we were asking ourselves.

00:45:15.900 These two witnesses were also some of the only ones through the whole inquiry

00:45:20.120 that actually said the Freedom Convoy was a national security emergency.

00:45:23.860 It was origin, it was critical, she said.

00:45:26.480 Take a look.

00:45:27.660 The view that I came to was that whether there were still authorities that had not been fully used,

00:45:37.800 that the situation overall was a national emergency.

00:45:42.300 It was urgent, it was critical.

00:45:45.380 There was the threat of serious violence that put at risk the lives, the health and safety,

00:45:50.760 the security of Canadians, our economic fortunes, and that taken together,

00:45:56.540 that was beyond the capacity of any individual province or territory to deal with.

00:46:00.800 We were seeing this on a national scale, breakouts or incidents from coast to coast to coast,

00:46:09.060 including, you know, cross-border traffic even between, I think it was Alberta and one of the territories.

00:46:15.800 This was a situation which had been escalating.

00:46:20.420 I think we were on day 18 of what was happening in Ottawa.

00:46:25.900 This was a scale, this was an escalation, there was a series of volatility.

00:46:30.040 It didn't seem that there was any province or territory that had the power to deal with this uniquely on their own.

00:46:36.200 But there may have been individual agencies that could have dealt with a piece of it.

00:46:40.280 There were individual sites that could have been dealt with through specific tools.

00:46:45.420 There were potentially individual threats that could have been dealt with by one agency or actor or another.

00:46:51.180 But if you look at the totality of it all, that's what lies behind this advice.

00:46:56.500 Finally, another interesting moment from their testimony arose during a tense exchange

00:47:01.460 between the Council for the Canadian Constitution Federation while he was cross-examining the witnesses.

00:47:07.680 Monsieur Vigneault learned that the Emergencies Act referenced the threat definition set out in Section 2 of the CSIS Act

00:47:17.320 once the federal government began to seriously consider invoking the EA between February 10th and 13th.

00:47:23.700 He requested that the service prepare a threat assessment on the risks associated with the invocation of the Emergencies Act.

00:47:32.020 He felt an obligation to clearly convey the service's position that there did not exist a threat to the security of Canada

00:47:42.920 as defined in the service's legal mandate.

00:47:47.600 And then further on, in the bottom paragraph, pardon me, yes, the paragraph that begins,

00:47:54.440 Monsieur Vigneault discussed.

00:47:55.600 He said he discussed this threat assessment at the IRG on February 13th.

00:48:02.340 And then he says the document was also available for distribution for the cabinet meeting,

00:48:07.340 but he does not know if it was distributed by the PCO.

00:48:12.540 So can you please answer, was this threat assessment distributed to the cabinet, yes or no?

00:48:18.280 I believe I've said earlier that it was.

00:48:20.660 It was.

00:48:21.240 After the day ended, we invited Keith Wilson, a lawyer for the Freedom Corp,

00:48:25.580 to join us on our live stream to help analyze the events of the day.

00:48:29.360 Wilson spoke with our editor-in-chief, Sheila Gunn-Reed.

00:48:31.980 Here's what he had to say.

00:48:33.740 Well, I think what we saw today was a breakdown in the rule of law.

00:48:38.480 And what do I mean by that?

00:48:39.980 Like, we hear that expression a lot and it has many meanings.

00:48:43.100 But its most simplest meaning is what it's contrasted with is that we used to have in the, you know,

00:48:51.560 the 1400s and the 1500s and up until the Magna Carta, we used to have rule by man.

00:48:58.080 The king, the king's whims became the law and the laws changed with the whims of the king.

00:49:05.420 And we were supposed to replace that with the rule of law, which means no, no.

00:49:11.780 Government, the king, the prime minister can only do that which the law allows him to do.

00:49:17.800 And what we heard today was that the advisors to cabinet, the advisors to the prime minister,

00:49:24.480 they find that a little awkward and, you know, a little inconvenient.

00:49:28.720 So they've decided that they actually get to decide.

00:49:33.140 That's my high-level summary of the remarkable testimony today.

00:49:37.540 Well, there you have it, folks.

00:49:38.740 Here's everything you need to know about what went on on November 18th, 2022,

00:49:43.480 during the Murchie's Act Inquiry, which there's only one week left.

00:49:46.920 And we're going to see the Liberal ministers, the Liberal cabinet and CSIS testify this week.

00:49:51.820 So that'll be extremely interesting.

00:49:53.260 Definitely stay tuned for that.

00:49:54.640 For Rebel News, this is William Diaz.

00:49:58.720 For Rebel News, this is William Diaz.

Rebel News Podcast - November 23, 2022

EZRA LEVANT ｜ Tensions rise in the chaotic final days of the Trucker Commission

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