Rebel News Podcast - April 08, 2022


EZRA LEVANT ｜ Trudeau’s hand-picked censors declare that only 1% of what Rebel News publishes is news — so they won’t give us a government news licence


Episode Stats


Length

56 minutes

Words per minute

162.03374

Word count

9,173

Sentence count

641

Harmful content

Misogyny

17

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

A government censorship panel has declared that Rebel News journalists are not qualified to be journalists because only 1% of our content meets the criteria for a government journalism license. We're suing the government of Canada for denying us a license to do journalism.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.280 Hello, my Rebels. Today is a very serious podcast. We have been denied a journalism
00:00:05.480 license by the government of Canada. Now, since when did you need a license to do
00:00:10.080 journalism? Well, that's the thing. Trudeau invented it and he denied it to us. And I
00:00:14.600 don't care about his opinions on us. It's what will happen to us because of that that
00:00:19.020 worries me. I'll take you through it. Let me invite you to become a subscriber to
00:00:22.500 Rebel News Plus. You get the video version of the podcast. Go to rebelnewsplus.com.
00:00:26.640 It's eight bucks a month. You get my video version of this show every day,
00:00:30.980 plus four other shows every week. But also please consider subscribing for eight
00:00:37.460 bucks a month because that's how we live. We don't take any of that Trudeau money.
00:00:42.940 And he's trying to squash us and we really do rely on our subscribers. So that's
00:00:47.520 rebelnewsplus.com. All right, here's to the show.
00:00:56.640 Tonight, Trudeau's handpicked censors declare that only one percent of what Rebel News publishes
00:01:13.160 is news. So they won't give us a government journalism license. It's April 7th and this
00:01:18.740 is the ZS LeVant Show.
00:01:22.240 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
00:01:25.700 There's 8,500 customers here and you won't give them an answer.
00:01:30.020 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I publish it is because it's my
00:01:34.620 bloody right to do so.
00:01:41.240 Justin Trudeau's handpicked government censorship panel has just declared that Rebel News
00:01:47.740 journalists are not qualified to be news media. We just learned that over the past year,
00:01:53.720 Trudeau has spent countless tax dollars on a handpicked team of government censors who
00:01:58.820 were studying Rebel News in secret. They never reached out to us or spoke with us or interviewed
00:02:04.940 us. And that secretive government censorship panel went through 276 of our news stories.
00:02:12.320 It took nearly a year to do it. Imagine government censors looking through 276 Rebel
00:02:17.660 News stories, many of which criticized government censorship. Now, you can like Rebel News or
00:02:24.140 not. That's your choice. If you don't like Rebel News, unlike the CBC, you don't still have to pay for
00:02:29.120 us. But Trudeau's government censorship panel made a ruling about us. They declared, get this,
00:02:36.120 that, quote, less than 1% of the content meets the criteria for original news content.
00:02:43.400 What? That's almost all we do. We're Rebel News, not Rebel Sports or Rebel Weather.
00:02:50.680 So Trudeau's government censorship panel says because of that, we are not legally a, quote,
00:02:57.020 qualified Canadian journalism organization or QCJO, as they call it. That's a special legal term
00:03:04.980 they've come up with. As the words plainly mean, it's government journalism accreditation. It's a
00:03:10.800 government journalism license. So not only does that mean we're not allowed to attend
00:03:16.720 government press conferences, it also punishes us under the Income Tax Act. I'll tell you more
00:03:23.560 about that in a moment. But first, I want to tell you that we're fighting back. Because if we don't
00:03:29.700 fight back now against this journalism license, they're going to destroy us. Like Trudeau is doing
00:03:37.280 more and more to his peaceful political opponents like the truckers. He wants to try to do to us 0.98
00:03:41.560 what he did to the truckers. If he had his way, he'd put us in jail and seize our bank accounts. This
00:03:46.540 is a step in that direction. Having a government panel declare legally that our journalists are not
00:03:53.820 journalists. Because if they can do this to us, their largest independent critic left in Canada,
00:03:59.780 they'll do this to anyone. They'll do this to you. They'll censor you. Which is why we have to
00:04:04.520 fight back now, not later. We have to fight back right now. There might not even be a later.
00:04:10.380 So we're suing Trudeau. We filed the lawsuit today in the federal court of Canada. I want you to see
00:04:17.920 the letter sent to us by Trudeau's government censorship panel. And I want you to see our
00:04:22.420 lawsuit in reply. We've put both of them on a website called wearesuingtrudeau.com.
00:04:29.620 Please read our lawsuit to learn just what they've done to us and why we have to fight back.
00:04:35.300 Our lawsuit's just 16 pages long. And I think it's in pretty plain English. It's an anti-censorship
00:04:41.760 lawsuit. It's a free speech lawsuit. The outcome of this lawsuit will affect us, obviously.
00:04:47.900 But it'll affect everyone in Canada. Anyone who wants to do journalism without a government license.
00:04:53.860 And every citizen in Canada who wants the freedom to choose their own choice of news without some
00:05:00.340 secret government panel deciding what is or isn't real news. I don't know if there are other
00:05:06.820 journalists who are being censored right now. I know if Trudeau succeeds, we won't be the last to
00:05:13.300 be censored. I think we're likely the only ones who can and will fight back. Good news is we've got an
00:05:21.380 absolute top-notch legal team because we cannot take any chances here. So please go to wearesuingtrudeau.com.
00:05:27.500 Read the punishment letter to us by Trudeau. And read our lawsuit in reply. And if you can, please help us
00:05:33.360 crowdfund our lawyers if you can. But first, seriously, this Trudeau panel says we don't cover the news?
00:05:41.940 That 99% of our news stories aren't really news? Are you kidding? News is almost all we do. It's what makes us so popular.
00:05:48.340 It's why people watch us. We've published, I don't know, maybe 40,000 news stories since we were born
00:05:53.960 seven years ago. That's why Trudeau hates us. That's why the people love us. It's what we do.
00:06:00.540 Gentlemen, put your hands together for Ezra Levant of Rebel News.
00:06:04.180 Thank you very much. Hello, everybody.
00:06:08.460 So what brought you out despite the state of emergency that Doug Ford declared?
00:06:29.340 Uh, I want to fight for my freedom. Um, I got, I'm not allowed to go to college because I'm unvaccinated
00:06:37.220 and I can't play on any sports teams. So I'm fighting for my future.
00:06:41.760 What's going on tonight, guys? Can you give me a...
00:06:43.060 We've just been hanging out. We came, we drove up from Toronto. We brought supplies. We're going to be cooking tomorrow.
00:06:48.660 And we're going to be feeding the truckers.
00:06:50.440 Nice, man. I'm from Toronto, too.
00:06:51.840 Nice to meet you, bro.
00:06:52.780 Our specialty is getting out into the, out of the office and going into the streets, going to where the news is happening
00:06:59.060 and turning our cameras on and showing it to you. The last two years have really been our time to shine.
00:07:04.520 We've covered protests against lockdowns. We've covered the trucker rebellion.
00:07:09.100 There was one day, I remember, when we had 17 different journalists in nine different cities covering the news.
00:07:15.280 And it was on a weekend. Just take February 5th for an example. I was so proud on a weekend.
00:07:20.340 Our guys were working so hard, I tweeted. This is what I said.
00:07:23.140 I said, we've got reporters today in Milk River, Coutts, Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, and even Canberra, Australia.
00:07:34.300 How is that possibly not news?
00:07:36.320 Our reporters were just sitting in our offices giving our opinions on the world like most of the media party does, like this CBC star did.
00:07:44.620 I do ask that because, you know, given Canada's support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia, I don't know if it's far-fetched to ask, but there is concern that Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, but perhaps even instigating it from the outset.
00:08:05.700 Well, again, I'm going to defer to our partners in the public safety, the trained officials and experts in that area.
00:08:14.940 That's not news. That's a Trudeau conspiracy theory.
00:08:18.100 Now, normally, I wouldn't care what Trudeau thinks about us, but his handpicked government censorship panel has tremendous power over us.
00:08:25.240 They have the power of taxation, and the power to tax is the power to destroy, and they're taking more and more powers.
00:08:33.200 This is a journalism license from the government, and we were just denied it.
00:08:37.780 Censorship is Trudeau's most passionate obsession.
00:08:40.740 I don't understand why.
00:08:41.760 He doesn't care about inflation.
00:08:43.580 He doesn't care about housing prices or the cost of gas.
00:08:47.140 He doesn't care about crime or national defense.
00:08:49.760 He doesn't care about clean drinking water on reserves.
00:08:52.060 But he is obsessed with silencing and punishing his critics, isn't he?
00:08:58.520 And he hates Rebel News more than anyone.
00:09:00.540 Do you remember Trudeau banned our journalists from covering the election debates in 2019 and then again in 2021?
00:09:06.500 In those cases, we rushed to court to ask a judge to let us in.
00:09:10.200 And in both cases, the judges agreed Trudeau's censors were violating our charter rights.
00:09:15.360 And in both cases, the court ordered Trudeau to let us in.
00:09:19.580 But look at how angry and petty that made Trudeau.
00:09:22.860 This is a clip from the 2021 election, hours after a judge told Trudeau that we were, in fact, journalists.
00:09:29.620 Oh, he did not like that.
00:09:30.760 Remember this?
00:09:31.540 Laura Ugolini from Rebel News.
00:09:33.020 Mr. Trudeau, the only reason that I'm allowed to ask you this question is because today the federal court ruled that the government doesn't have the right to determine who is or is not a journalist.
00:09:48.100 This is the second election in a row that the court had to overturn your government.
00:09:53.200 Do you still insist on being able to make that decision and why?
00:09:56.860 First of all, questions around accreditation were handled by the Press Gallery and the Consortium of Networks who have strong perspectives on quality journalism and the important information that is shared with Canadians.
00:10:14.020 The reality is organizations like yours that continue to spread misinformation and disinformation on the science around vaccines,
00:10:29.020 around how we're going to actually get through this pandemic and be there for each other and keep our kids safe is part of why we're seeing such unfortunate anger and lack of understanding of basic science.
00:10:46.580 And quite frankly, I won't call it a media organization, your group of individuals need to take accountability for some of the polarization that we're seeing in this country.
00:11:01.620 And I think Canadians are cluing into the fact that there is a really important decision we take about the kind of country we want to see.
00:11:10.900 And I salute all extraordinary, hardworking journalists that put science and facts at the heart of what they do and ask me tough questions every day.
00:11:21.000 But make sure that they are educating and informing Canadians from a broad range of perspectives, which is the last thing that you guys do.
00:11:31.600 Trudeau is not prime ministerial. He's petty and partisan. He's so thin-skinned.
00:11:35.640 Listen to how he answered a great question from another reporter of ours who was there, Alexa Lavois.
00:11:40.900 Oh boy, look at this.
00:11:42.900 Bonjour M. Trudeau, Alexa pour Rebelle News.
00:11:45.560 Donc M. Trudeau, je vais revenir rapidement sur ce qui s'est passé hier.
00:11:49.680 Vous avez déabolisé l'un des rares médias qui ne reçoit pas d'argent du gouvernement.
00:11:55.420 Vous avez exprimé votre opinion en disant que nous propageons la désinformation.
00:12:00.940 Si c'était vrai et si c'était le cas, la Cour fédérale ne nous aurait pas permis d'être ici aujourd'hui.
00:12:06.820 Je suis moi-même scientifique et je me base sur les faits.
00:12:11.460 Ma question est la suivante.
00:12:13.760 L'Israël est l'un des pays les plus vaccinés au monde.
00:12:18.080 Ils sont rendus maintenant à leur quatrième rappel de vaccin.
00:12:21.640 Ils ne considèrent plus que ceux qui ont reçu deux doses de vaccin sont pleinement vaccinés.
00:12:26.280 Ma question est, plusieurs Canadiens ne désirent pas avoir un rappel de vaccin.
00:12:36.940 Allez-vous leur enlever leurs privilèges reliés au passeport vaccinal?
00:12:44.900 Et aurez-vous l'obligence de répondre à ma question en tant que premier ministre?
00:12:50.200 Ou allez-vous encore diaboliser mon média?
00:12:52.680 J'ai partagé ma perspective sur ton organisation hier soir.
00:12:58.020 Je n'ai plus rien à dire.
00:12:59.880 Ça demande bien qui vous faisait. Merci.
00:13:02.120 Just hours earlier, the federal court of Canada had said that in fact, yes, we are news media.
00:13:06.520 And yes, we must be accredited as such.
00:13:08.520 But Trudeau refused.
00:13:09.760 He refused to answer us.
00:13:11.580 He thinks he's above the law.
00:13:13.460 He doesn't care about the law except for as a weapon.
00:13:15.540 Twice he censored us now.
00:13:17.140 Twice we've gone to the federal court to appeal.
00:13:19.540 Twice the judges of the federal court have said Trudeau was breaking the law.
00:13:22.580 And violating our rights to freedom of the press.
00:13:25.300 And now we need to go back to court a third time.
00:13:28.920 Let me show you a little bit more from their punishment letter.
00:13:30.960 Then I want to show you more from our lawsuit.
00:13:32.560 You'll see their punishment letter comes on Revenue Canada Stationery.
00:13:36.120 That is terrifying.
00:13:37.120 In the past, Trudeau kept his politics out of the tax department.
00:13:40.720 Not anymore.
00:13:41.320 You now have to take a pro-liberal left-wing point of view to be compliant with the Income Tax Act.
00:13:49.040 Trudeau's censors say,
00:13:51.480 Rebel News does not produce original news content on the basis that the content was found to be largely opinion-based
00:13:58.800 and focused on the promotion of one particular perspective.
00:14:01.720 But the same CRA has granted this QCJO journalism license to hard left-wing National Observer
00:14:09.420 and the left-wing Toronto Star and the left-wing Narwhal and dozens of others.
00:14:14.700 Those are obviously real news sources, sure.
00:14:18.220 But they obviously only approach the news from one point of view, the hard left-wing point of view.
00:14:22.500 And in the case of the National Observer and the Narwhal, they're environmental extremists too. 1.00
00:14:27.300 The Narwhal actually used to be called de-smog blog.
00:14:29.860 They're not balanced.
00:14:31.560 They would never quote a skeptic of the theory of man-made global warming except for to condemn him.
00:14:36.400 They would never mention Donald Trump except to denounce him.
00:14:38.940 So how do they get this CRA designation as licensed journalist?
00:14:43.620 But we don't.
00:14:44.500 So David Suzuki's 40 years of left-wing environmentalist journalism on the CBC, that's fine.
00:14:50.780 But our opinions aren't fine, says the government.
00:14:53.900 And then the government uses that to deny us a journalism license.
00:14:56.900 But it doesn't even make any sense because if we offer an opinion on the news, which we sometimes do,
00:15:03.780 it's obviously based on having shown you the news first.
00:15:07.400 Here's the news.
00:15:08.800 Now here's what we think about the news.
00:15:10.640 I mean, when our reporter Lincoln Jay and our reporter Alexa Lavoie were live streaming for hours from the Ottawa Truckers protest,
00:15:19.080 I mean, sure, they were giving their comments along the way, but it's absurd to declare that 100 hours of news footage isn't still news.
00:15:26.300 Isn't this whole thing absurd?
00:15:28.860 Do I really have to justify our journalistic choices day to day and our opinions and our edits to some government bureaucrat?
00:15:36.380 They're now the deciders of what is real news and what isn't?
00:15:39.600 Our readers can't be the deciders.
00:15:41.820 Trudeau's friends are the deciders now.
00:15:44.520 There's another really weird part to their punishment letter.
00:15:46.840 Any time we give credit to another news organization, which I think is good practice, they claim that means it's not news anymore.
00:15:53.480 Look at this.
00:15:54.380 I mean, here they give a few examples.
00:15:55.900 So seriously, just by crediting someone else for, let's say, breaking a scoop, which is the ethical thing to do when we refer to someone else's previous work,
00:16:05.180 that suddenly means that what we're doing is no longer news?
00:16:09.820 I should say that the vast majority of our journalism is completely original.
00:16:13.100 It's going places and pointing our camera at things.
00:16:15.720 But seriously, they're claiming that when we give the odd shout out to other media, that makes us fake news or something.
00:16:23.000 Literally, every journalist does that or should be doing that.
00:16:25.840 I mean, the Toronto Star, the CBC, they do that from time to time.
00:16:29.060 But that's a reason Trudeau is denying our status.
00:16:32.060 It's in the letter.
00:16:33.280 See for yourself.
00:16:33.820 They even say that when I post short excerpts of my own work, that means we're not news.
00:16:41.040 I'm serious.
00:16:41.820 It's in the letter.
00:16:43.220 Who made up these bizarre rules?
00:16:45.740 Well, we don't know all the members of the secret panel who sat in judgment of Rebel News.
00:16:49.840 But their boss, Colette Brin, who was handpicked by Trudeau for this censorship position,
00:16:55.620 she wrote a report blacklisting us that the CRA just adopted as their own.
00:17:00.600 This is Canada's chief censor.
00:17:01.760 I know you've never heard of her before.
00:17:03.220 No one has.
00:17:04.320 She hasn't been elected.
00:17:05.480 She hasn't been vetted.
00:17:07.540 She's just a trustworthy Trudeau appointee who knows what the boss wants. 1.00
00:17:12.340 This is outrageous, of course.
00:17:13.860 It's un-Canadian, of course. 0.97
00:17:15.500 It's censorship, of course.
00:17:16.600 It's against the Charter of Rights and Freedom.
00:17:18.760 It's a violation of freedom of the press.
00:17:21.460 And the reason I'm worried about it is not because I want Trudeau to like me.
00:17:25.980 It's because I want him to leave me alone and stop punishing independent media and our viewers.
00:17:31.760 Because that's what denying us this QCJO journalism license will do.
00:17:36.660 We're not applying for any government grant, which is a big thing you could get with this QCJO journalism license.
00:17:44.120 We would never take Trudeau's money.
00:17:46.120 We don't work for Trudeau.
00:17:47.320 We work for you, our viewers.
00:17:48.380 But you need one of these journalism licenses to issue a basic receipt to your paying subscribers for them to claim it's an expense on their taxes.
00:17:57.040 So if you have a subscription to the left-wing pro-Trudeau Toronto Star, you can take your receipt and claim that subscription on your taxes because they have the Trudeau-approved journalism license.
00:18:08.120 Our viewers can't do that because Trudeau doesn't think we're real news.
00:18:13.000 So he's punishing us, punishing our viewers.
00:18:15.640 It's an attack on people who have a different point of view than Trudeau using the CRA.
00:18:21.920 And just this week, Trudeau's new censorship minister, Pablo Rodriguez, announced that there will be even more laws censoring the media, especially in the Internet.
00:18:30.640 He says he's going to demand that Facebook and Google now artificially promote Canadian news sites pumping them up in their algorithms, but only those Trudeau-approved media with his journalism license get that promotion.
00:18:47.480 Other media, by default, get pushed down.
00:18:51.280 So it's not just Trudeau who is punishing journalists he doesn't like.
00:18:55.640 He's forcing Facebook and Google to punish his enemies, too.
00:19:00.680 I'll let you read their whole punishment letter for yourself.
00:19:03.020 You really have to read.
00:19:03.840 I just can't get over that one line that claims that we only produce 1% news.
00:19:10.220 You really have to read it to see how extremist these people are.
00:19:14.360 But I want you to take some hope in our lawsuit.
00:19:17.520 And I want you to read it in full.
00:19:18.920 It's only 16 pages long.
00:19:20.280 It's at the website wearesuingtrudeau.com.
00:19:23.740 I'm going to whip through it, okay?
00:19:24.820 You can see we're suing the CRA because they're the ones, bizarrely, put in charge of issuing Trudeau's journalism license.
00:19:32.380 In the first paragraph, we make our demand.
00:19:34.660 Let me read.
00:19:35.020 Rebel News seeks a declaration that the QCJO refusal is unreasonable and unlawful and an order quashing the QCJO refusal.
00:19:44.440 Rebel News also seeks an order directing the Canada Revenue Agency to reverse the QCJO refusal and to designate Rebel News as a qualified Canadian journalism organization pursuant to the Income Tax Act.
00:19:55.040 That's how we put it to the federal court when we were banned by Trudeau from attending the election debates.
00:20:01.920 Now, we point out that Trudeau is one of the worst censors we've ever met so far in the world.
00:20:07.160 Let me read.
00:20:08.140 Rebel News has been granted media accreditation by governments in Canada, the United States, both the White House and Congress, United Kingdom, European Union, Sweden, Netherlands, Israel, Poland, and India.
00:20:20.160 Rebel News has also been granted accreditation in partly free countries, such as Iraq and Morocco.
00:20:26.920 Rebel News has also approved media at the United Kingdom Court of Appeal and the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court, amongst others.
00:20:33.920 So this is a Trudeau obsession.
00:20:35.480 The rest of the world's fine with that.
00:20:37.380 Let me show you paragraph 15 of the lawsuit.
00:20:39.280 We asked to talk to these censors, to give them any info, to answer any questions they might have.
00:20:44.780 They refused.
00:20:45.720 It was all done in secret.
00:20:46.900 Let me quote.
00:20:47.520 Rebel News then followed up with CRA on its QCJO application numerous times between August 8, 2021 and November 10, 2021.
00:20:56.620 On November 10, 2021, Rebel News was advised that its QCJO application had been reassigned to other CRA staff.
00:21:04.460 Rebel News made multiple offers during this period to discuss its application with CRA staff.
00:21:10.120 Upon further follow-up by Rebel News, CRA advised on January 26, 2022, and February 22, 2022, that the QCJO application was still being reviewed and discussed internally.
00:21:22.980 But that's a lie by Trudeau, actually.
00:21:25.460 As you can see, they had already blacklisted us before then.
00:21:31.640 Look at the date on the letter.
00:21:32.840 The punishment letter was dated before.
00:21:34.040 They lied to us by pretending they were undecided.
00:21:37.660 Look, the fix was in from the beginning, but they can't even get their story straight.
00:21:41.420 Now, our lawsuit talks about how rigorously we take our journalism here, our fact-checking and our editing.
00:21:46.880 But look at this.
00:21:47.600 I think it's right.
00:21:49.400 Rebel News is generally critical of government action or inaction and has a mission statement to, quote, tell the other side of the story.
00:21:56.320 Rebel News is akin to an official opposition to legacy media and government narratives as a counterweight to the dominant point of view.
00:22:05.040 Rebel News is one of the few Canadian media outlets having the power, freedom, and will to meaningfully challenge government figures and policies in the political views presented in Canada's legacy media.
00:22:14.900 So when Trudeau's censorship panel says we take a particular point of view, well, I don't know, maybe we do sometimes like most humans do.
00:22:22.400 But it's just that they hate our point of view because it's independent.
00:22:26.580 And by the way, we don't just scorch Trudeau liberals.
00:22:28.820 Ask Doug Ford and Jason Kenney, the alleged conservatives, how we treat them.
00:22:34.140 I'll read more.
00:22:34.740 Rebel News seeks to set aside assumptions and prejudices and to find facts that are overlooked or ignored by mainstream media.
00:22:42.120 Rebel News is a frequent critic of Canada's federal and provincial governments, and in particular of the governments of Alberta, Ontario, and the government of Canada, including their respective premiers and prime minister.
00:22:53.360 I love this line.
00:22:54.880 Rebel News is a member of the Independent Press Gallery of Canada.
00:22:58.260 Rebel News has become a well-known media organization which is accessible to Canadians and uses its platform to not only share news stories, but to report on entities to defend civil liberties and hold those entities accountable.
00:23:09.960 Rebel News takes the independence of the press seriously.
00:23:13.540 Exactly.
00:23:14.080 Show me another news company in Canada that cares as much about civil liberties as we do.
00:23:18.100 There are none.
00:23:19.140 Nish.
00:23:21.360 Rebel News does not promote a particular perspective any more than many other outlets that have previously received the QCJO designation.
00:23:29.100 It seeks to tell another side of a story regardless of the perspective that side may have.
00:23:33.400 Sometimes that results in a conservative law and order-oriented story, while other times the story is about overreach or selective enforcement by authorities, both being the other side of stories not being pursued by mainstream media.
00:23:46.520 To do this, Rebel News seeks multiple perspectives and grants opportunities for rebuttal or to simply comment on the story, both of which allow Rebel News to present alternative perspectives as set out in the guidelines.
00:23:57.960 That's true, isn't it?
00:23:58.720 I think that's true.
00:24:00.580 Okay, let me show you just one more part of the lawsuit.
00:24:02.500 But please do read it for yourself in full at WeAreSuingTrudeau.com.
00:24:07.820 Okay, this is the last part I'll quote.
00:24:09.800 Look at paragraph 36.
00:24:11.680 We're demanding to look at all the records by Trudeau's censors, everything they looked at to make their censorship decision, their briefing notes, their research, their analysis, their conversations with politicians and the politician's staff, their draft reports, everything.
00:24:27.620 What was this secret committee doing?
00:24:30.160 Who was whispering in their ears?
00:24:32.000 Was Gerald Butz involved again?
00:24:34.700 So that's our lawsuit.
00:24:36.260 In the last page there, you can see we've hired two outstanding lawyers, Robert Hawks, Queen's Counsel, and Sarah Miller, the top gun lawyer who's been fighting for Pastor Arthur Pawlowski, because this is a brutal battle against censorship.
00:24:51.280 Trudeau really does want to stamp us out.
00:24:53.680 Look, we don't want any of Trudeau's money.
00:24:56.440 We want our freedom and our independence.
00:24:59.380 His journalism license is un-Canadian.
00:25:02.540 And denying that license to us has the effect of censoring us, not just banning us from press conferences, which is bad enough, but also denying us equal treatment under the Income Tax Act, and forcing Google and Facebook to censor us too.
00:25:15.600 We have to fight back, we have to take them to the federal court where we have beat Trudeau's censors twice in a row now.
00:25:23.900 Please go to WeAreSuingTrudeau.com, read their punishment letter denying us the journalism license.
00:25:32.300 Read our lawsuit in reply.
00:25:35.680 Sign our petition to have the government drop this bizarre and un-Canadian journalism license.
00:25:44.020 Sign the petition against journalism licenses.
00:25:46.080 And one last thing, if you can, please help us cover our legal costs.
00:25:50.020 Please do.
00:25:51.460 You can do that right there on the page.
00:25:53.000 This is an important fight.
00:25:56.020 Thanks for your support.
00:25:56.920 You know, we're fighting for our own rights here, obviously.
00:25:58.440 We're fighting for our viewers' rights, obviously.
00:26:01.300 But I really believe we're fighting for all Canadians who care about freedom in the press and stopping Trudeau's censorship plans.
00:26:07.840 Please go to WeAreSuingTrudeau.com.
00:26:10.080 Thanks.
00:26:16.080 Well, that's a heavy-duty battle.
00:26:26.420 I really think Trudeau's obsessed with us.
00:26:30.160 I think the reason he's obsessed with us has to do with that Ash conformity test.
00:26:36.060 As long as there's one other voice in the country saying Trudeau's wrong, you're not crazy, he is, that inspires people.
00:26:42.640 That's why the truckers were so successful, is that the truckers were proof to millions of Canadians they weren't alone in saying we're in a terrible place.
00:26:52.940 And that's why Trudeau doesn't just need 99% of media on his side.
00:26:59.080 That last 1% is the most important 1% to get rid of. 1.00
00:27:02.780 I'm not going down without a fight.
00:27:06.440 And neither is my friend, our chief reporter, Sheila Gunn-Reed, who this week has shown the importance of Rebel News and telling the other side of the story and being counter to the official government narrative.
00:27:17.800 She joins me now via Skype from her headquarters in Edmonton.
00:27:23.520 Sheila, how are you doing?
00:27:24.660 I'm great, boss.
00:27:25.460 Thanks for having me on the show.
00:27:26.960 Well, I love Twitter too much, a little bit of an addict.
00:27:29.960 I'm even more excited about it since Elon Musk joined the board.
00:27:33.200 But I've been following on Twitter your close coverage of a trial in which Dina Hinshaw, Alberta's public health officer, is being grilled at great length on her decisions.
00:27:47.700 I think this is the first time in Canada, and maybe it's the first time in America, because I don't recall seeing it, that a public health officer under oath is being grilled not just for hours, but for days about her decisions.
00:28:00.700 I do dare say this is the first time I've seen it.
00:28:04.120 Tell me about the trial a little bit and who's there, who's who in the zoo, and what you've heard so far.
00:28:08.380 Sure. So this is a trial on behalf, it's a lawsuit, really, on behalf of two churches in southern Alberta in Medicine Hat, and then a gym owner, and then another person.
00:28:21.980 And they are suing not only the Alberta government, but also the chief medical officer of health, who happens to be Dina Hinshaw, for violating their charter rights with these constant edicts and restrictions on their businesses and places of worship.
00:28:36.960 And we're at the portion of the lawsuit wherein Dina Hinshaw is being cross-examined on her evidence, and we've got two lawyers from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, and we've got Jeffrey Rath, he's another lawyer who's representing a gym owner in this.
00:28:54.400 And they are meticulously cross-examined on her evidence, and they sat down, and they, God bless these men, went through 400 separate Dina Hinshaw press conferences.
00:29:10.960 Because early in the pandemic, she said the only place to find reliable information about the pandemic was basically Alberta Health Services and other official government agencies, the World Health Organization, and otherwise you were spreading misinformation.
00:29:27.840 And she called people at the time who did not buy into the official government narrative with regard to COVID and vaccines and lockdowns, naysayers, conspiracy theorists.
00:29:40.140 And my favourite term that she used was non-believers and unbelievers, as though this is some sort of religious cult, and based on the rituals I see from that side of the aisle, I'm willing to hear those arguments. 0.63
00:29:53.900 And they went through her press conferences, and they pointed out, okay, well, you told people to be wary of misinformation.
00:30:02.640 Okay, yep, you did. Next day, you told people that vaccines were 80% effective upon the first dose.
00:30:11.620 And, you know, they just went through all the misinformation that she had been sharing in her daily press conferences,
00:30:18.040 while she had been accusing other people of misinformation.
00:30:22.740 And really, you know, she behaves completely the same way that we see as Albertans when she takes to the podium to give her daily and now weekly press conferences. 0.99
00:30:33.780 Basically, you know, that same cloying, condescending way that she talks to Albertans, that we're all in this together, we have to take care of each other.
00:30:42.360 And she's excusing away the misinformation she spread, and the overreaction of the government by saying, well, that's just the information that we had at the time available, so this is what we did.
00:30:54.380 And she has used the phrase sparingly and sparsely several times in court to describe the edicts that she brought down that did such terrible things as limit people's churches to 15% capacity,
00:31:09.440 to funerals, regardless of the size of the church, to just 10 people, to closed restaurants, to indoor dining.
00:31:18.320 She calls that sparingly and sparsely.
00:31:20.880 Yeah. You know, everyone just played a giant game of Simon Says, or I guess Anthony Fauci Says, and they just all repeated each other.
00:31:32.800 And I'd like to point out that Scott Gottlieb, the former FDA commissioner who now works as a Pfizer executive, he said something astonishing.
00:31:44.120 And this is a former FDA commissioner.
00:31:46.060 He said, no one knows where the six feet separation came from.
00:31:50.880 There was no study.
00:31:52.440 It just, someone said it, and everyone repeated it.
00:31:56.560 And six feet, in other countries, it's two meters, which is slightly different.
00:32:00.360 In some places, it's one meter.
00:32:02.360 I saw some explanation somewhere that, well, two meters is safer than one meter, so let's do two meters.
00:32:07.780 I saw a case somewhere where regulators came in with tape measures.
00:32:12.800 And if something was an inch less than six feet, well, science says that one inch is putting you in peril.
00:32:18.040 There was the separation of two different barbershop chairs.
00:32:21.780 And that whole fake public health theater, no one knows where the rumor came from.
00:32:30.880 It's like, I don't know, like a ghost story or an internet myth.
00:32:34.920 And to see Scott Gottlieb said, yeah, no one knows where that came from.
00:32:39.340 And to see people like Dina Hinshaw be so, I mean, talk about a believer.
00:32:45.840 She's the zealot who was acting like the one going based on faith rather than science.
00:32:52.740 Yeah, I mean, and just complete nonsense.
00:32:57.740 At one point, she was asked, basically, what happened to all the instances of flu?
00:33:05.560 She was cross-examined on her evidence, and I believe it was Leighton Gray with the Justice Center.
00:33:11.240 He said, you reported on, I think it was April 9th, actually, 2021.
00:33:17.880 You got up in your daily press conference and said, great news, we made it through flu season of 4.5 million Albertans, by the way, without a single reported instance of influenza.
00:33:32.320 And she said, yes.
00:33:34.280 And he said, have you ever seen anything like that ever happened before?
00:33:39.240 She said, no.
00:33:40.460 And he said, are you telling me that influenza was eradicated in Alberta?
00:33:50.920 And she said, yes, that is my opinion.
00:33:53.820 And he asked her, why?
00:33:55.460 How could you make this outlandish declaration, basically?
00:33:58.460 And she said, well, it's because the flu responded to the restrictions that we were making on your home, on your life, how far you had to stay away from each other, forcing masks onto your kids, the hypochondriac handwashing before you come into a grocery store, following the arrows, I guess, on the floor.
00:34:18.720 She said the flu responded to those things, but not the disease that was designed to respond to those things.
00:34:27.540 Unbelievable.
00:34:28.560 Now, you know, I like to quote the Coen Brothers film, True Grit, which is a great remake of that movie.
00:34:34.880 I highly recommend it.
00:34:36.300 And there's this one scene where a bad guy says, I don't need a good lawyer.
00:34:41.060 He's a bandit.
00:34:41.780 He says, I don't need a good lawyer.
00:34:43.600 I need a good judge.
00:34:45.460 And I know that in Alberta, there are some atrocious judges.
00:34:49.060 I know that because one of them named Adam Germain was so bizarre in his ruling of Arthur Pawlowski.
00:34:55.980 He absolutely, obviously, lives in terror, this judge, Adam Germain, of COVID, because he says, everyone in the province knows someone who has died.
00:35:05.440 We must and you must read this statement saying you are a believer in COVID-19.
00:35:11.700 It was such a crazy judge who obviously wasn't, in fact, who acknowledged he hadn't read, even bothered to read Arthur Pawlowski's lawyer's documents.
00:35:21.160 Shocking, shocking, shocking.
00:35:22.280 Arthur Pawlowski had one of the best lawyers in the province, but it doesn't matter if you've got a crummy judge who is personally terrified of COVID, was too lazy to read the documents, and just hated the cut of Pawlowski's jib.
00:35:36.840 The fact that Adam Germain is a former liberal candidate, I think probably had something to do with it, too.
00:35:41.320 So here's my question for you.
00:35:43.240 How is the judge handling things?
00:35:44.940 I mean, judges sometimes are inscrutable.
00:35:46.720 How is, who's the judge and what's he or she saying and doing?
00:35:51.980 I just was looking for the name of the judge because I have, oh, Justice Ann Kirker.
00:35:58.900 No, yes.
00:36:00.280 No, that was in a prior case.
00:36:02.160 Just, sorry, Justice Barbara Romain is the one presiding over this hearing.
00:36:06.000 And in my opinion, and I've watched a ton of these court cases, she is taking her job very seriously.
00:36:13.760 But there are points at which, where she seems to be objective before health services lawyers do.
00:36:19.800 So that makes me kind of anxious because you can see that she is sort of losing patience with Rath, Jeffrey Rath, and with Leighton Gray, as they are doing their best to try to get answers out of Dina Hinshaw.
00:36:36.920 And she doesn't really seem to be giving a lot of those.
00:36:39.060 And before Alberta Health Services lawyers can launch an objection, she's stopping and asking them to, you know, you've asked this, she's answered, move on.
00:36:50.260 So there's a lot of that happening.
00:36:51.680 And that makes me very nervous for how this is going to go.
00:36:54.740 Today, court broke for the afternoon because some questions were posed to Dina Hinshaw that could be covered under cabinet confidentiality. 0.99
00:37:06.080 Confidentiality.
00:37:06.600 Let me try to say that again, where lawyers want to know what she advised cabinet to do.
00:37:16.100 And did they do more, really, than what she asked them to do?
00:37:20.320 Who's the overreacting one here?
00:37:22.400 Was it her or was it cabinet?
00:37:24.300 Yeah.
00:37:24.720 And the judge said that she will ask those questions of Hinshaw in private and then make a decision on whether or not those answers are relevant to the case.
00:37:35.040 So that's where we're at today.
00:37:36.460 And it sounds like what should have been, you know, a couple of days of cross-examination.
00:37:41.520 Now it's going to bleed into four, five, maybe six days.
00:37:45.920 Alberta Health Services lawyers haven't even asked anything on direct yet.
00:37:50.380 We're not even there yet.
00:37:51.320 And this was supposed to be three days.
00:37:53.420 Wow.
00:37:53.820 This is a massive lawsuit.
00:37:55.200 I'm so proud of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms for championing it.
00:37:59.220 And it's just such an aching reminder of the absence of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association or any other.
00:38:06.040 I mean, this is actually, it sounds unique in all of North America.
00:38:08.840 I may be missing some case in the United States.
00:38:10.980 Imagine if every public health tyrant, and I call him a tyrant in the old Latin meaning of that sense, is an emergency dictator who's not bound by the legislatures.
00:38:23.140 As RFK Jr. told our Democracy Fund town hall the other day, and he's a real liberal, when there's a regulation, there has to be a public hearing and a public consultation.
00:38:32.380 And there has to be the cost-benefit analysis, and what are the side effects of this?
00:38:37.580 None of that.
00:38:39.040 None of that.
00:38:39.880 Like I say, Scott Gottlieb said someone just made up the six-foot thing, and everyone said six feet, six feet, like they were a bunch of pigeons or seagulls.
00:38:48.820 Me, me, me, six feet, six feet, six feet.
00:38:52.200 And Dina Hinshaw is a tyrant. 1.00
00:38:55.300 I'm not saying she's tyrannical in her personality. 0.96
00:38:57.680 In fact, she's a very low-energy, sort of pitiful personality. 0.96
00:39:01.340 But those are the worst tyrants because they're deceptive.
00:39:06.320 And I congratulate the plaintiffs and the lawyers for doing this.
00:39:10.900 If only every one of these TV tyrants, these MD tyrants had been subjected to this grilling. 1.00
00:39:18.260 To make them think about these things for the first time in their lives, to challenge them for the basis they have, we need this kind of a truth and reconciliation post-mortem.
00:39:27.700 And we will not get that.
00:39:28.780 I can assure you that whatever commissions of inquiry are struck, if they even are, I mean, who would you even trust to put on an independent commission of inquiry?
00:39:40.100 Who doesn't have their own hands in what's happened over the last year?
00:39:45.660 What politician, governor or opposition, what judge, what college of physicians?
00:39:51.180 Like, is there a single person of authority in this country who is not complicit?
00:39:56.260 I don't even know who I would trust to have some sort of inquiry.
00:40:00.220 And this sounds like it may well be the only time we have some accountability questions.
00:40:04.760 And it seems like the judge is doing her best to block for the witness.
00:40:08.640 And the witness doesn't have much to say.
00:40:10.960 Yeah, this is as close as I think we are going to get to holding any one of these public health officials to account.
00:40:18.320 Because at the beginning of the pandemic, Dina Hinshaw, she got a raise.
00:40:22.580 We can hold the politicians who listened to her to account.
00:40:26.200 But she will continue, whether she's a success or an absolute failure, continue to make at least two times what the premier of Alberta makes. 0.99
00:40:36.700 She's one of the highest paid bureaucrats in the province. 1.00
00:40:39.500 And this is the only time that she will be held account and made to answer for her decisions.
00:40:45.820 And, you know, she's being pressed on.
00:40:47.600 What did you consider?
00:40:48.680 Did you consider the bankruptcies that would result from these things?
00:40:53.180 Did you consider that you would drive people to suicide?
00:40:57.100 Did you consider that this spike in opioid deaths is related to the lockdown and serve?
00:41:04.500 You know, she's being asked those sorts of questions.
00:41:06.260 And I'm not even sure if she's ever actually even thought about this stuff before when she was making her edicts.
00:41:12.120 What it meant to sign your name to the bottom of the court paper that closed Grace Life Church and drove hundreds of Christians underground.
00:41:21.580 I don't think she's ever even thought about it.
00:41:24.000 Yeah.
00:41:24.440 You know, I remember when Dina Hinshaw got up there at a press conference and claimed that a teenager, a child of young years, had died from COVID.
00:41:32.640 And that was a very important argument for her because it was an attempt to say, no, no, no.
00:41:37.600 This disease is of great risk to everyone.
00:41:40.060 Not just old people, fat people, sick people. 1.00
00:41:42.660 No, no, no.
00:41:43.260 We must keep schools closed.
00:41:45.060 We must put masks on kids.
00:41:46.740 And it turned out to be a damnable lie.
00:41:48.840 And the only reason we learned it was a lie is because the family said, do not step on our child's dead body for your politics.
00:41:55.560 Our child died of cancer.
00:41:58.020 You political profiteer.
00:42:00.520 That is a satanic thing to do, to use the death of a child for your own political career.
00:42:05.640 I'll never forget or forgive Dr. Dina Hinshaw for using a dead child to promote her political career. 0.98
00:42:11.820 She's a disgrace. 1.00
00:42:12.720 And we'll take that to her death. 0.64
00:42:14.240 You know, it's even worse than that.
00:42:16.860 That actually was touched upon by the lawyers in court.
00:42:19.880 And the implication was that she would use, this is what the lawyers are arguing, she would use the deaths of these children before a vaccine rollout for that demographic, for that age group. 0.65
00:42:33.380 So before they rolled out the vaccine for kids under the age of 18, she brought up this 14-year-old who she said had died of COVID instead of with COVID.
00:42:43.760 By the way, it sounds like that young man got COVID while he was in hospital.
00:42:48.500 So from the system, he got COVID.
00:42:51.520 The second time she did this was when she did a public announcement of a child under the age of two that died of COVID.
00:42:58.280 And this sort of, the lawyers pointed out, this coincides with when they made vaccines available for kids under the age of 11.
00:43:05.300 So this announcement was sort of made to, as the lawyers said, terrorize parents into getting their kids vaccinated.
00:43:13.160 And she, Dina Hinshaw, did not have the permission of the family to release information about the death of that 14-year-old boy.
00:43:21.180 She said she removed enough identifying details from the case to make it difficult for people to know who the kid was, but the parents sure knew.
00:43:32.480 And the only time that they ever, you know, sort of reassessed why the young man died was when the family gave her the business end of a phone call.
00:43:42.300 Otherwise, that would have just hung out there in the public ethos that this was a death of a young child due to COVID when it was brain cancer.
00:43:51.180 Yeah, Dina Hinshaw is guilty of Jeffrey Epstein levels of evil. 1.00
00:43:56.460 I mean, imagine taking dead children and turning them into press releases to sell pharma.
00:44:03.600 That is so satanically gross.
00:44:07.200 And I will predict right now that she will win this lawsuit. 0.98
00:44:12.700 I'm glad you're covering it, Sheila.
00:44:14.920 It continues.
00:44:16.420 It sounds like it'll continue for quite a while.
00:44:18.940 I encourage our viewers to follow your Twitter account.
00:44:21.640 Which I love to do because you're really live tweeting it.
00:44:24.620 So it's a really excellent way to follow.
00:44:26.320 I feel like I've, I mean, I haven't read everything you've done on it, but I feel like I'm really up to speed with it.
00:44:30.420 So thanks for doing that.
00:44:32.080 And I'm just, just to hear this.
00:44:35.460 And it's that lameness, that, oh, I don't know, that low energy, low accountability.
00:44:42.900 Oh, well, yeah.
00:44:44.160 I mean, the lives she destroyed.
00:44:48.320 The rights she violated.
00:44:51.640 The people she lied about.
00:44:54.200 The fact that she still holds office redounds to Jason Kenney's eternal disgrace as well, I should tell you.
00:45:02.520 Yeah, and, you know, I hear from a lot of people, you know, like, sort of try to keep your commentary out of the court's live tweeting.
00:45:11.840 And I do.
00:45:12.380 I try to put my commentary in brackets.
00:45:14.020 But I think people should remember that we have been in the meat grinder of Dina Hinshaw's edicts for two years. 0.71
00:45:24.220 And when I say we, I mean, as journalists, we are the ones on the scene, not always affected by the lockdown because we're journalists and, you know, we didn't lose our jobs because of it.
00:45:34.980 But we are the ones telling the stories of the people who are being so grievously harmed by these edicts that she makes from a desk in Edmonton.
00:45:44.220 She doesn't have to talk to Tim Stephens' family or Art Poloski's family or Ms. Ingram.
00:45:51.200 I know her from Calgary.
00:45:52.840 She's a gym owner, a single mom whose life was actually completely destroyed by these edicts. 0.77
00:45:58.220 She doesn't know Chris Scott or his employees or any number of the people who go to Grace Life Church who were forced underground because of her edicts.
00:46:08.240 So, when we're covering this, it's hard to keep your opinions to yourself because, boy, I've got a ton of them because I've talked to enough people harmed by Dina Hinshaw.
00:46:17.060 Yeah.
00:46:17.820 All right, Sheila, thanks for the great work.
00:46:19.500 I appreciate it.
00:46:20.600 You got it, boss.
00:46:21.660 There you have it, Sheila Gunn-Reed, our chief reporter in the company and our bureau chief in Alberta.
00:46:27.760 Stay with us.
00:46:28.800 Your letters to me next.
00:46:30.060 Thank you.
00:46:38.240 Hey, welcome back.
00:46:42.760 Your viewer feedback, Dave Edd, says,
00:46:44.700 Ever since Noam Chomsky showed his true colors with his wicked comments about starving the I'm Vax, I could not care less about what he believes or thinks.
00:46:52.740 His true worries are about his personal clock running out.
00:46:55.740 He spent his life talking to others about problems and never fixed any himself.
00:46:59.540 You know, I mean, I guess I hadn't followed him a lot since I interviewed him seven years ago.
00:47:05.020 I'll be honest, I actually hadn't followed him since then.
00:47:10.100 And I was talking to him about his, you know, media concentration stuff and his views on Israel or whatever.
00:47:16.960 So I appreciate you bringing, emphasizing his bizarre comments about the unvaxxed.
00:47:23.100 Yeah, I think he's lost his moral compass.
00:47:25.500 Michael Stevenson says manufacturing consent was the playbook for lockdowns.
00:47:30.700 Well, and, you know, if you thought media control was a problem, you know, 50 years ago, imagine it in the age of digital control where you can just censor the algorithm.
00:47:42.960 Albert Finnan says, Hey, Rebel News, why don't you have Gab.com on your share side?
00:47:48.580 They believe in free speech.
00:47:49.680 I can't recall if we have a Gab account.
00:47:51.560 I apologize.
00:47:52.040 We have so many different social media companies, YouTube, Rumble, Twitter, Super U, Odyssey, Getter, Parler.
00:48:00.800 I just can't remember if we have Gab.
00:48:03.340 My friends, that's our show for today.
00:48:05.940 Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.
00:48:10.920 Keep fighting for freedom.
00:48:11.720 And let me leave you with a video of the day from Sidney Fizard.
00:48:14.260 A pastor ticketed over $17,000 after battling the Quarantine Act.
00:48:21.800 I'll leave you on that.
00:48:22.620 Bye-bye.
00:48:23.380 When churches were no longer able to gather thanks to COVID health orders in Manitoba, one pastor stood above the rest in defiance.
00:48:31.280 Now Quarantine Tickets, Pastor Tobias Thyssen fights on.
00:48:34.540 Over a year ago, he defied COVID emergency orders by attending protests against said COVID emergency orders,
00:48:40.580 and more grievously, for practicing his religion.
00:48:43.400 This was seen by the state as a defying public gathering limits of no greater than five.
00:48:48.240 Tobias was fined thousands for this alone.
00:48:50.480 Group gatherings of over five people are restricted, and that means there's a rule against that, so don't do it.
00:48:56.680 The Church of God, which Pastor Tobias belongs to, was also fined $5,000 for hosting in-person church service.
00:49:02.980 And after a battle with RCMP over parking lot access, they were later fined for drive-in church services as well.
00:49:09.380 Both forms of worship were considered illegal at that time.
00:49:12.000 Tickets and non-compliance continued until months later when a warrant for six individuals for multiple breaches of so-called public health and safety measures ensued.
00:49:22.340 Over a period of months, and after the issuance of multiple tickets and repeated attempts to educate,
00:49:27.020 members of the Public Safety Investigations Unit obtained warrants of arrest for six individuals.
00:49:31.600 They stem from breaches of the public health orders.
00:49:34.240 Pastor Tobias was one of those individuals, and we caught up with him while the warrant was active to hear his side of the story.
00:49:41.140 He continued hosting church services despite the warrant and stated that authorities would have to arrest him at the church,
00:49:47.120 where he continued to present himself during church services.
00:49:50.480 While this warrant was active, Pastor Tobias faced what he would call Gestapo tactics,
00:49:55.580 much like his family had fled Europe from in years past.
00:49:58.160 I've had ancestors in Russia that were being persecuted for their faith.
00:50:05.680 They would be, the Christian leaders would be picked up at church, taken to the police station, 0.71
00:50:12.060 and said, this is the fine, you're not leaving here until you paid.
00:50:16.640 And then from there it got worse to where they got arrested, and in a lot of cases killed.
00:50:21.980 His church also now faced a potential $1 million fine.
00:50:26.040 Pastor Tobias continued on without being arrested until October 18th,
00:50:30.600 when the RCMP arrested him in front of his crying children,
00:50:34.040 as opposed to the church where he had frequently presented himself for arrest.
00:50:37.700 Where are we going now?
00:50:39.740 He was let free around 45 hours later after signing conditions for his release,
00:50:45.060 and our chief videographer, Mocha, was quickly on scene to hear from the church.
00:50:49.520 We later caught up with Pastor Tobias himself to find out what conditions he had to sign in order to be released,
00:50:54.680 along with his expectations moving forward.
00:50:57.380 While I'm not allowed to incite or organize or invite anybody to a gathering that is in contravention of COVID-19,
00:51:07.880 it goes on to say, to clarify, this does not affect his ability to perform regular religious services
00:51:16.620 and perform his duties as a pastor.
00:51:19.920 Even after resolving the matter of his warrant, authorities continued to harass his family.
00:51:24.000 Pastor Tobias called them out for these tactics and set up meeting with police,
00:51:28.180 at which time he was given over $17,000 in fines for hosting church services in violation of the Quarantine Act.
00:51:34.820 So you didn't quarantine then when you came in?
00:51:37.820 As Pastor Tobias has stated previously,
00:51:40.380 he and the church hold the understanding that these health orders are in violation of our fundamental freedoms here in Canada.
00:51:46.240 Joining us today is Pastor Tobias to talk about this latest wave of tickets
00:51:49.900 that were brought on because of the way he practices his faith,
00:51:53.500 and it's so being deemed illegal by the state under the Quarantine Act.
00:51:58.080 Been through a lot, I guess, in the last two years.
00:52:01.820 And of course, many of you have seen previous coverage from Rebel News
00:52:06.240 for all the stuff we've been through as far as fines and arrest.
00:52:11.500 All right, so Tobias, can you step out of the car?
00:52:14.260 You're under arrest. You have an outstanding warrant for your arrest, okay?
00:52:17.540 And, you know, fines have kept coming all the way up to this year so far.
00:52:22.720 As far as them targeting us for keeping on gathering as a church,
00:52:27.900 that has stopped, and we're very thankful for that.
00:52:31.420 We've been able to gather peacefully since June of last year,
00:52:35.520 and we consider that as a win for us at this point
00:52:41.760 because it's obviously better to be able to gather peacefully
00:52:47.140 instead of having or knowing that you're being surveilled
00:52:51.440 and they're trying to see if there's more charges coming and all that.
00:52:55.620 So we're very thankful for that.
00:52:58.100 Especially considering in the beginning of the pandemic
00:53:00.700 when you weren't even allowed to have church services within your parking lot
00:53:04.480 with the windows up.
00:53:06.180 Being alone at home and watching a virtual service does not replace worship.
00:53:11.500 Right. It's definitely a good break, but you know what?
00:53:15.000 God has used this to strengthen us
00:53:18.160 and has helped us through this all amazingly.
00:53:24.620 And praise be to Him for how He has helped us through all this.
00:53:29.400 Many people expect, and there's rumor of another wave that's coming along
00:53:33.080 or in the fall, they might try and reimpose a lot of these restrictions.
00:53:36.340 Are you still concerned moving forward?
00:53:38.340 At this point, nothing will surprise me.
00:53:41.500 You know, they have never in these last two years,
00:53:45.140 they have not lifted the restrictions as far as they have up till now.
00:53:49.780 But, you know, nothing would surprise me
00:53:52.540 because they've done the yo-yo thing with all of us for so long now.
00:53:57.160 Never they've lifted things as much as now,
00:54:00.040 but they have eased and then they've restricted.
00:54:03.440 And, you know, we don't have any say over that.
00:54:06.900 We don't have control over that.
00:54:08.380 And so I feel like what I'm going to do is,
00:54:12.200 with God's help, I'm going to recharge now
00:54:15.140 and get strengthened.
00:54:17.980 And I'm sure there's more ahead of us.
00:54:21.180 Right now, the Democracy Fund is lending a helping hand
00:54:23.640 with some of the tickets for the legal end of things.
00:54:25.920 What is the Democracy Fund helping you with right now?
00:54:27.880 So right now, they're helping me with my latest two tickets
00:54:32.240 that I received in December, or was it beginning of January.
00:54:37.360 And that was regards to some traveling I did for religious reasons.
00:54:43.120 I went to a conference in Mexico,
00:54:49.040 and I had a religious exemption.
00:54:53.400 And when I came home, you know,
00:54:57.020 my responsibility is to help with leading services
00:55:02.180 and be there, you know,
00:55:05.500 and they obviously don't recognize that as essential.
00:55:09.520 And so there were some tickets that came through that,
00:55:12.280 which the Democracy Fund is helping me fight.
00:55:14.540 As was mentioned, Pastor DeBias is being helped
00:55:17.100 with his quarantine tickets through the help of the Democracy Fund,
00:55:19.900 who retained lawyer Sarah Miller to help with these tickets.
00:55:22.900 Here's what she had to say about the situation.
00:55:24.760 Those tickets are quite expensive,
00:55:27.680 over $8,000 a piece.
00:55:30.380 And the Crown is prosecuting him,
00:55:32.920 and we're currently seeking either some sort of early resolution
00:55:37.020 or something that seems reasonable in light of the circumstances.
00:55:40.780 So we've entered a non-guilty pleas.
00:55:43.400 We've requested disclosure just last week.
00:55:46.260 We received disclosure,
00:55:47.420 and we're now in correspondence with the Crown
00:55:49.580 to see what we can do as for next days.
00:55:52.180 I appreciate you guys sticking to the end.
00:55:53.800 And if you want to help Pastor DeBias and his legal defense,
00:55:56.280 you can go to fightthefines.com.
00:55:58.940 Donations there go directly to his legal defense,
00:56:01.320 and they would also qualify you for a charitable tax receipt.
00:56:04.060 I want to thank you guys for tuning in.
00:56:05.380 For Rebel News, I'm Sidney Vizar.
00:56:06.720 We'll see you next time.