Rebel News Podcast - EZRA LEVANT： What would the legal consequences be if Tamara Lich were a left-wing activist？ A new case in B.C. may set that precedent.

00:00:00.000 Hello, my Rebels. Today, I compare the news coverage and the court case against some mischief-making occupiers in B.C. to how the truckers were treated in Ottawa.

00:00:13.240 You're not going to believe the difference. Actually, I think you will.

00:00:17.040 Hey, before we get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.

00:00:21.000 It's a video version of this podcast.

00:00:22.480 We put a lot of effort into the video side, and although it's $8 a month, I think it's pretty reasonable because we give you new content every day.

00:00:32.640 Plus, I've got to tell you, that's how we survive here at Rebel News.

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00:00:45.920 Thanks a million.

00:00:47.360 All right, here's today's show.

00:00:52.480 Tonight, what would the legal consequences be if Tamara Leach were a left-wing activist? 1.00

00:01:09.540 Well, a new case in B.C. tells us.

00:01:12.600 It's December 9th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:14.760 You're fighting for freedom!

00:01:18.020 Shame on you, you censorious bug!

00:01:22.480 This iconic image of justice is called Lady Justice, typically holding a set of scales, symbolizing weighing both sides of a case, 1.00

00:01:39.940 and a sword, symbolizing her swift and sure verdict.

00:01:44.400 This image is taken from a statue from the Court of Final Appeal in Hong Kong.

00:01:50.380 Now, obviously, that symbol is no longer fitting since justice in Hong Kong is no longer blind.

00:01:56.680 It looks to see what the Communist Party in Beijing is telling it to do, and it doesn't.

00:02:01.460 So obviously, that's from the before times.

00:02:03.620 This is all very sad, and I say again, it is a disgrace that Canada's former Chief Justice, Beverly McLaughlin,

00:02:10.140 sits on their high court whitewashing China's dictatorship.

00:02:13.900 That's super gross.

00:02:14.920 But that's just an example of that Lady Justice statue. 1.00

00:02:18.760 Here's another court, one that I have actually visited many times.

00:02:22.560 It's called the Old Bailey, which is the nickname for the central criminal courts in London, England.

00:02:28.160 I don't think I ever noticed this statue before, because it's way up top on the roof.

00:02:34.220 It's a golden statue of Lady Justice, but this version, for whatever reason, does not have a blindfold on,

00:02:42.140 which is fitting.

00:02:43.140 I attended the Old Bailey so many times because that was where Tommy Robinson's case was often heard,

00:02:50.180 the case of contempt of court against him.

00:02:53.000 As you may remember, Tommy had engaged in citizen journalism about a rape gang in the UK,

00:02:59.140 and after the trial was over, on Judgment Day, when the jury was done and was to announce their ruling,

00:03:05.800 I tell you this because it was all over, nothing Tommy could possibly have done or said would have impacted the verdict.

00:03:11.900 It was already rendered.

00:03:14.560 Tommy simply asked the accused, as they were walking into court, how they were feeling about the looming verdict.

00:03:19.320 And for that, he was arrested, convicted, and sent to prison all in the span of a few hours.

00:03:24.140 Let me show you exactly what he was convicted of doing that sent him away to solitary confinement for more than a month.

00:03:30.520 I want you to see it with your own eyes.

00:03:31.840 So, Tommy, what does this verdict mean, not only for you, but what does this mean for the country?

00:03:38.280 It probably means, for me, I'll go to jail next week, which is unbelievable.

00:03:41.140 I'll go to jail for asking someone on the way into court, as a journalist, how are you feeling about your verdict?

00:03:45.060 That's all I've done.

00:03:46.220 That's all I've done.

00:03:47.220 The video's there for everyone to watch.

00:03:49.300 That's all I've done, how you feel about your verdict.

00:03:51.060 And I'll go to prison for the second time.

00:03:53.520 And they know what that means.

00:03:55.440 It means there is not only no freedom, because we know we've got no free speech.

00:03:59.240 We know we live in a post-free speech era.

00:04:00.920 There's now no free press.

00:04:02.480 You're not even allowed to ask that question.

00:04:04.480 You're not allowed to.

00:04:05.220 I've been convicted for taking a photo of someone.

00:04:07.580 Now, what Tommy did there was verbally aggressive, sure, but he didn't swear.

00:04:12.100 He didn't threaten.

00:04:13.120 He didn't physically accost or block these men.

00:04:15.880 Sort of the opposite.

00:04:16.720 They did all those things to him.

00:04:18.420 But really, how much different from what the mainstream media does to any accused, including, by the way, Tommy Robinson himself.

00:04:28.960 Let's say you thought Tommy was rude and inappropriate.

00:04:31.700 So, still, how is what Tommy did contempt of court?

00:04:35.540 How?

00:04:35.900 And how on earth did that land him in solitary confinement for more than a month?

00:04:42.600 At the time, I did a lot of research into contempt of court punishments in the United Kingdom.

00:04:46.540 I probably read almost 100 cases.

00:04:49.200 And in almost all of them, the judge really just wants to know that the person in question is not being willfully defiant of the court's authority.

00:04:58.020 And almost always, it's just a stern talking to, and then everything's fine.

00:05:02.120 There are some quirky or archaic rules, such as no photography allowed in the courts.

00:05:07.580 There are some good reasons for those rules.

00:05:09.640 But sometimes people forget, and so all a judge really wants to know is that you are governable, that you want, that you're not defying the judge's authority.

00:05:19.640 You're submitting to them.

00:05:21.480 It really takes an awful lot to be sent to prison for contempt of court.

00:05:25.660 It does happen, but very rarely, and only in shocking, repeated examples of contempt.

00:05:30.560 Very rare.

00:05:33.740 Tommy was the first British journalist in prison in nearly a century, and for doing what every other British Fleet Street paparazzi does.

00:05:40.600 So that's my point.

00:05:42.020 I really don't think justice was blind in his case.

00:05:45.900 It was his politics that put him in prison, not his conduct.

00:05:49.840 I'm alive to these things.

00:05:51.140 I'm alert to these things.

00:05:52.180 We saw that same double standard in policing and prosecutions with the trucker convoy.

00:05:57.240 It came out during the commission, didn't we?

00:05:58.860 It really brings the administration of justice into disrepute to politicize the courts, to politicize policing.

00:06:05.900 We got a glimpse of that during the trucker commission.

00:06:09.140 Because if people give up on the justice system and the courts and the cops, they won't respect them.

00:06:14.980 And they'll have contempt for them in real life.

00:06:16.980 And our entire system of laws and policing depends on the consent of the governed.

00:06:23.100 Those are appeals, rules of policing.

00:06:24.940 You have to have the mass of the population supporting the police and the courts, or it'll simply fail.

00:06:32.360 Unless you are in a totalitarian regime, a literal police state on every corner.

00:06:37.120 You rely on the obedience and compliance and the support of the people.

00:06:41.680 There just aren't enough cops and jails to arrest everyone, so you need the people on side with you.

00:06:46.900 Imagine if the courts, instead of being neutral, became partisan, like the media is, like Hollywood is, like woke capital is, like so many other institutions are.

00:06:56.460 Imagine if you lost half the public support, or even just a quarter of the public support.

00:07:01.360 The entire system would fail.

00:07:03.240 What a catastrophe that would be.

00:07:05.040 We all have to respect the rules of the game if we're going to abide by them.

00:07:08.640 Which brings me to the story of the day.

00:07:11.000 It is about an occupation, about mischief, about minor crimes, about interrupting infrastructure and the economy.

00:07:20.040 In other words, it's a repeat of what the trucker convoy was accused of doing in January and February.

00:07:25.040 Except, of course, as you know, the trucker convoy didn't actually occupy anything.

00:07:29.480 They just parked on some downtown streets for a few weeks, but they didn't actually block the roads.

00:07:33.640 We heard in the Commission of Inquiry that they actually kept lanes open for emergency vehicles.

00:07:38.080 They actually moved their vehicles away from residential areas towards Parliament itself, not to harass homeowners.

00:07:44.500 They stopped honking their horns after a judge told them to.

00:07:47.800 And there was simply no violence at all from them.

00:07:50.920 None.

00:07:52.900 But the entire country was put under martial law.

00:07:54.980 Hundreds of bank accounts were seized.

00:07:57.020 Peaceful protesters were arrested at gunpoint.

00:07:59.280 Our reporter, Alexa, was actually shot.

00:08:01.560 And peaceful people like Tamera Leach were thrown in prison for more than a month on the laughable charge of inciting mischief. 0.69

00:08:09.500 I can't find any case in Canada of someone being imprisoned for a first offense of inciting mischief.

00:08:15.320 There was one case of a jail sentence for the man who knocked down Quebec's power grid.

00:08:21.860 So it wasn't a peaceful political protest, and it wasn't just inciting mischief.

00:08:25.120 It was a destructive act of industrial sabotage that knocked out power for nearly 200,000 people for days, cost more than $28 million to restore, and was the result of a careful scheme hatched as a sort of vendetta.

00:08:40.840 He got jailed.

00:08:41.620 That couldn't be more different from Tamera Leach, other than one insane case of sabotage. 1.00

00:08:49.500 I don't know of anyone jailed for inciting mischief.

00:08:52.740 And, of course, that power sabotage was much more than just inciting mischief.

00:08:56.220 They're not even comparable.

00:08:57.260 I was just trying to give you the only example that I could find of mischief resulting in that kind of punishment.

00:09:03.200 Well, let me read for you the news from the B.C. interior this week.

00:09:08.600 You'll notice that I'm reading from a small news outlet.

00:09:10.760 As far as I can see, this is not covered in the Globe and Mail, the CBC, or even in post-media newspapers.

00:09:16.580 Here's the news outlet cast a net.

00:09:18.500 Anti-pipeline protesters are guilty of contempt for storming TMX worksite, violating injunction.

00:09:25.440 Four anti-pipeline protesters have been found guilty of criminal contempt after storming a Trans Mountain worksite in Kamloops in 2020, violating an injunction that had been in place for two years.

00:09:37.820 April Thomas, Henry Salls, Romilly Kavanaugh, and Jocelyn Billy Pierre were found guilty on Wednesday following an earlier trial in front of B.C. Supreme Court Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick.

00:09:49.260 Court heard Trans Mountain crews were undertaking very critical work on October 15, 2020, when Thomas Salls, Kavanaugh, and Pierre disrupted construction in the Mission Flats area.

00:10:01.420 Kavanaugh used a zip tie to attach herself to a gate, and Pierre used a zip tie to attach herself to a bulldozer. 1.00

00:10:09.280 Thomas and Salls violated the injunction by attending the worksite.

00:10:12.200 A 2018 injunction laid out a five-meter buffer zone around all Trans Mountain worksites by which protesters are required to abide.

00:10:20.920 Court was shown video depicting a chaotic scene, with lots of yelling and screaming from protesters as they were removed from the site by police.

00:10:28.120 The accused maintained the force used by Mounties was excessive and unnecessary.

00:10:32.020 Pierre claimed she was sexually assaulted by a police officer while being arrested.

00:10:36.720 The trial began in early October and was delayed after Thomas collapsed in court October 5.

00:10:42.200 Fitzpatrick ordered pre-sentence reports for each of the accused.

00:10:45.860 Sentencing is expected to take place over two days beginning on February 23rd.

00:10:50.640 I just read you the entire story, every word of it.

00:10:54.180 You'd think that would be bigger news.

00:10:55.780 TMX, that's its big Trans Mountain pipeline that the feds expropriated, bought a huge premium from the company that was stalled building it.

00:11:05.260 It's just a crazy story.

00:11:06.240 But this injunction battle has obviously been going on for years.

00:11:08.780 As you can hear, it's going on about four years now, and references to the incident in 2020.

00:11:14.320 Now, the story was also written up in another Kamloops newspaper called, well, it's Kamloops This Week is what it's called.

00:11:21.460 Let me read to you.

00:11:22.240 I won't read the whole thing, but I'll read part of the other local paper.

00:11:24.940 Remember, protesters of Pipeline Expansion Project convicted of criminal contempt.

00:11:29.480 Four members of a Sequempic protest group opposed to the Trans Mountain Pipeline Expansion Project have been convicted of criminal contempt and will be sentenced in two months.

00:11:38.440 Justice Shelley Fitzpatrick heard closing arguments in B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops this week and rendered her decision on Wednesday, December 7th.

00:11:44.940 Romney Cavanaugh, Henry Salls, also known as Sequempic Heminatory Chief Sausses, April Thomas, and Jocelyn Pierre were found guilty of breaching a court-ordered injunction against obstructing access to the company's worksites on October 15, 2020, during work hours.

00:12:01.100 The Quartet, part of the Sequempic Unity Camp to Stop the Trans Mountain Pipeline, arrived at the Mission Flats property where they tied themselves to objects and work equipment before being arrested by Mounties.

00:12:11.780 Now, I thought this next part was interesting.

00:12:16.160 Pierre, who was carried down a hill when she refused to walk with police, said she had no recollection of seeing signage noted by the prosecution.

00:12:25.060 Pierre maintained she did not hear a Trans Mountain employee telling her to leave.

00:12:29.000 Pierre said she was in an uninterruptible and meditative prayer and ceremony, which she said she had a right to do on unceded Sequempic territory for as long as it would have taken to complete.

00:12:41.160 She also said she was in an isolated area, noting, and here's my favorite part, noting she's not an expert in indigenous practices, Justice Fitzpatrick said she found it odd that Pierre deemed it necessary to zap-stap herself to the bulldozer as part of that ceremony.

00:12:59.220 I think she meant to say zip-tie instead of zap-stap, that's such a very strong plastic cord that can sort of be used like a kind of handcuff.

00:13:08.180 Anyhow, back to the story.

00:13:09.700 Is that part of your indigenous traditions, to zap-stap yourself, Fitzpatrick asked.

00:13:16.040 To remain uninterrupted, I tied myself to the area I was on, Pierre replied.

00:13:22.240 Pierre argued that Canada has no legal standing to impose its laws on indigenous individuals who have never ceded their rights and titles.

00:13:30.740 Weiberg, that's the prosecutor, in response referenced case law to refute the notion some of the defendants were exempt from prosecution because of their indigenous background.

00:13:40.160 We're all subject to laws passed in Canada.

00:13:42.260 We're all subject to injunctions issued by the court.

00:13:44.880 There's no special class of people that are not subject to Canadian law.

00:13:48.180 Well, he's right, in fact, everyone in Canada is subject to Canadian law.

00:13:52.900 Even people who are not Canadian citizens are subject to Canadian law.

00:13:56.400 There are some racial carve-outs in law, which I think are very dangerous. 0.51

00:14:00.060 Looks like this judge wasn't having any of it.

00:14:02.320 No zip ties are not an indigenous ceremony.

00:14:04.760 But I remind you that Tamara Leach is an indigenous woman, too. 1.00

00:14:10.700 She's Métis. 0.88

00:14:12.700 Did you see any reporting like this when she was arrested?

00:14:15.620 People floating the idea that she really couldn't be guilty, that physical vandalism was actually a kind of ancient indigenous ceremony.

00:14:24.580 Did you ever hear anything like that?

00:14:27.860 Of course not.

00:14:28.760 The liberal media wouldn't believe a word of it if it were said by a peaceful trucker.

00:14:34.180 You know, the truckers didn't vandalize anything in Ottawa.

00:14:37.140 They didn't attack anyone.

00:14:38.420 They didn't resist police.

00:14:40.320 It's actually amazing.

00:14:41.380 There was not a single act of violence by any of the truckers throughout the whole time there.

00:14:44.920 That's why you had liberals trying to cook up hoaxes, like the hoax that a trucker tried to arson an apartment, or the hoax that the truckers defiled the Terry Fox statue.

00:14:55.100 Yeah, no.

00:14:56.780 This ain't vandalism, brother, but nice try.

00:14:59.640 We'll see what sentence these pipeline protesters get.

00:15:03.460 I don't know if jail is appropriate.

00:15:04.940 I know that from my reading of at least UK case law, if you repeatedly defy a judge, they eventually put you in jail just to break your defiant spirit.

00:15:15.020 These folks deliberately defied the judge, but I bet they get a modest fine that will immediately be paid by Greenpeace or someone else.

00:15:24.120 Not 49 days in prison, like Tamera Leach got. 0.98

00:15:29.840 There really are violent occupations in Canada.

00:15:32.160 They really do disrupt businesses.

00:15:34.080 They really do endanger critical infrastructure.

00:15:36.640 They really do cost money and jobs.

00:15:39.060 But Trudeau doesn't say a word about them.

00:15:42.660 He supports them.

00:15:44.000 His environment minister himself is a convicted criminal for vandalizing the CN Tower in the name of Greenpeace.

00:15:52.060 But it's not just Trudeau, is it?

00:15:53.480 It's the entire media party that has ignored this national story because it just doesn't fit their narrative, does it?

00:16:00.480 Stay with us for more.

00:16:12.840 Welcome back.

00:16:13.600 Well, the biggest news of the year from the Rebel News point of view, and I think indeed it would be hard to dispute,

00:16:19.280 it was the trucker convoy in January and February.

00:16:22.500 It shook the country and it shook the world.

00:16:25.240 For the first time in my lifetime, everyone around the world was focused on Canada, genuinely curious about what was happening.

00:16:32.860 In fact, I think there was an admiration that the truckers, blue-collar, ordinary folks,

00:16:37.980 without any backing of a political party or any political action group,

00:16:42.040 they rose up and they helped free Canadians from the vaccine mandates and other lockdowns.

00:16:46.640 It was wonderful.

00:16:47.420 And there was an echo to that fairly recently with the trucker commission of inquiry when Justin Trudeau was asked to justify his decision to put the country in a form of martial law.

00:17:01.380 Now, I don't think that Trudeau actually justified it.

00:17:04.720 I think it was crystal clear by the end of the commission that he, in fact, didn't have the legal basis for it, but he put forward his political case.

00:17:12.780 That was an important project for Rebel News.

00:17:15.940 As you know, we booked a Airbnb for a pop-up studio.

00:17:20.920 We rented a house near the commission of inquiry.

00:17:25.640 We had four bedrooms there.

00:17:27.400 Rebel journalists rotated through there.

00:17:28.980 We turned the kitchen into a studio.

00:17:31.060 We live tweeted it.

00:17:32.080 We live blogged it.

00:17:33.140 We had live streaming.

00:17:34.900 And one of our favorite guests was our guest today, Eva Chipiuk, who is here to give us a recap, not just of, you know, the trucker battles in general, but what's been going on in the last two weeks.

00:17:48.120 Because although the legal hearings, you know, examining the prime minister, et cetera, they were over a couple of weeks ago.

00:17:56.180 There has been some other work going on.

00:17:58.280 And joining us now via Skype from Edmonton is Eva Chipiuk.

00:18:01.580 Eva, great to see you again.

00:18:02.560 Thanks for joining us.

00:18:03.360 Nice to see you as well.

00:18:05.440 You know, you were a real staple of our coverage from the Trucker Commission.

00:18:10.040 And I thank you for that.

00:18:11.520 And it was sort of fun for us to have this outpost in Ottawa, pretty close to the place where the commission was hearing.

00:18:18.300 I felt like we were really on the front lines.

00:18:20.560 It also felt good that we were fully accredited media because Justin Trudeau doesn't allow that.

00:18:27.280 And so it was great to get full access right in the room to be treated just like the other journalists.

00:18:33.100 And indeed, we were just like the other journalists, except for I think we were a little more balanced and we put a lot of people power into it.

00:18:38.560 Anyways, Eva, can you tell us what has been happening since the, I guess, the crescendo of having Chrystia Freeland, Marco Mendocino and Justin Trudeau testify?

00:18:52.180 So we know about that.

00:18:54.380 And after that, we sort of wound down our Ottawa coverage.

00:18:58.200 But the commission of inquiry isn't actually done, are they?

00:19:02.880 Tell us what they've been up to these last couple of weeks.

00:19:05.240 Yeah, of course.

00:19:06.980 So after the factual basis ended with Justin Trudeau, as you said, highlighting everything at the end there, the next week following was a policy discussion phase.

00:19:19.120 So there were various academics and different professionals that were giving their opining on, for example, the CSIS Act and the definition of national security threat,

00:19:30.380 which, as we know from what went on at the inquiry, that turned into be quite a question about whether or not the Emergencies Act was properly invoked and turned into whether or not that legal definition was met.

00:19:44.620 So there was a roundtable discussion about that with a former CSIS director.

00:19:49.020 There was also a roundtable about misinformation and disinformation.

00:19:54.400 So that would have been particularly interesting, I think, to yourselves and your audience.

00:20:00.380 Because as we know, there's a lot of that going on right now in Canada.

00:20:05.400 Same with police authorities.

00:20:07.300 So there was a full week of policy discussions.

00:20:11.760 And some of these academics and different directors were giving their opinion of what should be or what shouldn't be in the Emergencies Act and what the commission ought to provide the government as a recommendation.

00:20:27.660 So that's all interesting.

00:20:29.440 And it sounds like important discussions, but it sounds like they are sort of general academic discussions as opposed to retrospectively examining Trudeau's invocation of it.

00:20:40.660 Am I right?

00:20:41.080 So this is more the academics way in and say, well, we should do that or here's a problem.

00:20:45.520 So as opposed to specifically holding Trudeau to account.

00:20:49.460 Is that a correct characterization?

00:20:51.880 You know, that even came up in one of the policy discussions is somebody, and I can't recall which debate it was, but they said, you know, the worst thing is this is giving academics work.

00:21:01.380 And the other thing that I found a bit troubling is some of these academics that were invited to speak after six long weeks of evidence was given were still using the same language as MSM was providing before the inquiry.

00:21:19.060 So all this, the narrative that was being spun was still being used by these academics like they haven't learned anything in the last six weeks.

00:21:27.900 So that was a bit troubling. And certainly, yes, it was a bit more in some respects, some were a bit more kind of hands on with the evidence and some people were a bit more high level.

00:21:39.860 Well, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of those academics simply did not follow the commission of inquiry.

00:21:44.760 And in fairness, it was a very intensive period of time, but it sounds like they came there with their talking points no matter what.

00:21:52.320 And, of course, the thing is about academics is more than almost any other profession, they are funded by the government.

00:21:58.760 I mean, journalists sometimes pretend to be independent, and I guess academics talk about academic independence.

00:22:04.580 But there is basically no scholarship in this country's universities that is not funded by Trudeau, you know, through various granting agencies.

00:22:12.900 And we know that they use that as a weapon against them.

00:22:16.040 Jordan Peterson, one of the most cited professors in Canadian history, I would imagine, certainly a high profile, he got a federal research grant every single year of his career until he went viral as a public intellectual conservative.

00:22:31.180 And then, surprise, he had his grant canceled.

00:22:33.900 So, anyone who thinks academics are neutral only has to look at how they punish the one in a million academics who actually speaks out in a conservative way.

00:22:42.800 So, I would imagine that colored a lot of it.

00:22:45.300 Tell me a little bit about the misinformation and disinformation panel, because I think that whole phrase has been invented just to – I don't think it has any real meaning.

00:22:56.120 I mean, during the Cold War, I knew in certain instances, believe it or not, when I was a young kid, I subscribed to sort of a technical magazine that was pretty nerdy called Aviation Week and Space Technology.

00:23:09.980 So, this was a really cool magazine.

00:23:12.520 It was not meant for boys.

00:23:14.160 It was like an industry magazine of really cool fighter jets.

00:23:17.460 And they would sometimes have disinformation in there, and they would talk about it, that sometimes the U.S. military would put out deliberately false facts about the capabilities of their fighter jets so that Russians would get the wrong idea.

00:23:33.980 They would not understand the truth about America's aerospace industry.

00:23:41.040 That's disinformation.

00:23:42.180 When you choose to plant a false fact, knowing you're doing so to confuse a military enemy, that's a really normal use of the word disinformation.

00:23:50.040 But politicians are now calling anyone who disagrees with them disinformation as if people are deliberately lying, as if people are in league with foreign powers.

00:24:01.300 I think it's a total corruption of the language and a total attempt to silence any peaceful political protesters.

00:24:08.360 Yeah, and I encourage your viewers to look at the transcript or view it still online.

00:24:15.560 It's all these policy discussions are also available still on the commission's website, along with all of the evidence from the six weeks before.

00:24:23.320 So, it's definitely worth taking a look at.

00:24:25.960 And you can see that there were some academics that were a bit more critical.

00:24:30.580 Thankfully, there was a bit of a debate about certain things, and they did bring up the issue of whether or not politicians can be part of that disinformation and what consequences or what issues arise out of that.

00:24:46.040 So, again, that did come up, and it'll be interesting to see what's argued.

00:24:51.200 One thing I wanted to mention is we do have the written submissions due today.

00:24:55.660 So, now all of the parties are reviewing the evidence portion, this policy portion, and giving their thoughts and then their recommendations to the commission in written format.

00:25:07.840 Well, I'll tell you one thing.

00:25:09.080 The judge was not lazy.

00:25:11.160 I have never seen a judicial procedure work so hard and so long.

00:25:15.700 And it applies to all the lawyers who are involved, too.

00:25:17.700 I mean, I've never seen a court keep the hours, like the extensive hours, working into the night.

00:25:25.380 Like, I'm impressed, and I hope he does the right thing, and I hope he's objective and neutral.

00:25:31.060 You never quite know because he is just a man flesh and bone.

00:25:34.840 But, boy, was there a lot of work going on.

00:25:39.440 It'll be interesting to see what the results are.

00:25:41.580 Now, if I'm not mistaken, the report will come out early in the new year.

00:25:45.180 Is that right?

00:25:46.480 Yep.

00:25:46.780 So, the report is due to be made public February 20th.

00:25:50.960 So, that's when we expect to get to see it, see what it is that the commission has gleamed from all of this and what kind of recommendations it's making to the federal government.

00:26:02.560 Yeah.

00:26:03.080 I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that the judge says there was no clear legal basis to invoke the Emergencies Act.

00:26:10.380 And then you will immediately see the media party and the political classes say, oh, well, it was out of an abundance of caution, and we did the right thing, and it was all—you know, I think that Trudeau will absolutely skate.

00:26:24.320 I think that he will not be held to account, and it'll be like every time he's broken the Conflict of Interest Act, a general shrug, oh, well, you know, sack a cabinet minister for taking a $16 orange juice under Stephen Harper, but a prime minister bringing in martial law for no good reason.

00:26:39.140 And, oh, well, but he sure meant well, and they sure did honk a lot.

00:26:43.400 That's my prediction.

00:26:44.600 Am I too pessimistic?

00:26:47.020 You know, I think you're even giving it more credit than I might be right now.

00:26:51.980 I don't know whether or not the commissioner will find that it was not justified, because that last week really turned when the ministers and CSIS started coming up and saying, well, the legal definition is a bit different in the Emergencies Act, or at least we—that was the advice we got from our lawyers.

00:27:14.820 It's too narrow in the CSIS Act for what is going on nowadays compared to when that definition was first used and implemented in these acts.

00:27:28.760 So I don't know.

00:27:30.340 That last week was very strange to me.

00:27:32.300 I'm still processing it, and I think there might be a chance, based on the feelings that we heard for the six weeks, not actual facts, but the feelings of threat, the feeling of violence.

00:27:44.820 The feeling of aggression that, based on this definition, the commissioner might say it was justified.

00:27:53.100 Yeah, the feelings.

00:27:54.220 You're so right.

00:27:54.640 It was weird to see tough men who are used to guns and criminals say, well, there was no violence from the truckers, but it felt violent.

00:28:04.300 You know, the talk of microaggressions, it was actually—you know, I regarded the commission, the evidence part, as sort of like a bullseye.

00:28:12.000 You went from the outer rings and more and more and more towards the center of the bullseye, you ending up in Trudeau himself.

00:28:17.340 So you started with, you know, just regular folks and police forces.

00:28:21.620 And as they moved away from beat cops—or not beat cops, but Ottawa police, RCMP, OPP, and moved towards the cabinet and then towards the PM, I felt like they were less honest and more lying, frankly.

00:28:37.680 I think most police actually answered very plainly, we did not need this.

00:28:42.020 We could resolve these problems without the Emergencies Act.

00:28:44.180 We did resolve the problems, like, for example, the Alberta blockade, the Windsor Bridge blockade.

00:28:49.080 They were both ended before the Emergencies Act was even invoked.

00:28:52.900 So, of course, it wasn't necessary to stop them.

00:28:56.380 And that one they considered, sorry, the most hostile, you know, the one in—so if they were able to take down the most hostile one in all of Canada using the regular laws we have,

00:29:08.100 how was that not a possibility in Ottawa?

00:29:12.000 It was just larger.

00:29:13.620 The problem that we saw time and time again is that they just didn't talk to the citizens at all.

00:29:19.680 And actually, that was one thing that came out in Windsor.

00:29:23.240 The Ontario government, together with its provincial police force, went to the protesters and talked to them.

00:29:29.560 And that's how it was successfully negotiated.

00:29:32.320 In Coutts, it was police action.

00:29:34.500 In Ottawa, it was no action.

00:29:36.340 Yeah.

00:29:36.520 Until, of course, we know what happened.

00:29:40.260 Well, it's very interesting.

00:29:42.300 And, you know, as that movie was called, The Empire Strikes Back, I think Justin Trudeau was personally offended that grubby, grassroots, working-class people would dare to defy him. 0.98

00:29:53.780 And when two cabinet ministers were joking about deploying tanks, yeah, how many tanks should we deploy?

00:30:03.000 I think that shows, you know, how dare these gross peasants challenge us up here at King's Landing. 1.00

00:30:09.720 This is the capital city.

00:30:11.980 It's our place.

00:30:13.340 It's not the people's place. 0.94

00:30:14.500 How dare they honk their rude honking? 0.58

00:30:17.420 Let's send a tank against them. 1.00

00:30:20.480 They claim it was a joke.

00:30:21.900 Maybe it was.

00:30:22.600 But it shows, you know, never a truer word is spoken than in jest.

00:30:26.480 I don't know, Eva.

00:30:27.300 I find the whole thing rather depressing, but I'm encouraged by the fact that the truckers, I think the truckers won.

00:30:32.640 The truckers saved us in a way that no opposition party did.

00:30:35.080 I'll tell you, they certainly displaced two conservative leaders who are not very conservative and not very leader-y, Jason Kenney and Aaron O'Toole.

00:30:41.900 So for that alone, I'll be grateful to them.

00:30:44.540 Let me close by, go ahead, sorry, you go ahead.

00:30:46.380 Just one thing, touching on what you said, and I agree with you about what's going on in Ottawa.

00:30:51.520 And I find that at least what we had with this inquiry is we could look into that bubble.

00:30:56.260 And I honestly believe what's going on in Ottawa right now is they're living in a bubble.

00:31:01.140 And it's unfortunate because that's not real people.

00:31:04.040 That's not real Canadians. 1.00

00:31:05.560 And when you're in a bubble like that, you don't know how to lead.

00:31:08.460 You don't know how to talk to people.

00:31:09.880 And at least that was exposed on a national and worldwide level.

00:31:14.500 So at a minimum, I hope that that helps to affect change in this country.

00:31:20.600 Yeah, well, we'll see.

00:31:21.520 It's very interesting.

00:31:22.900 You know, it was a fascinating time.

00:31:25.020 The whole world was looking at Canada.

00:31:26.840 That normally doesn't happen.

00:31:29.400 And again, that came up in the Commission of Inquiry.

00:31:34.020 Trudeau and his colleagues were embarrassed that they were being made to look foolish.

00:31:39.240 That's not a definition of a national emergency, but that's clearly what motivated them.

00:31:43.860 And just let me end by congratulating you and the rest of your team.

00:31:47.340 You were one of about a half a dozen lawyers affiliated with the truckers and the JCCF, who I think really infused this commission with a lot of its greatest successes and its personality.

00:31:59.800 Had you and the rest of your team, and we had Alan Hawner from the Democracy Fund there too, if you would have taken out you, Keith Wilson, Brendan Miller, the other trucker lawyers, and Alan Hawner, this would have been a completely different commission.

00:32:14.940 And I think you guys really helped hold the government to account, and I think you provided balance.

00:32:22.220 And congrats on the judge for letting that happen, by the way.

00:32:25.080 So I just wanted to say that I think you yourself had a very important role, and you also took a lot of time to explain things to us.

00:32:31.680 So thanks for that.

00:32:33.100 My pleasure.

00:32:33.720 It was lovely to be on the show, everyone.

00:32:36.120 It was my pleasure to help explain what was going on.

00:32:39.900 We've been sitting through long days, and I can't expect anyone to do the same.

00:32:44.740 Right on.

00:32:45.120 Well, you did great.

00:32:45.780 Thanks so much.

00:32:46.420 Eva Chipiak, a lawyer for the Freedom Convoy truckers, joining us today via Zoom from Edmonton.

00:32:53.440 Stay with us.

00:32:53.940 More ahead.

00:33:06.060 Hey, welcome back.

00:33:07.040 Here's some letters.

00:33:08.000 Wade Dunn says, hey, Ezra, watch your show on Russia, and notice you used our motto a few times.

00:33:13.380 Want to find out what's going on in the Donbass?

00:33:15.980 Check out Eva K. Bartlett, a war correspondent, a Canadian-born USA journalist who is on Zelensky's hit list, the same hit list that Elon Musk was on for a few hours after calling for peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.

00:33:28.900 Not kidding.

00:33:29.580 Love your show.

00:33:31.200 We did try and send a reporter to Ukraine.

00:33:33.900 In fact, we were really geared up.

00:33:35.720 We thought he would get in in March, but things were too dangerous, and his patron, he was going in under the patronage of one of the oligarchs in Ukraine, didn't give him the green light.

00:33:46.440 So, frankly, I would be more worried about a reporter in Ukraine because, first of all, it's a shooting war there.

00:33:52.940 Second of all, I mean, it's just a fact that Vladimir Zelensky has arrested or shut down journalists that don't support him, has done the same for opposition parties, and is now even taking that censorship to churches that don't fall in line.

00:34:11.800 But I'm actually worried about civil liberties in Ukraine just as much as I am in Russia.

00:34:17.700 John Hall says, this is very interesting.

00:34:21.340 It is a gray zone.

00:34:23.180 If we were at war with Russia, which we are not, I would be opposed.

00:34:28.200 The main concern, as you mentioned, is being used by the Russian government to advance propaganda.

00:34:32.160 I'll reserve judgment until I better understand how involved the Russian government was in your visit.

00:34:37.500 In other words, are they restricting where you can or can't go?

00:34:40.540 Are subjects of your interviews influenced, etc.?

00:34:44.160 I don't want to give away all of our moves just yet, but in about a week, I'll tell you a few details that we're not releasing now.

00:34:51.260 But we just put out a new video today that describes when police accosted us at a farmer's market.

00:35:01.180 I'll let you watch that video for yourself.

00:35:03.840 But we are very careful, and the safety of our reporter was to help.

00:35:08.220 That's our show for today.

00:35:09.440 Until Monday, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, you at home, good night.

00:35:13.580 Keep fighting for freedom.

00:35:15.020 I'm Jeremy Lafredo for Rebel News in Moscow, Russia.

00:35:17.600 Upon arriving in Russia, I was told that I should visit one of the oldest farmer's markets in the region,

00:35:23.800 Praer Brzezinski Market.

00:35:31.140 About 10 kilometers outside of the center city area, the market has a different type of clientele than downtown.

00:35:37.220 No Prada stores and no H&M, which are actually littered around downtown Moscow.

00:35:42.320 Here at Praer Brzezinski Market, it's just regular folks that come from all around the region to sell their goods.

00:35:47.000 Mostly vegetables like spinach, kale, and radishes.

00:35:50.120 Also pickled vegetables like carrots, cabbage, and onions.

00:35:53.100 Sellers also have stands filled with fruit, such as pomegranates and oranges.

00:35:56.780 Some vendors are selling items for the quickly approaching winter, like slippers and winter coats.

00:36:01.480 They have an indoor space with farmers and butchers who are selling meat, such as chicken,

00:36:05.020 dozens of different cuts of beef, lamb, duck, and pork.

00:36:08.360 They also have dairy products.

00:36:10.100 No one inside of this market is willing to talk to me.

00:36:12.780 They say their bosses are watching them on a security camera.

00:36:15.320 I'm not sure if that's true, but I went outside and I spoke to some people.

00:36:19.840 That was until the police came.

00:36:22.000 I asked people at the market if the prices of goods have changed since the war began,

00:36:27.220 and about the war itself.

00:36:28.760 Not prices for many types of fruit and vegetables are just the same as the previous autumn or other last.

00:36:48.620 Well, in a certain extent, but I wouldn't say that it would be seen.

00:36:54.500 In a certain extent, they changed, of course.

00:36:56.900 Do you support what's happening in Ukraine, the military operation?

00:37:02.620 I'd like that war finish as soon as possible. 0.98

00:37:10.900 Most people I spoke to at the market were not willing to speak on camera about the war.

00:37:24.460 Those who support Russia's actions in Ukraine might be hesitant to speak to an American about their support,

00:37:29.500 since the U.S. has been propping up the Ukrainian military with billions of dollars in weapons.

00:37:33.660 Our two countries are effectively at war.

00:37:35.760 And those who oppose the war and Russia's actions in Ukraine could be scared to speak out of fear for government retribution.

00:37:41.680 This woman called for peace, but also explained her view was that the conflict is not Russia's fault.

00:37:47.080 Everything will end with the war, soon or later.

00:37:55.000 Well, you know, this is politics, but this is politics.

00:37:57.580 This is, of course, but Russia is not the fault of it.

00:38:01.000 Russia is not the fault of it.

00:38:03.800 Yes, this is politics.

00:38:05.080 There is no one who knows there, right?

00:38:07.000 While asking people about the war, a policeman seemingly came out of nowhere and asked me what my business was in the market.

00:38:13.920 I allowed my cameraman to speak as to not give away that I was a foreigner.

00:38:17.920 He told the policeman that we were simply bloggers.

00:38:20.560 The policeman seemed confused by that answer and told us to leave the market.

00:38:24.040 We got out in a hurry.

00:38:25.600 For Rebel News in Moscow, Russia, I'm Jeremy Lofredo.

00:38:28.920 This week, I'm going to try to get you the truth on the biggest geopolitical issue of our time.

00:38:33.020 Now, doing this work isn't cheap.

00:38:35.360 Between translators, transportation, visas, all of these finances have acted like a financial censorship mechanism

00:38:41.400 that stopped the independent media from coming here and doing critical reporting.

00:38:45.060 You can help support my work and also keep up to date with all my reports at RussianReports.com.

00:39:03.020 We'll see you next time.

00:39:05.020 We'll see you next time.

00:39:08.460 We'll see you next time.

00:39:17.300 We'll see you عنみ.

00:39:23.860 We'll see you next time.

Rebel News Podcast - December 10, 2022

EZRA LEVANT： What would the legal consequences be if Tamara Lich were a left-wing activist？ A new case in B.C. may set that precedent.

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