SPECIAL： Rebel reporters had to be “smuggled in” to Pompeo event on Parliament Hill — by U.S. media delegation
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Summary
In today's show, I give you a behind-the-scenes story of how Kian Bextie and I managed to attend a press conference hosted by Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland. Normally, we're banned from these events, but this time we were sneaked in, smuggled in by no one other than Mike Pompeo, the former Director of the CIA. It's a story of censorship, and it's not a happy story.
Transcript
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Oh, hello, my rebels. In today's show, I give you a behind-the-scenes story of how Kian Bextie and I managed to attend a press conference hosted by Canada's foreign minister, Chrystia Freeland.
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Normally, we're banned from these events, but this time we were sneaked in, smuggled in by no one other than Mike Pompeo, the Secretary of State, the former director of the CIA.
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It's quite a story. It's really a story of censorship. It's not a happy story.
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Before I let you hear that, can I invite you to go to TheRebel.media slash shows and become a premium subscriber?
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It's $8 a month or $80 for the year. You get the video version of the show.
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You also get access to Sheila Gunn-Reed's show and David Menzies' show.
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All right, without further ado, here is today's podcast.
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Tonight is Freedom of Speech Alive in our nation's capital.
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It's August 26th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.
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Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
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There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
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The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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For The Rebel.media, I'm Ezra LeVant on a glorious sunny day here in Ottawa.
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Behind me, the National War Memorial, a most somber place.
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And you might see there's a wreath laid earlier today by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo,
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who's in town for a bilateral visit with his Canadian counterpart, Chrystia Freeland, our foreign minister.
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Of course, I don't need to remind you that this very site was where an honor guard a few years ago
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named Corporal Nathan Cirillo was murdered in cold blood by an ISIS terrorist
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before he burst into the parliament in a hail of gunfire.
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And miraculously, no one inside was killed but himself.
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But a very sober place here and fitting for Mike Pompeo, himself a military veteran to lay a wreath.
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Now, we're in town because we want to attend that press conference between Pompeo and Freeland.
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And, of course, we cover American news and Canadian news.
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And so when they come together, we love to cover it.
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We are accredited to cover news around the world.
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We've been everywhere from the White House to the British Parliament, even to the Israeli Knesset and everywhere in between.
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But here in Canada, Chrystia Freeland blacklists us and doesn't let us go to events.
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It's censorious and even more strange, the Parliamentary Press Gallery, which is the cartel, the guild that manages access to these events run by our competitors and rivals.
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So we were rejected to attend a press conference.
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But I know that the United States believes in this little thing they call the First Amendment.
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So since we're accredited at the White House, I reached out to the United States and said, we're Canadian.
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But can we come into this press conference as part of your American media delegation?
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Can we, in effect, be smuggled in with the Americans and the Canadians?
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Let's see if we're allowed to get in because of our Americans and their love for freedom of speech, even freedom of speech for us Canadians.
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Well, here I am inside the National Arts Center.
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We were allowed in, but we got in, as I mentioned before, through the office of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
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The Americans brought us in as part of the American delegation.
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The Canadians had blackballed us, not just Chrystia Freeland and her staff, but Canada's Parliamentary Press Gallery.
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They were sort of shocked when I walked in and Kian Bextie came in with me.
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We had our press passes as handed out by the Americans.
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Chrystia Freeland's own communications director, Adam Austin.
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It was very funny, but they didn't make a scene as I feared they might.
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And I didn't wink at Chrystia Freeland, but I sort of smiled and nodded.
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For a minute there, I was worried that she was going to try and kick me out and Kian out too.
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Do you remember, they literally tried to do that to Sheila Gunn-Reed at the London Free Speech Conference.
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Here's just a clip of, watch Chrystia Freeland's staff try and blackball Sheila Gunn-Reed.
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So, um, Glover Mail, um, Global, um, CTV, Altaxera, CBC, and the National Geek-Ombudsman, please.
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That's, let's take us to the room and we can see if we can go.
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Well, they didn't try and do that to us now because we were with Mike Pompeo and Chrystia
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Um, I honestly didn't learn a lot from being here.
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First of all, I could have watched, uh, the remarks of these two politicians on TV, uh,
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probably would have had, uh, just as clear a time hearing them.
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I was sitting in the front row, so that was fine.
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But other than the personal satisfaction of being right there, I didn't glean a lot.
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Now, the questions that were asked were asked generally in a bland way.
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I, the, there was an American delegation, as you know, I was smuggled in with them and
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I didn't know the Americans, so I naturally went over and said hi to some of the Canadians,
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some of whom I know, some of whom I'm on friendly terms with.
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I met Lucy Zhou, who's with New Tang Dynasty TV.
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That's a Chinese language TV station in Canada that's very democracy oriented and freedom
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And we know other people from NTD TV like Joe Wong.
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I won't name all of them because I don't want to get them in trouble, but I, I had a good
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But I also saw those parliamentary press gallery executives who had blackballed me, who had
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written me the letters saying, you're not allowed here.
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And they were a little surprised to see me now.
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I want to tell you it's, as you probably know, it's hard to be mean to someone when they're
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It was easy for them to write us a terse one line email.
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You're not allowed here because the rebel's not a real media or whatever they said.
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It's easy to do that from the coldness of, of a keyboard.
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But when I was standing in front of them, flesh and bone, I said, what's your beef?
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Like, like men, um, and they, I, maybe they just said it to get through the, uh, the stress
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So I said, then let's just sit down over coffee, cell phones off, off the record.
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And, and simply objecting to our ideology or philosophy or our style is not sufficient
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because, I mean, I didn't mention it to them here, but if you look at who's a member of
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the parliamentary press gallery, you even have, for example, Xinhua.
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Xinhua, that's a state propaganda channel in China.
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So how could they possibly be granted official parliamentary gallery press status?
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And we're not, I mean, they're not even, that is not even journalism when you are a propaganda
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So I said to them, well, let's, let's talk it out.
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I want to solve the problem because I don't want to be a perpetual victim of being blacklisted.
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I want to come to the events that are interesting to me.
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But let me tell you what happened when I walked over to the other Canadian journalists.
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I mentioned a couple of them from the parliamentary press gallery, but we got down to the business
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And it was a bit of a collective exercise, which I'm naturally not that comfortable with
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because I think journalism, I mean, I guess you could do it collectively with your competitors,
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And here's why, because I think there were only four questions allowed in total, if memory
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serves, two from the Americans and two from the Canadians.
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And so if you have a gaggle of half a dozen Canadians, it makes sense that they sort of
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talk amongst themselves and say, okay, well, what do we really want to press them on?
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And given that it was foreign affairs, the theme was, well, what do we do about China?
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The lady from New Tang Dynasty TV gave her suggestion and other suggestions.
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I saw this press release by the United Steelworkers.
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It's a left-wing labor union, and it was scorching the liberals for waiving tariffs and duties
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There's this huge LNG construction project in BC, $42 billion jobs project.
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It's the largest construction project in Canada.
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And a Canadian tribunal just ruled that China was illegally dumping Chinese steel in the Canadian
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market illegally, unfairly, below cost to drive out Canadian competitors, and this was illegal.
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And Chrystia Freeland just said, oh, that's okay.
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We'll waive the rules and dump all your cheap steel here.
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And so, by the way, a lot of the journalists I spoke to didn't even know this news.
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And I said, hey, guys, how about we put this question to her because it's fresh and she might
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And I said, you recently waived tariffs and duties on Chinese steel being dumped in Canada.
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How could you do that, especially given that China still holds two Canadian citizens?
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And they all agreed that I had a great question.
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And then they said, oh, but Ezra, we don't want you to ask it.
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And I said, well, you know, no offense, mate, but why?
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And they said, oh, well, you'll antagonize the minister.
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I said, no, I'll just say word for word like I just put it to you.
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And they said, well, oh, you came in with Mike Pompeo.
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So you have to take one of the American two questions.
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We'll take your question and we'll ask it as one of the two Canadians.
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I'm just glad that there's some proper journalism with a real question being asked.
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Although, to be honest, I think it wasn't asked as sharply as it could have been.
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But here's Global TV writing the question that I suggested and sort of wrote.
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To Minister Freeland, the steelworkers are denouncing the decision to lift tariffs on the illegally
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dumped steel from China in British Columbia and the LNG projects.
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I'm wondering if you can talk about why that decision was made in light of the two Canadians
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When it comes to steel, let me just start by saying our government is tremendously supportive
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of our steel and aluminum sectors and our steel and aluminum workers.
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As I mentioned in my opening remarks, one of the successes that Canada and the United States
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have enjoyed in our relationship earlier this year is coming to a point where we were able
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And that has added to the prosperity of both of our countries, both of whose economies are
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And that has been really good news for Canadian steelworkers.
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When it comes to the LNG project, this is one of the biggest investments in Canadian history.
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It is going to create a great number of new jobs in Canada.
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And it's an investment that Canadians can be proud of because it will contribute to the fight
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against climate change by making available Canadian LNG to replace coal in a lot of countries.
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It's something we are glad to be supporting and facilitating.
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Now, listen, as I said to that journalist from Global after she said it, I said I was flattered
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that she thought my question was good enough to ask.
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And frankly, even if she was asking it even more sharply, it was Chrystia Freeland who gave
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a non-answer and there were no supplementary questions allowed.
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I felt pretty good that I came up with a question that the rest of the media gaggle said, yeah,
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But I thought it was a little bit clubby and a little bit of a clique to say, Ezra, thanks
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for doing the thinking work, now you go off and sit with the Americans, we're going to
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Well, I don't want to bitch too much, but my point is, this is a problem.
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This clubby guild, don't they see it's a problem?
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I mean, listen, I would have had fun asking that question and it would have been fun to
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see if Chrystia Freeland would have answered it with a straight face.
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I don't know, maybe she would have kicked me out.
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But don't these other journalists see it's a problem?
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That I'm being kicked out and Kean's being kicked out and Sheila's being kicked out and
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David Menzies being kicked out, every single one of us being kicked out because of our
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Like, maybe a severely normal person wouldn't care, but you're a journalist in the freedom
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of expression business and you just think, oh, well, yeah, we're going to ban you.
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Yes, neither I nor Kean were given one of the two Canadian slots and obviously we weren't
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They were taken by the New York Times and the Washington Post that traveled with Mike
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Pompeo and I think it made sense to give them the slot.
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I mean, it would be absurd for them to give it to me.
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I was treated delightfully well by the American staff, including from embassy staff who came
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I'm not going to say who they were because I don't want them to get them in trouble.
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I was also pleasantly surprised to see some other Canadian journalists who sympathized
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with us and said they, too, had been blackballed by this media party guild that runs the Parliamentary
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So in closing, I'd say we had a little bit of fun today.
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We were smuggled in by the Americans who believe in freedom here more than we believe in freedom
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And although it was fun, I know that's not going to happen often because most of the things
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we want to cover in Canada, there's no American friend who can smuggle us in with the First
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We're left here with Chrystia Freeland and her bizarre little troop of parliamentary staffers
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We've had 100 million views of our videos in the last year.
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And that's all with being blackballed by Chrystia Freeland and her little elves.
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It just bothers me as a Canadian that we don't have the freedom that we deserve.
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From Ottawa for the Rebel.media, I'm Ezra LeVance.
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Well, I recorded that experience at the National Arts Center when it happened on Thursday, but
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I was looking a little bit schleppy, and I got some good advice from viewers on that.
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But it made me think about a strange encounter that I had at the National Arts Center when
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And remember, this is for one of the highest-ranking American cabinet secretaries.
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Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, meeting Chrystia Freeland.
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The ambassador from the United States to Canada was there.
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And as I walked into the National Arts Center, I saw a guy who was scurrying about, talking on
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And he reminded me a little bit of a wedding planner.
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And the strange thing about him was that he wasn't wearing socks.
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And I could tell he was wearing teeny tiny socks that exposed his ankles and a little
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And I later discovered that that is Chrystia Freeland's communications director.
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That's the man in charge of sending our images, sending our impressions to the world as Canadians.
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And that was how he was dressing on this momentous day where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was
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And of course, Kian, who's much younger than me, said, Ezra, that's sort of the millennial
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You have the Secretary of State of the United States coming, and you're dressing like you're
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And yeah, we know you want to show us that anklet.
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But it just, I thought to myself, who would do that?
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Who would do that on this most grave and important meeting?
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Everyone else was wearing suits and very formal.
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But the maestro of the whole event was dressed like a punk, like a kid.
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And I thought, well, you know, that's how Chrystia Freeland's whole entourage is.
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Because they're this millennial team shaking up the world order and doing it their way.
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And they're not going to be buttoned down fuddy-duddies like old Mike Pompeo is.
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Yeah, except for how's that working out for Canada?
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From Saudi Arabia to China to India to the United States, it's been a series of diplomatic
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You just can't get around what China did to Canada in retribution for us arresting the
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But how Canada has handled that has been a disaster.
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Look at how Canada handled India, blaming India for the fiasco of the trip there.
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My point is, Chrystia Freeland's team of millennial know-nothings.
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And their arrogant style, which rubs people the wrong way.
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I understand from news reports that Freeland herself was asked to leave the final phases
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of the NAFTA renegotiations because she was so irritating to the U.S. delegation.
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My point is, that is who we are putting forward as our best face.
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And even the little things, like not wearing socks when Mike Pompeo is coming, it just shows
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But come to think of it, that's a perfect hire for Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau,
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Well, folks, I'm in front of the National War Memorial.
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Again, that's just outside the National Arts Center.
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Because there were only two questions for the Canadians and two for the Americans, it's
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not surprising that, given that we were smuggling in at the last minute, that we didn't get an
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But I am a little bit proud that the question I came up with was put by another Canadian
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journalist, and I give her credit for accepting what I thought was good advice, and she must
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I come out of this with a lowered respect for Canada's government.
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The fact that they are so thin-skinned that they didn't even want us in the room.
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Hopefully something will come from those meetings with the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
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Even if it doesn't, we're going to keep providing the kind of journalism that only we can do.
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I should say that we live-streamed the press conference for those who follow us on Twitter,
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so there's so many ways to get the news from the rebel.
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On behalf of all of us here at, well, I guess we're in the nation's capital, not the rebel's
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capital, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.