Rebel News Podcast - SPECIAL： Rebel reporters had to be “smuggled in” to Pompeo event on Parliament Hill — by U.S. media delegation

00:00:00.000 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.

00:00:12.620 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.

00:00:24.040 It's quite a story. It's really a story of censorship. It's not a happy story.

00:00:30.000 Before I let you hear that, can I invite you to go to TheRebel.media slash shows and become a premium subscriber?

00:00:37.260 It's $8 a month or $80 for the year. You get the video version of the show.

00:00:41.580 You also get access to Sheila Gunn-Reed's show and David Menzies' show.

00:00:45.720 And, of course, we use the $8 a month here at The Rebel to produce our good works.

00:00:50.320 All right, without further ado, here is today's podcast.

00:00:53.880 You're listening to a Rebel Media podcast.

00:00:56.360 Tonight is Freedom of Speech Alive in our nation's capital.

00:01:00.360 It's August 26th, and this is The Ezra LeVant Show.

00:01:05.360 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:09.220 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:13.280 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.

00:01:19.140 For The Rebel.media, I'm Ezra LeVant on a glorious sunny day here in Ottawa.

00:01:29.140 Behind me, the National War Memorial, a most somber place.

00:01:33.260 You can see the Honor Guard.

00:01:35.200 We saw earlier the changing of the guard.

00:01:37.880 And you might see there's a wreath laid earlier today by the U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo,

00:01:44.580 who's in town for a bilateral visit with his Canadian counterpart, Chrystia Freeland, our foreign minister.

00:01:50.420 Of course, I don't need to remind you that this very site was where an honor guard a few years ago

00:01:55.800 named Corporal Nathan Cirillo was murdered in cold blood by an ISIS terrorist

00:02:00.620 before he burst into the parliament in a hail of gunfire.

00:02:03.680 And miraculously, no one inside was killed but himself.

00:02:07.540 But a very sober place here and fitting for Mike Pompeo, himself a military veteran to lay a wreath.

00:02:14.540 Now, we're in town because we want to attend that press conference between Pompeo and Freeland.

00:02:21.420 And, of course, we cover American news and Canadian news.

00:02:24.820 And so when they come together, we love to cover it.

00:02:27.260 We are accredited to cover news around the world.

00:02:29.920 We've been everywhere from the White House to the British Parliament, even to the Israeli Knesset and everywhere in between.

00:02:35.700 You might even recall I went to Iraq once.

00:02:38.140 I'll never go back, I hope.

00:02:39.980 But here in Canada, Chrystia Freeland blacklists us and doesn't let us go to events. 0.96

00:02:48.180 It's outrageous.

00:02:49.300 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.

00:03:00.700 They're happy to do the censorship for her.

00:03:03.520 So we were rejected to attend a press conference.

00:03:08.080 Rejected.

00:03:08.640 But I know that the United States believes in this little thing they call the First Amendment.

00:03:13.980 So since we're accredited at the White House, I reached out to the United States and said, we're Canadian.

00:03:20.380 But can we come into this press conference as part of your American media delegation?

00:03:25.240 Can we, in effect, be smuggled in with the Americans and the Canadians? 0.89

00:03:30.600 Well, it'll be too late to stop us.

00:03:33.080 Well, we're about to find out.

00:03:34.740 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.

00:03:42.980 Well, here I am inside the National Arts Center.

00:03:45.780 We were allowed in, but we got in, as I mentioned before, through the office of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

00:03:52.440 The Americans brought us in as part of the American delegation.

00:03:56.920 The Canadians had blackballed us, not just Chrystia Freeland and her staff, but Canada's Parliamentary Press Gallery.

00:04:03.140 They were sort of shocked when I walked in and Kian Bextie came in with me.

00:04:07.240 We had our press passes as handed out by the Americans.

00:04:11.660 We were smuggled in, I like to say.

00:04:13.680 Oh, boy.

00:04:14.500 Chrystia Freeland's own communications director, Adam Austin.

00:04:17.480 I think he was startled.

00:04:18.980 Who let him in?

00:04:20.140 It was very funny, but they didn't make a scene as I feared they might.

00:04:23.200 In fact, I sat right at the front row.

00:04:25.320 And I didn't wink at Chrystia Freeland, but I sort of smiled and nodded.

00:04:28.920 And she smiled and nodded back.

00:04:30.140 I guess she didn't know what to do.

00:04:31.060 For a minute there, I was worried that she was going to try and kick me out and Kian out too.

00:04:36.240 Do you remember, they literally tried to do that to Sheila Gunn-Reed at the London Free Speech Conference.

00:04:43.020 Here's just a clip of, watch Chrystia Freeland's staff try and blackball Sheila Gunn-Reed. 1.00

00:04:48.520 This was in July.

00:04:49.160 So, um, Glover Mail, um, Global, um, CTV, Altaxera, CBC, and the National Geek-Ombudsman, please.

00:05:00.460 And the others?

00:05:00.960 What about the rest?

00:05:01.560 The rest of us?

00:05:02.520 The rest of us have to stay back.

00:05:03.780 No, I think we all go.

00:05:05.080 No, that's nonsense.

00:05:05.980 No, no, no, no, no.

00:05:06.540 That is nonsense.

00:05:06.900 We all go.

00:05:08.080 That's, let's take us to the room and we can see if we can go.

00:05:10.820 No, we're not going, Brittany, we're just not.

00:05:12.300 We're all going.

00:05:12.780 This is a media freedom conference. 0.98

00:05:14.120 Yeah, this is ridiculous. 0.75

00:05:15.060 We just don't do that.

00:05:15.600 Well, they didn't try and do that to us now because we were with Mike Pompeo and Chrystia

00:05:22.380 Freeland didn't want to get offside with him.

00:05:25.100 Um, I honestly didn't learn a lot from being here.

00:05:27.960 First of all, I could have watched, uh, the remarks of these two politicians on TV, uh,

00:05:32.660 probably would have had, uh, just as clear a time hearing them.

00:05:36.760 I was sitting in the front row, so that was fine.

00:05:40.080 But other than the personal satisfaction of being right there, I didn't glean a lot.

00:05:43.800 Now, the questions that were asked were asked generally in a bland way.

00:05:47.520 The answer is completely predictable.

00:05:49.980 Um, I want to tell you about that.

00:05:52.640 I, the, there was an American delegation, as you know, I was smuggled in with them and

00:05:56.740 there was a Canadian delegation.

00:05:57.900 I didn't know the Americans, so I naturally went over and said hi to some of the Canadians,

00:06:02.280 some of whom I know, some of whom I'm on friendly terms with.

00:06:05.860 I met Lucy Zhou, who's with New Tang Dynasty TV.

00:06:10.000 That's a Chinese language TV station in Canada that's very democracy oriented and freedom

00:06:15.760 oriented.

00:06:16.380 And we know other people from NTD TV like Joe Wong.

00:06:19.300 So there were ideological friends here.

00:06:21.740 I won't name all of them because I don't want to get them in trouble, but I, I had a good

00:06:25.040 chat with some friends.

00:06:26.020 But I also saw those parliamentary press gallery executives who had blackballed me, who had

00:06:31.720 written me the letters saying, you're not allowed here.

00:06:34.580 And they were a little surprised to see me now.

00:06:37.960 I want to tell you it's, as you probably know, it's hard to be mean to someone when they're

00:06:42.500 right in front of you.

00:06:43.240 It was easy for them to write us a terse one line email.

00:06:46.020 You're not allowed here because the rebel's not a real media or whatever they said.

00:06:49.540 It's easy to do that from the coldness of, of a keyboard.

00:06:53.320 But when I was standing in front of them, flesh and bone, I said, what's your beef?

00:06:56.680 Let's just talk it out.

00:06:57.660 Like, like men, um, and they, I, maybe they just said it to get through the, uh, the stress

00:07:04.960 of the moment, but they said, yeah.

00:07:06.200 So I said, then let's just sit down over coffee, cell phones off, off the record.

00:07:10.200 What's your beef?

00:07:10.880 Let's get the rebel here. 0.90

00:07:12.160 And, and simply objecting to our ideology or philosophy or our style is not sufficient

00:07:16.880 because, I mean, I didn't mention it to them here, but if you look at who's a member of

00:07:21.460 the parliamentary press gallery, you even have, for example, Xinhua.

00:07:24.460 Xinhua, that's a state propaganda channel in China.

00:07:28.580 So how could they possibly be granted official parliamentary gallery press status?

00:07:33.980 And we're not, I mean, they're not even, that is not even journalism when you are a propaganda

00:07:39.140 outlet for, for China.

00:07:41.320 So I said to them, well, let's, let's talk it out.

00:07:43.080 I want to solve the problem because I don't want to be a perpetual victim of being blacklisted.

00:07:47.580 I want to come to the events that are interesting to me.

00:07:49.940 But let me tell you what happened when I walked over to the other Canadian journalists.

00:07:53.900 I knew some of them, some of them knew me.

00:07:56.240 I mentioned a couple of them from the parliamentary press gallery, but we got down to the business

00:07:59.820 of what questions would we ask the minister?

00:08:01.840 And it was a bit of a collective exercise, which I'm naturally not that comfortable with

00:08:06.060 because I think journalism, I mean, I guess you could do it collectively with your competitors,

00:08:10.260 but I don't know.

00:08:11.360 But that's, that's the style of it.

00:08:12.620 And here's why, because I think there were only four questions allowed in total, if memory

00:08:16.420 serves, two from the Americans and two from the Canadians.

00:08:18.760 And so if you have a gaggle of half a dozen Canadians, it makes sense that they sort of

00:08:23.180 talk amongst themselves and say, okay, well, what do we really want to press them on?

00:08:26.600 And given that it was foreign affairs, the theme was, well, what do we do about China?

00:08:30.400 And I agreed.

00:08:31.260 And there were some ideas.

00:08:32.320 The lady from New Tang Dynasty TV gave her suggestion and other suggestions.

00:08:36.140 And I put a suggestion forward.

00:08:38.420 I saw this press release by the United Steelworkers.

00:08:41.280 They're not exactly right-wing people.

00:08:42.740 It's a left-wing labor union, and it was scorching the liberals for waiving tariffs and duties

00:08:50.200 on an enormous amount of Chinese-made steel.

00:08:54.260 Let me explain what I mean.

00:08:55.480 There's this huge LNG construction project in BC, $42 billion jobs project.

00:09:00.480 It's the largest construction project in Canada.

00:09:03.800 And a Canadian tribunal just ruled that China was illegally dumping Chinese steel in the Canadian

00:09:09.900 market illegally, unfairly, below cost to drive out Canadian competitors, and this was illegal.

00:09:18.060 And Chrystia Freeland just said, oh, that's okay.

00:09:20.420 That's okay.

00:09:20.900 We'll waive the rules and dump all your cheap steel here. 0.99

00:09:26.280 Say what?

00:09:27.480 And so, by the way, a lot of the journalists I spoke to didn't even know this news.

00:09:31.180 How could they not know that?

00:09:32.320 So I actually emailed them the story.

00:09:33.960 I showed them on my phone.

00:09:34.920 And I said, hey, guys, how about we put this question to her because it's fresh and she might

00:09:39.980 not have a pat answer.

00:09:41.600 And I said, you recently waived tariffs and duties on Chinese steel being dumped in Canada.

00:09:48.540 How could you do that, especially given that China still holds two Canadian citizens?

00:09:52.680 I said it almost word for word like that.

00:09:54.360 And everyone said, that's a great question.

00:09:56.080 That's a great question.

00:09:57.100 And they all agreed that I had a great question.

00:09:59.080 I felt sort of good about that.

00:10:00.240 And then they said, oh, but Ezra, we don't want you to ask it.

00:10:06.480 And I said, well, you know, no offense, mate, but why?

00:10:10.680 And they said, oh, well, you'll antagonize the minister.

00:10:13.040 I said, no, I'll just say word for word like I just put it to you.

00:10:15.820 And they said, well, oh, you came in with Mike Pompeo.

00:10:22.540 So you have to take one of the American two questions.

00:10:26.220 You can't say it in the Canadian question.

00:10:28.500 We'll take your question and we'll ask it as one of the two Canadians.

00:10:33.600 And I thought, you know what?

00:10:34.980 I'm just glad that there's some proper journalism with a real question being asked.

00:10:39.560 Although, to be honest, I think it wasn't asked as sharply as it could have been.

00:10:43.440 But here's Global TV writing the question that I suggested and sort of wrote.

00:10:49.040 Here, take a look.

00:10:49.500 To Minister Freeland, the steelworkers are denouncing the decision to lift tariffs on the illegally

00:10:55.980 dumped steel from China in British Columbia and the LNG projects.

00:11:00.220 I'm wondering if you can talk about why that decision was made in light of the two Canadians 0.96

00:11:04.360 detained in China.

00:11:05.300 When it comes to steel, let me just start by saying our government is tremendously supportive

00:11:14.940 of our steel and aluminum sectors and our steel and aluminum workers.

00:11:20.780 As I mentioned in my opening remarks, one of the successes that Canada and the United States

00:11:29.060 have enjoyed in our relationship earlier this year is coming to a point where we were able

00:11:36.320 to lift the 232 tariffs in both directions.

00:11:40.540 And that has added to the prosperity of both of our countries, both of whose economies are

00:11:46.100 growing strongly.

00:11:47.520 And that has been really good news for Canadian steelworkers.

00:11:52.940 And that is a really good thing.

00:11:55.060 When it comes to the LNG project, this is one of the biggest investments in Canadian history.

00:12:07.320 It is going to create a great number of new jobs in Canada.

00:12:14.720 And it's an investment that Canadians can be proud of because it will contribute to the fight

00:12:22.420 against climate change by making available Canadian LNG to replace coal in a lot of countries.

00:12:31.700 So it's a very important project.

00:12:34.000 It's something we are glad to be supporting and facilitating.

00:12:37.660 Now, listen, as I said to that journalist from Global after she said it, I said I was flattered

00:12:43.100 that she thought my question was good enough to ask.

00:12:45.360 And frankly, even if she was asking it even more sharply, it was Chrystia Freeland who gave

00:12:52.220 a non-answer and there were no supplementary questions allowed.

00:12:56.460 So, you know what?

00:12:57.760 I felt pretty good that I came up with a question that the rest of the media gaggle said, yeah,

00:13:02.560 let's make that our first question as a group.

00:13:04.560 But I thought it was a little bit clubby and a little bit of a clique to say, Ezra, thanks

00:13:10.780 for doing the thinking work, now you go off and sit with the Americans, we're going to

00:13:15.300 ask this because you're not one of us.

00:13:17.380 Well, I don't want to bitch too much, but my point is, this is a problem.

00:13:21.940 This clubby guild, don't they see it's a problem? 0.54

00:13:25.600 I mean, listen, I would have had fun asking that question and it would have been fun to

00:13:28.960 see if Chrystia Freeland would have answered it with a straight face. 0.99

00:13:31.480 I don't know, maybe she would have kicked me out. 1.00

00:13:33.740 But don't these other journalists see it's a problem?

00:13:36.840 That I'm being kicked out and Kean's being kicked out and Sheila's being kicked out and

00:13:41.280 David Menzies being kicked out, every single one of us being kicked out because of our

00:13:44.940 ideology?

00:13:45.700 Like, maybe a severely normal person wouldn't care, but you're a journalist in the freedom

00:13:53.180 of expression business and you just think, oh, well, yeah, we're going to ban you.

00:13:57.780 How can that be normal?

00:14:00.260 Anyways, I would regard today as a success.

00:14:03.260 Yes, neither I nor Kean were given one of the two Canadian slots and obviously we weren't

00:14:08.800 given one of the two American slots.

00:14:10.620 They were taken by the New York Times and the Washington Post that traveled with Mike

00:14:14.220 Pompeo and I think it made sense to give them the slot.

00:14:17.320 I mean, it would be absurd for them to give it to me.

00:14:20.300 I was treated delightfully well by the American staff, including from embassy staff who came

00:14:26.360 over and said they were huge fans.

00:14:27.820 I'm not going to say who they were because I don't want them to get them in trouble.

00:14:30.360 I was also pleasantly surprised to see some other Canadian journalists who sympathized

00:14:36.300 with us and said they, too, had been blackballed by this media party guild that runs the Parliamentary

00:14:41.880 Press Gallery.

00:14:43.020 So in closing, I'd say we had a little bit of fun today.

00:14:46.740 We were smuggled in by the Americans who believe in freedom here more than we believe in freedom

00:14:52.360 here.

00:14:53.160 And although it was fun, I know that's not going to happen often because most of the things

00:14:58.000 we want to cover in Canada, there's no American friend who can smuggle us in with the First 1.00

00:15:03.280 Amendment.

00:15:03.740 We're left here with Chrystia Freeland and her bizarre little troop of parliamentary staffers 0.99

00:15:10.100 trying to censor us as every term.

00:15:12.020 You know what, though?

00:15:12.740 It hasn't stopped us yet.

00:15:14.140 I looked at our stats.

00:15:15.420 We've had 100 million views of our videos in the last year.

00:15:20.980 A hundred million.

00:15:22.700 And that's all with being blackballed by Chrystia Freeland and her little elves. 1.00

00:15:27.100 So that doesn't bother me too much.

00:15:28.560 It just bothers me as a Canadian that we don't have the freedom that we deserve.

00:15:34.260 From Ottawa for the Rebel.media, I'm Ezra LeVance.

00:15:37.880 Well, I recorded that experience at the National Arts Center when it happened on Thursday, but

00:15:59.180 I'm recording this little video on Monday.

00:16:02.420 As you can see, I've gotten a haircut since.

00:16:04.220 And in fact, I needed a haircut pretty badly.

00:16:06.620 I was looking a little bit schleppy, and I got some good advice from viewers on that.

00:16:11.300 But it made me think about a strange encounter that I had at the National Arts Center when

00:16:15.640 I walked in.

00:16:16.700 And remember, this is for one of the highest-ranking American cabinet secretaries.

00:16:21.660 Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, meeting Chrystia Freeland.

00:16:25.160 There's so much at stake.

00:16:26.420 Military, commerce, diplomacy with China.

00:16:29.900 There's so much going on.

00:16:31.820 And everyone was on their best behavior.

00:16:34.640 Everything was scripted.

00:16:35.680 There were so many handlers.

00:16:37.140 There was so much security.

00:16:38.860 And it was quite an amazing feeling.

00:16:41.380 The ambassador from the United States to Canada was there.

00:16:44.560 It was her last day.

00:16:45.720 She was dressed to the nines.

00:16:46.980 A whole lots of VIPs.

00:16:49.200 And as I walked into the National Arts Center, I saw a guy who was scurrying about, talking on

00:16:53.740 his cell phone.

00:16:54.820 And he reminded me a little bit of a wedding planner.

00:16:57.980 He came across that way.

00:16:59.500 He was effusive.

00:17:00.280 He was very dramatic.

00:17:03.420 And the strange thing about him was that he wasn't wearing socks.

00:17:06.880 He was wearing a suit.

00:17:09.100 But his pants were short.

00:17:12.240 And I could tell he was wearing teeny tiny socks that exposed his ankles and a little

00:17:17.880 string anklet, an ankle bracelet.

00:17:21.240 Here's what it looks like.

00:17:22.260 And I later discovered that that is Chrystia Freeland's communications director.

00:17:28.980 That's the man in charge of sending our images, sending our impressions to the world as Canadians.

00:17:35.840 And that was how he was dressing on this momentous day where Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was

00:17:41.240 coming to town.

00:17:42.240 And my first thought was, put on some socks.

00:17:44.780 What are you doing?

00:17:45.700 And of course, Kian, who's much younger than me, said, Ezra, that's sort of the millennial

00:17:49.020 style.

00:17:49.860 Well, I don't care what style it is.

00:17:51.600 You have the Secretary of State of the United States coming, and you're dressing like you're 0.94

00:17:56.240 at some bar or club or something.

00:17:58.400 Put on a suit.

00:17:59.620 Put on some socks.

00:18:01.020 And yeah, we know you want to show us that anklet.

00:18:03.580 And maybe that's a high fashion somewhere.

00:18:06.300 But it just, I thought to myself, who would do that?

00:18:11.460 Who would do that on this most grave and important meeting?

00:18:16.680 It felt disrespectful to me.

00:18:19.340 Now, maybe I'm just showing my age.

00:18:20.720 I'm coming across as a fuddy-duddy.

00:18:22.580 But I just couldn't stop looking at this guy.

00:18:24.840 Everyone else was wearing suits and very formal.

00:18:28.900 But the maestro of the whole event was dressed like a punk, like a kid.

00:18:36.720 And I thought, well, you know, that's how Chrystia Freeland's whole entourage is. 0.99

00:18:41.360 Because they're this millennial team shaking up the world order and doing it their way.

00:18:47.460 And they're not going to be buttoned down fuddy-duddies like old Mike Pompeo is.

00:18:53.040 Yeah, except for how's that working out for Canada?

00:18:56.020 From Saudi Arabia to China to India to the United States, it's been a series of diplomatic

00:19:02.500 disasters, some of which has been substantive.

00:19:05.660 You just can't get around what China did to Canada in retribution for us arresting the 0.99

00:19:13.200 Huawei executive.

00:19:14.360 But how Canada has handled that has been a disaster.

00:19:17.700 Look at how Canada handled India, blaming India for the fiasco of the trip there.

00:19:23.900 My point is, Chrystia Freeland's team of millennial know-nothings. 1.00

00:19:28.660 And their arrogant style, which rubs people the wrong way.

00:19:34.480 I understand from news reports that Freeland herself was asked to leave the final phases

00:19:39.980 of the NAFTA renegotiations because she was so irritating to the U.S. delegation. 0.99

00:19:45.100 My point is, that is who we are putting forward as our best face.

00:19:49.660 And even the little things, like not wearing socks when Mike Pompeo is coming, it just shows

00:19:55.640 an arrogant, know-nothing, know-it-all. 0.51

00:20:00.340 But come to think of it, that's a perfect hire for Chrystia Freeland and Justin Trudeau, 0.85

00:20:07.600 who, I guess, loves socks a little too much.

00:20:12.680 Stay with us for more.

00:20:19.660 Well, folks, I'm in front of the National War Memorial.

00:20:28.700 Again, that's just outside the National Arts Center.

00:20:31.300 There are tourists here.

00:20:32.180 You can see the Honor Guard.

00:20:34.380 I've had a very interesting day.

00:20:35.940 Because there were only two questions for the Canadians and two for the Americans, it's

00:20:40.280 not surprising that, given that we were smuggling in at the last minute, that we didn't get an

00:20:44.840 opportunity to ask one of them.

00:20:46.000 But I am a little bit proud that the question I came up with was put by another Canadian

00:20:51.740 journalist, and I give her credit for accepting what I thought was good advice, and she must

00:20:56.480 have too.

00:20:57.280 I come out of this with a lowered respect for Canada's government.

00:21:02.120 The fact that they are so thin-skinned that they didn't even want us in the room.

00:21:06.920 Hopefully something will come from those meetings with the Parliamentary Press Gallery.

00:21:10.880 But you know what?

00:21:11.260 Even if it doesn't, we're going to keep providing the kind of journalism that only we can do.

00:21:14.740 that because we do it, they don't want us in.

00:21:17.940 I should say that we live-streamed the press conference for those who follow us on Twitter,

00:21:22.020 so there's so many ways to get the news from the rebel.

00:21:24.260 Well, that's it for today.

00:21:25.280 On behalf of all of us here at, well, I guess we're in the nation's capital, not the rebel's

00:21:29.440 capital, to you at home, good night, and keep fighting for freedom.

00:21:32.980 We'll be right back.

00:21:48.260 We'll be right back.

Rebel News Podcast - August 27, 2019

SPECIAL： Rebel reporters had to be “smuggled in” to Pompeo event on Parliament Hill — by U.S. media delegation

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