Rebel News Podcast - We've just seen what happens when the people no longer listen to the elites

00:00:00.000 Hello, my friends. Trinity Bellwoods Park is a very nice park, lovely park in Toronto. I'm not

00:00:05.160 going to quite compare it to Central Park in New York, because that's a unique park. But it's a

00:00:10.080 really lovely park in Toronto, and the weather was perfect this weekend. And wouldn't you know it,

00:00:14.560 up to 10,000 Torontonians just said, the heck with this lockdown, I'm going to the park.

00:00:19.820 Oh boy, Toronto's mayor was mad. He went down there himself, except for the funny thing is,

00:00:25.900 he didn't socially distance himself either. In fact, he took his face mask off. I'll have the

00:00:31.580 photos and the story in today's episode. Let me invite you to become a video subscriber. Just

00:00:37.760 join Rebel News Plus. It's eight bucks a month, no big deal, or 80 bucks for the whole year. You get,

00:00:41.980 as you can see, a couple months off. And you get the video version, and I want to show you the

00:00:47.280 pictures. I'm going to show you the pictures of the mayor and his goofy non-mask wearing. I want

00:00:52.420 to show you the pictures of the park and the lovely people there. Anyways, without further

00:00:56.480 ado, here's the podcast. Tonight, what happens when the people no longer listen to the elites?

00:01:16.700 I'll show you what happened this weekend. It's May 25th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.

00:01:22.420 Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?

00:01:26.700 There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.

00:01:30.780 The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my

00:01:35.360 bloody right to do so.

00:01:41.600 You know, we've all been scared for two months because they scared us. Seriously, do you remember

00:01:46.200 when Health Minister Patty Hajdu gave her advice to Canadians, go to the store and buy up everything

00:01:51.960 you can, make your own stockpile at home? That really was her advice. And the wild predictions

00:01:58.120 of hundreds of thousands of deaths in Canada. But at the same time, the refusal to stop direct

00:02:03.720 flights from China, which continue to this day. Frankly, I think the scariest thing is that Teresa

00:02:09.100 Tam, Trudeau's health officer, has kept her other job throughout this whole crisis, and she works for

00:02:13.920 the China-controlled World Health Organization. When you understand that, a lot of other things start

00:02:18.300 to make sense, like this old clip of her.

00:02:20.460 If there are people who are non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health

00:02:26.460 powers that can quarantine people in mandatory settings. It's potential you could track people,

00:02:35.280 put bracelets on their arms, have police and other setups to ensure quarantine is undertaken.

00:02:42.900 Yeah, so they scared us, not just Trudeau, but other politicians too. So we all accepted house

00:02:48.340 arrests pretty meekly, didn't we? To flatten the curve. That was the phrase. Just to remind you,

00:02:53.860 flattening the curve didn't mean it would stop infections. It would slow down the rate of

00:02:58.660 infection, so it would be spread out over a longer period of time. So there would be no peak that would

00:03:04.580 overwhelm hospitals. We all had two weeks until that crisis would hit. So every non-emergency patient

00:03:11.060 was cleared out of hospitals. In the US, they actually deployed those two Navy hospital ships. 0.98

00:03:16.820 And everyone braced for the overflow that never came. It just didn't. There was no curve to flatten.

00:03:23.540 The latest death toll for Canada is just over 6,000, which is terrible. I should tell you though,

00:03:29.380 it's less than the average annual death toll from the flu and pneumonia. And I think it's absolutely

00:03:34.420 critical to point out that 82% of all Canadian deaths are in seniors' homes. What is it about

00:03:39.860 seniors' homes or some seniors' homes that made it that way? So I won't even say it's a disease that

00:03:44.820 targets people over 80, because if you weren't in certain seniors' homes, you didn't die from the

00:03:50.020 virus, even if you were over 80. So take out those 82%, call this seniors' home flu, and then acknowledge 0.94

00:03:56.740 that the death toll for the other parts of society has been about 1,000 people over the past two months.

00:04:02.660 So 16 people a day, on average, excluding seniors' homes. In Canada, about 1,000 people a day die from

00:04:13.140 all causes. So my point is, they scared us as hard as they could. And we braced ourselves for two weeks,

00:04:19.620 and then that became four weeks, and now we're into two months. They said it was just for two weeks

00:04:24.820 to flatten the curve. Thankfully, no curve to flatten in our hospitals. Our seniors' homes need a proper 0.99

00:04:29.860 independent inquiry, I would say. But the rest of us, thank God, are fine. Not a single death in

00:04:34.260 Canada under age 20. I'm pleased to report eight million Canadians in that age bracket. Not one died.

00:04:39.940 I'm not happy that seniors' homes residents are dying. But my point is, if schools are closed,

00:04:44.900 I think we can agree it's a teacher's union thing, probably. It's not a health thing.

00:04:50.340 So two months cooped up, stressed out. For millions of people, unemployment and the risk of poverty, and on top

00:04:55.540 of that, the people who said we had to be scared, and strict, and not come into contact with other

00:05:00.260 humans, and not cross provincial lines, not travel. Well, they all did precisely those things.

00:05:06.100 Trudeau was the most brazen, of course. For many weeks now, authorities are saying,

00:05:10.900 don't go to your cottage. On the Ottawa River, there's even some control

00:05:18.820 by the police to make sure that people don't go from Ottawa to Gatineau. Why was it okay for you to do this?

00:05:24.340 As I mentioned last week in my presentation, after three weeks of my family living up at

00:05:31.620 Harrington and me working here, I went to join them for Easter. We continue to follow all the

00:05:38.820 instructions from public health authorities. Yeah, he broke the rules. What are you going to do about it?

00:05:44.500 Oh, and so did Ontario Premier Doug Ford. On Sunday morning of Easter, my team told me I got the

00:05:51.700 morning off, and it was the first time I got off in, I don't know, two months. And it's weighing on me,

00:05:58.100 because a couple of years ago, we had burst pipes, made a terrible mess, thousands of dollars of

00:06:03.700 damage. And that night, you know, I was thinking about it, I woke up early in the morning,

00:06:09.700 5.30. And then I just got ready and hopped in the pickup truck myself at 6.30 in the morning. I drove up

00:06:17.540 there and checked out, you know, make sure everything was okay. And it was, I literally hopped

00:06:23.380 back in my truck and drove right back. I was back by noon. That's the ticket. He went up there to check

00:06:28.820 on the plumbing. That's why he had a family reunion out there in the cottage. Here's Toronto's Mayor

00:06:34.100 John Tory. It's just so disappointing. You just can't believe people really, you know, want this

00:06:39.220 to last longer. They're ones that said they needed to have a break, you know, in the park. And I get

00:06:43.700 that from their own apartments and condos and so on. And yet they don't realize that by doing what

00:06:47.860 they did yesterday, they are, you know, running a real risk that we're going to prolong this whole

00:06:51.540 thing or have to close the city down again. Yeah, he's so disappointed in us. Don't we know

00:06:57.460 we risk killing everyone? It's okay for him to take off his mask and pose for a photo op

00:07:03.460 in front of a hospital with frontline workers. Mask off so we can see. It's him in the PR photo.

00:07:09.300 That's fine, but not for you. And here he is at a large park in Toronto on the weekend

00:07:14.500 called Trinity Bellwoods. It's such a pretty park. It's a fun park, lots of people, lots of pets,

00:07:18.980 just a great place to go. The mayor actually put fences around the pretty trees to stop people

00:07:22.980 from looking at them. I swear I'm not making that up. Anyways, after we mocked,

00:07:27.300 those fences, the mayor took them down. But anyways, the mayor went to the park this weekend.

00:07:32.340 I think he knows that's not how you wear a mask. I think he knows that, but he did that with his

00:07:37.700 mask because it was, I don't know, inconvenient or uncomfortable or people couldn't hear him, 0.99

00:07:42.020 or he just felt stupid wearing it. All of those things can be true. All probably are true. But he 0.99

00:07:47.140 literally went down there precisely to scold people. And that's what's so amazing. It was packed.

00:07:52.340 And I mean packed. I heard estimates of up to 10,000 people in the park. Now, if you know downtown

00:07:57.940 Toronto, you know there's a forest of very tall high-rise condos, typically pretty small,

00:08:04.420 usually young people living in them right downtown. So no backyard, no open spaces.

00:08:10.660 And everything's being shut down. So you're cooped up at home. You're doing nothing. Or if you can work

00:08:14.580 from home, you're still slowly going mad. The only human contact you have is via Skype or Zoom,

00:08:19.540 and 10 seconds when the food delivery guy comes. So you've been cooped up for two months,

00:08:23.460 like you've been holding your breath. You've been waiting for the worst. And thank God,

00:08:27.220 the worst never happened. And maybe you've heard that not a single case is being recorded of

00:08:32.420 catching the virus through casual outdoor contact. And you know the young people don't get it. And

00:08:36.980 more to the point, you see that all the bosses are cheating. They don't really mean it.

00:08:42.820 And maybe you've started to see other jurisdictions going back to normal,

00:08:45.780 especially in the United States, but some Canadian places too. So it's a gorgeous weekend,

00:08:49.700 this last weekend. And you say, I'm going out. To heck with it. I'm alive. I want to

00:08:54.020 see other humans. I want to live. I want to see my old friends. I want to maybe make some new friends

00:08:57.380 or just talk to people in person. No screens, no Skype, no cell phones, just to connect human to

00:09:02.100 human. And it looked wonderful. I don't see a lot of cell phones in the picture. Do you?

00:09:06.900 People have had their fill of cell phones. They want to live again. It's wonderful.

00:09:10.820 And not that this is political, but these are liberals, these people, young, single, downtown,

00:09:15.300 Toronto, high-rise dwellers. Yeah, that's liberal. That's NDP. That's Green Party. That's Obama

00:09:19.700 wannabe. That's not right-wing conservative Trump people. But it's not even about partisan stripes.

00:09:24.580 It's just about being human and deciding that you're done being scared and that really the only

00:09:28.340 people who should be scared are seniors who are stashed in seniors' homes. So the mayor goes down

00:09:34.420 there to scold people. I'm serious. That's what he was doing. Mask off, no social distancing.

00:09:39.300 Isn't it funny how it seems to work that way? So many cases, including our Fight the Fines cases,

00:09:44.660 the police themselves are the ones causing the risk, if you believe it's a risk, with no masks,

00:09:49.060 no social distancing. So the mayor of Toronto was so, so disappointed in the people. And so was the

00:09:56.020 mayor's chief medical officer, Eileen Davila. Well, we should have a lot of chief medical officers 1.00

00:10:00.820 in Canada. Lots of chiefs, don't we? Theresa Tam, one for each province and territory. 0.87

00:10:06.660 Looks like all the big cities have one. That's a lot of chiefs, isn't it? All very important.

00:10:12.020 All paid a lot. Just basically telling us to wash our hands. Scolding, scolding, scolding.

00:10:18.180 I understand that the photos of people in Trinity Bellwoods were disappointing today,

00:10:22.420 said Toronto's chief public health officer. It was a beautiful day and we all want to enjoy our city

00:10:27.460 together. But this could be selfish and dangerous behavior that could send us back.

00:10:32.340 Is selfish a medical diagnosis? And is she now saying that the virus is indeed transmitted through

00:10:37.300 casual outdoor contact? 312 studies say it's not. What's her source on this? And this one.

00:10:44.100 Please keep a physical distance and do not socialize in group settings, especially indoors.

00:10:50.500 Please continue to practice physical distancing and please continue to take care of each other.

00:10:54.580 Hang on. Don't socialize outside, but definitely don't socialize indoors. And but also take care

00:11:00.900 of each other, but don't. What? They're not listening to you. They listen for two months and

00:11:08.020 they've had enough. You don't even make sense. A Toronto news channel called CP24 went down to the

00:11:13.700 park and they were appalled. But here's two photos sent to me from someone who's at the park. You can see

00:11:18.980 the reporter there, the second cameraman wearing a mask. That's good hygiene people, but for him at

00:11:24.500 least. But as soon as they were off camera, he took off his mask just like the mayor did. It was just for

00:11:29.700 show. Well, everyone was so mad and the mayor was threatening fines and tickets. So they deployed a ton

00:11:37.860 of police the next day, Sunday, and they managed to scare away the crowds. Who knows where they went?

00:11:42.500 But look at this guy literally lying down by himself in the middle of the park. No one around him for

00:11:46.660 100 feet and he still got a ticket. Why? For doing what? How did that guy by himself get a ticket

00:11:53.060 when the mayor went down there mixing with crowds with no mask on and he didn't get a ticket?

00:11:58.260 It's hard not to notice the people who have summer cottages and big backyards are doing pretty good

00:12:03.860 in this lockdown. They don't mind. And they're pretty scoldy of people who don't have

00:12:08.500 those things and just want to go to the park. The poor's. Just like people who are being paid 0.98

00:12:14.740 no matter what. They love this surprise bonus vacation at home. It's the little people who've

00:12:19.860 lost their jobs as waiters, waitresses, barbers. They're the ones who want to get back to work.

00:12:24.340 I think this is a class thing, really. Here's a website that compiles the salaries and names from

00:12:29.940 Ontario's sunshine list. That's provincial employees who earn six figures. Eileen Davila makes $309,000

00:12:37.700 a year as Toronto's public health school. That's up from $215,000 just two years ago. I'm guessing

00:12:42.980 she's got her own lake house if she's making that kind of coin. So she doesn't need some park. 0.99

00:12:48.580 There are actually public health officers in Ontario who make close to $400,000 a year.

00:12:53.540 They're not even meeting patients. They're just scolding. They tweak their disappointment to the

00:12:59.140 rest of us. I was mad at these fancy schools and their private vacation homes lecturing young men

00:13:04.100 and women out of the park. So I wrote on Twitter, I said, Bounty, I'll pay you $2,500 cash for photos 0.97

00:13:09.860 or videos of Cruella Davila breaking her own pandemic guidelines like Doug Ford at the cottage and 0.87

00:13:15.300 Trudeau visiting his family over Easter. You don't actually believe that she follows her own rules, 0.99

00:13:19.060 do you? And I will pay that bounty. I'd love to get photos of any of those things. But out of the

00:13:27.780 blue, I got a reply from a 90s TV celebrity on that old station called Munch Music, Erica M.

00:13:33.300 She's such a fan of, you know, she's a girl groupie who just made eyes at every band passing 0.92

00:13:39.460 through town. It was sort of funny, a 90s moment. Anyway, I guess she's still alive, thank God. I was

00:13:43.540 delighted to learn. And she looks wonderful for age 58. And she was super mad at me though. She said,

00:13:50.980 do you really need attention this badly? Please act like a responsible adult and stop with

00:13:54.580 them games and name calling. It's so easy to disparage and bully safely from the sidelines,

00:13:59.220 especially women. They're always an easier target. I'm trying to get attention. It's true, 1.00

00:14:04.580 because I'm trying to get everyone with a fine to come to me and we'll fight the ticket for them.

00:14:09.060 It's not games. The name calling is pretty gentle. I call politicians names, but it's that one line

00:14:14.740 she said, it's so easy to disparage and bully safely from the sidelines, especially women. They're 1.00

00:14:20.020 always an easier target. What are you talking about? I wrote back. I said, what a blast from

00:14:25.380 the past. I can't believe it's been 26 years since you run much music. I'm glad to see you're still

00:14:29.380 alive and kicking. I criticized three political bullies, two men, one woman. It's condescending to

00:14:34.420 see Davila for you. It's condescending to Davila for you to blame sexism rather than incompetence.

00:14:40.740 And she said this, she said, yes, still standing. Let me rephrase. Please don't be a bully on social

00:14:47.140 media, especially the public servants working hard with no road map. Everyone's doing what

00:14:52.020 they can to find a way out. Rather than criticize, find positive solutions. What? Twice she calls me

00:14:58.660 a bully? Is that what it is to criticize a politician who earns $300,000 a year from taxpayers and is

00:15:05.140 threatening thousands of people with fines? Is that bullying? I said, I'm not a bully. Davila's a bully, 0.94

00:15:10.980 scolding and threatening to fine working class people who've been cooped up in tiny apartments,

00:15:16.340 don't have fancy lake cottages like Trudeau Ford or $1,000 a night Muskoka family getaways.

00:15:23.940 And I linked to this vacation travel log by Erica M of her taking her family to $1,000 a night

00:15:30.820 lake resort. That's the thing. Don't tell a working class young person he can't go to the park

00:15:37.780 because he doesn't have a country home. He doesn't have a home at all.

00:15:40.260 It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out. They promised us it would be a two-week lockdown,

00:15:46.980 it's two months. If some politicians had their way, they'd keep us like this for a long, long time.

00:15:52.340 If there are people who are non-compliant, there are definitely laws and public health

00:15:58.420 powers that can quarantine people in mandatory settings. It's potential you could track people,

00:16:07.300 put bracelets on their arms, have police and other setups to ensure quarantine is undertaken.

00:16:15.140 You have bracelets, eh? This isn't going to end quickly, is it? Stay with us for more.

00:16:28.420 So you guys know the Canadian Charter, right? We have the right to peaceful assembly and municipalities

00:16:38.660 during a regular time, yes, but this is a state of emergency that we're under.

00:16:42.340 Uh, he had told us that he's not going to be issuing a fine at this time. He would allow us a little

00:16:48.020 while to read over things and put these measures into place, which would be the plexiglass and the

00:16:53.620 arrows on the floor for social distancing. So he wasn't going to fine us until he spoke it

00:16:58.260 over with Dr. Paul Romuliotis at the Eastern Ontario Health Unit and they would determine whether a fine

00:17:03.620 would be put in place. However, the officer come back within the hour and he fined us $880.

00:17:13.300 I brought her out to do her business and I was out here maybe five minutes, six minutes.

00:17:19.060 I came back to the back door and I got to the third door. There were two policemen standing in front

00:17:24.500 of my apartment with Max's son, like yourself, and they had the ticket already made out. They whipped

00:17:31.700 it out like Matt Dillon and handed it to me. $880. Basically, as soon as I walked out onto the skate

00:17:39.940 park, three bylaw officers walked out and they just ticketed me. They didn't give me a warning,

00:17:45.060 they didn't tell me to just go. I asked, I tried to talk to them about it, but they just stuck me with

00:17:50.100 the ticket. I was walking around this field, you know, figuring, you know, metal detecting,

00:17:54.180 what could be more of a social distancing hobby, right? So I figured, you know, it's cool. I'm not

00:17:59.060 near the benches. I'm not near other people. I'm in the middle of a field, you know, what could go wrong?

00:18:02.420 And lo and behold, from half a kilometer away, here they come and I knew right away. So

00:18:09.140 what could I do? I just stood there and expected the worst and the worst happened.

00:18:12.420 There's your ticket. Leave the parking lot. Next one goes up to $1,000. Really? Yes. You can get up to

00:18:19.540 $10,000. How many have you given out today? You're the first. Well, I feel so good about that. You're lucky,

00:18:25.460 you're the first. You're the first out, fall right back. We were on this wing for about 15, we were here

00:18:30.900 for about 15 or 20 minutes. She was just on this wing. We weren't hurting anyone. We were here by ourselves.

00:18:37.140 The police showed up. Two officers approached us and told us that we were breaking. And they put

00:18:44.020 handcuffs on my mom. Welcome back. Well, you might recall that about a month ago,

00:18:48.980 we knew that civil liberties were going to be one of the things broken or infringed during the pandemic

00:18:56.340 overreaction by the government, not just here in Canada. Of course, the United States and the UK

00:19:01.620 in particular have seen some bad behavior by government, but we're based in Canada.

00:19:07.380 So we thought let's actually do something about it. So we set up a website called fightthefines.com.

00:19:15.300 And we made an arrangement with a civil liberties and criminal law defense lawyer in Toronto named Sam

00:19:21.220 Goldstein to help us vet cases brought to us through that website. And we would crowdfund the legal fees.

00:19:28.740 Well, I'm pleased to report that we now have more than 10 cases that we're working on. You can see

00:19:35.460 all of them at fightthefines.com. And I thought it would take a moment to catch up with who I call

00:19:41.700 the managing partner of our civil liberties public interest law firm, Sam Goldstein himself,

00:19:48.020 who joins us now via Skype. Sam, great to see you again. Welcome back.

00:19:50.900 You know, it's nice to see you too, Esther. Be careful if I'm going to be called the managing

00:19:55.700 partner and maybe asking for an increase in my fees. Well, listen, it's been a very interesting

00:20:01.540 and educational month for me. I've enjoyed watching you discuss these cases and our journalists

00:20:08.980 reporting cases from as far west as Calgary and as far east as New Brunswick. That crazy case of the

00:20:16.740 Tim Hortons coffee drinker just sitting in his car by himself. If you had to sum up the commonality

00:20:23.620 in the 10 or so cases we've published so far, what would you think they have in common?

00:20:30.580 Well, you know, I think what we're seeing across Canada, Ezra, is some of it I think is due to

00:20:39.940 people misunderstanding what the law is. And I don't think you can fault them because it's quite

00:20:44.500 confusing. Even sometimes I'm confused about what the laws are. You're getting a little bit of mixed

00:20:48.820 messages from the federal level and the provincial level. Now, particularly when provincial levels are

00:20:54.980 talking about easing things up and the federal level continues to have this message that we have

00:20:59.060 to crack down on things and we're still there's a concern out there. So I think there's a lot of

00:21:03.380 confusion still about what the laws are. And I think sometimes that confusion spills over into the

00:21:09.860 police who are supposed to be out there enforcing along the bylaw officers. I think that case

00:21:15.780 New Brunswick might be an example of that where if we take a look at the Ontario legislation, I think

00:21:21.780 the New Brunswick legislation is somewhat similar. And I'm telling you, you know, Ezra, I'm having a

00:21:28.100 difficult time trying to find what all the legislation is across Canada. So you can only imagine individuals

00:21:35.140 in that province are having a bit of a problem. I don't think that guy did anything wrong. Again,

00:21:40.340 in the Ontario experience, assuming the laws are the same. And I think they're more or less

00:21:46.020 are in variations of it. They're the same. You know, you're certainly allowed to be in a public

00:21:53.060 or public place, including a private place like a golf club and or even like a drive, you know,

00:22:00.340 parking lot for Tim Hortons. All he was was being alone. That's not a problem. The problem would have been

00:22:06.900 if he gathered with X number of people. I think in New Brunswick, they have a different number.

00:22:11.300 I think it was 15 in New Brunswick here in Ontario. They said it was five. Or if you're in closer than

00:22:16.980 a hockey stick distance from someone. And that's actually a municipal bylaw. So to me, I just don't

00:22:22.980 understand why that individual got ticketed at all. I got a question for you, Sam. In the 10 cases that

00:22:28.820 we've taken so far, we were reactive. People got a ticket. They were sort of random people out there.

00:22:36.420 And we took the cases because they were typically working class folks. They didn't have a thousand

00:22:41.940 dollars. The cases were egregious. So that's reactive. And I feel really good about those

00:22:46.820 cases. But I don't know if any of them are going to really change the world other than a moral victory

00:22:53.380 in helping one person. But are there any things that you found in the law that would allow us to

00:22:59.140 go proactively to fight for the ability of a barbershop to reopen or a restaurant to reopen?

00:23:07.140 Is there something we can do in the name of a larger group of people that would have a more symbolic

00:23:12.100 or precedent setting win? I guess what I'm saying is I'm so proud of what we've done fighting the fine

00:23:17.860 so far. But is there anything we can do in the legislation challenging some ban here,

00:23:23.700 challenging a ban there that would free not one person, but maybe hundreds or thousands?

00:23:29.220 So yes and no, Ezra. A lot of people automatically sort of assume that the charter will protect us.

00:23:36.420 And I've been a little bit agnostic about that because I recognize, as you may also realize, that

00:23:41.780 we don't have absolutes in Canada, absolute rights in Canada, or at least the absolute rights that we have

00:23:47.620 in Canada are not the ones that we would normally think. All the rights of freedom of expression,

00:23:52.420 assembly, association, and so on, that we think we have, and that we do have, are not absolute.

00:23:59.140 The state could always override them by saying that there is this greater goal out there that

00:24:03.300 we need to justify. In this case, freedom of religion, for example, telling people that they can't

00:24:09.060 gather in homes, synagogues, and so on, would be that freedom of religion would be

00:24:14.980 override by the fact that Section 1, the goal is to flatten the curve. That was the purpose of it.

00:24:21.300 Now, you had a case coming out, being launched by the Justice Center for Constitucional Freedoms,

00:24:26.900 about that person, the preacher in Elmer, who said that he had the right to perform his services in

00:24:33.620 the parking lot. People would stay in their cars, and his services would be broadcast in FM.

00:24:38.820 The government, interesting enough, backed down, changed the definition of what a gathering was,

00:24:44.500 and allowed him to continue doing that. I don't think that's necessarily a win for freedom of

00:24:49.060 religion. The reason why is because I think what happened there is, if you read the section of the

00:24:55.460 Emergency Measure Civil Protection Act of Ontario, there's three built-in, amongst many limitations,

00:25:01.380 there's three limitations specifically to that act. One of the limitations is, it says that everything

00:25:07.140 that act has to be minimally intrusive on our rights. So I really think what happened in there

00:25:14.260 is, instead of going to the charter, the government itself realized that, internally in the act itself,

00:25:22.100 says you have to be minimally intrusive. So I think what they did is, they made their legislation

00:25:27.060 more in accordance with the own legislation. And we've been talking about that. Some of this,

00:25:33.540 some of the legislation I think is not minimally intrusive. So instead of going to the charter,

00:25:38.020 relying upon charter arguments, which can be very risky, I think you go directly to the EMCPA,

00:25:43.860 and in that legislation, it has a built-in charter type of analysis to it. I think that's really

00:25:53.380 the way that people should be going. That said, Ezra, I think what now has been happening is you have so many

00:25:59.380 exceptions to the social distancing rules that two things are happening. One is people are beginning

00:26:06.180 to think, well, why are all these exceptions, right? I mean, there seems to be inconsistency

00:26:11.860 with saying that essential service workers can have their children going to daycare, but other

00:26:16.420 people can't go to daycare, right? How does that make sense at all? If the real concern is flattening the

00:26:22.020 curve, certainly you're exposing a certain number of population to the virus. And there's other

00:26:28.420 exceptions. So I think you're going to have now going forward a built-in problem of public

00:26:33.300 support for the social distancing laws. I think you saw that in Trinity Bellwoods over the weekend

00:26:38.260 in Toronto, big popular park here, a lot of people out just sunbathing. Our Mayor John Tory had to go

00:26:45.540 out the next day and chastise people for obeying the social distancing laws. And secondly, more

00:26:51.220 important, I think for us in dealing with the fighting the fines, I think all these exceptions creates a

00:26:57.140 legal problem for the government to justify how they can make an exception here, the non-exception

00:27:02.580 here, specifically when the act itself says you have to be mentally intrusive. So there's a built-up

00:27:08.100 legal pressure now, I think, to start relaxing things if people come forward with legal challenges

00:27:15.540 to them. And that's something again that we're talking about. And when it's the appropriate time,

00:27:21.460 we'll announce that. So I think those two things are happening in terms of going forward. You have

00:27:26.900 people coming forward with some challenges, whether the JCCF realized what they were doing or not,

00:27:32.340 is beside the issue. But you have, I think, a breakdown in the public support for it, with all

00:27:37.380 these exceptions. And I think it'll cause legal problems going forward for the government.

00:27:43.380 Well, it's very interesting. It's hard for me to read the public. I mean, 10,000 Torontonians voted

00:27:49.940 with their feet and went to the park in defiance of the mayor's scolding. But there certainly was no

00:27:55.860 shortage of scolding and nags in reaction in the media. I don't know how to measure which has,

00:28:03.700 which is larger, which is more passionate. Because of course, the very next day,

00:28:07.620 the police were out in force and scared away the park goers. I don't know. I think that some

00:28:12.500 Canadians are still too afraid. They like the idea of being safe. And frankly, scolding other people

00:28:19.220 makes them better about not going out to the park themselves. It makes them feel like it's the one

00:28:23.620 thing they can control. I can control myself and I can scold others. I don't know. Maybe it'll be

00:28:30.100 interesting to see how this goes. But I believe that as the months turn into many months, that people

00:28:36.660 will be tired of these inconsistently applied rules. I mean, if Mayor John Tory himself didn't

00:28:43.860 get a ticket for not wearing a mask, I don't know why anyone else should pay theirs. Last word to you,

00:28:49.060 Sam. Do you think that we're going to be out of this Emergency Measures Act by the time summer's here?

00:28:58.740 It's still mid-May. Do you think by Canada today, let's say July 1st, we'll be out of this emergency law?

00:29:06.340 Well, I only wish I had a crystal ball on the table to predict that. Certainly, I think,

00:29:12.740 you know, through rebel media, we're going to do everything we can to try and put pressure on the

00:29:17.220 government to ease the restrictions as much as possible. You know, Ezra, you know, I'm always

00:29:23.540 sort of judicious in some of my comments. I want to acknowledge that when you look at the legislation,

00:29:28.420 I really do think the drafters of it, I want to give credit where credit due, they did in fact

00:29:32.900 look at many of the constitutional issues and to try and make the laws as constitutional as possible.

00:29:39.780 That said, I think these issues are very complicated. It's very fine calibrating. I think you could

00:29:46.020 understand when you looked at SARS what happened, why the government reacted the way they did. But also

00:29:51.780 keep in mind, Ezra, that the Eves government, the Conservative government in 2003, under pressure,

00:29:58.020 tried to ease up the restrictions. Remember, it happened in February. March, they called it

00:30:07.940 the crisis. They used the Ontario Provincial Health Act to deal with that because, as I said,

00:30:12.500 the Emergency Measures Act wasn't available to them. And then in May, there was an outbreak in the

00:30:16.900 Scarborough hospital. So you could see why the government may be a little bit concerned and wants

00:30:23.220 to go slow in easing up the restrictions. But nevertheless, I think it's important to have

00:30:27.140 a counter weight, counter balance, counter pressure to try and let the government know that there are

00:30:32.180 people like you and like myself who are a little bit skeptical. They're concerned about health,

00:30:38.260 but they also have concern about civil rights. And they want to put a little bit of pressure on

00:30:42.100 the government to move forward in easing the restrictions. And I think that's, if anything,

00:30:47.140 Ezra, I think your work on rebel media talking about this and the fighting of fines is so important

00:30:53.300 because it's putting that alternative narrative out there that you're right, the traditional media

00:30:59.380 are not as much talking about. I've seen some of it in the National Post and some of it in other

00:31:04.900 newspapers, but your voice is very important. And I think your viewership supporting you and getting

00:31:12.580 your voice out is also very important to provide that counter narrative to the government to let

00:31:17.460 them know that people want these restrictions to be eased. Well, that's very kind of you to say,

00:31:21.700 Sam. And of course, you are the linchpin in the legal strategy. So we're very grateful to you. You've

00:31:27.140 spent a lot of time not only looking at the cases, but sort of walking our journalists through the case

00:31:32.020 and our viewers, too. So we're grateful to you. All right, Sam, we'll let you go today, but we'll keep

00:31:35.780 up the fight. And I just want to tell folks at home, if you or someone you know has a ticket,

00:31:41.060 go to fightthefines.com, fill out our very simple form, and we will vet it. And who knows,

00:31:47.220 maybe Sam will get back to you. We'll take your case, too. Thanks, Sam. Great to see you again.

00:31:52.020 Nice to see you, too. Bye-bye. All right. There you have it, Sam Goldstein,

00:31:55.860 criminal and civil liberties defense lawyer in Toronto. He's also a bencher of the Law Society

00:32:02.420 of Ontario. Stay with us. More ahead.

00:32:11.060 Hey, welcome back on my monologue on Friday about Justice Patrick Smith.

00:32:16.180 Cheryl writes, wow, are we living in an alternate universe? Thanks, Ezra. We wouldn't have heard

00:32:20.740 about the story otherwise. Yeah, I just, I don't even know how I came across the story. I just read it.

00:32:26.820 I noticed Justice Zinn's name. That made me a little bit curious. And judges battling it out

00:32:32.100 in court with another judge moderating. That's just, wow. Boy, did they ever do a number on him.

00:32:38.580 And all I could think about was if they are that vicious to a judge, one of the most powerful people

00:32:43.860 in the country, access to the law, smart, connected, if they would do that to a judge,

00:32:52.980 imagine how little they would think of doing that to you.

00:32:55.700 Burt writes, Justice Smith is the object of a bureaucratic witch hunt.

00:33:01.700 Yeah, and he had a moral victory in the form of this court ruling, but I'm pretty sure he's

00:33:06.260 still net negative on the whole adventure. On my interview with Ben Weingarten, Michael writes,

00:33:12.180 the Chinese Communist Party has corrupted the media, Google, YouTube, universities, 0.97

00:33:16.260 and any number of global institutions, not to mention the economy. We need to break all ties

00:33:20.420 with the PRC and recognize Taiwan. You know, Taiwan is a great little country. It's a democracy.

00:33:27.860 It's 23 million people though. So that's what? Less than 2% the population of all of China.

00:33:37.220 So we have to deal with China in some way. I think obviously recognizing Taiwan is important,

00:33:42.340 but how do we deal with China itself? That's the big puzzle. I think we have to decouple from its economy 1.00

00:33:48.260 and treat it like we treated the Soviet Union. Too big to attack, but let's contain it. And like 1.00

00:33:54.660 South Africa, let's denormalize it. That's what I think. That's our show for today. Until tomorrow, 0.99

00:34:00.420 on behalf of all of us here at Rebel News, good night and keep fighting for freedom.

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Rebel News Podcast - May 26, 2020

We've just seen what happens when the people no longer listen to the elites

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