The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux - March 18, 2023


Arrested for protesting drag queen story hour (Ft. Pastor Derek Reimer)


Episode Stats

Length

19 minutes

Words per Minute

199.92952

Word Count

3,971

Sentence Count

265

Hate Speech Sentences

8


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Alberta Roundup. I'm your host Rachel Emanuel. I hope that you
00:00:13.880 guys are having a great week so far. We are going to do something a little bit different
00:00:17.820 on today's episode. We're having our first ever guest on the Alberta Roundup. We will
00:00:23.360 be speaking with Pastor Derek Reimer. For those of you who've been following the news
00:00:27.540 or have listened to some of my previous podcasts, Derek Reimer was arrested in Calgary after
00:00:32.400 protesting at a drag queen story hour. He's facing multiple charges from Calgary police
00:00:38.380 and he's now out on bail. So we caught up to him and we spoke with him about what led to
00:00:43.280 his arrest and the conditions of his bail and what this means for Alberta and Calgary moving
00:00:47.880 forward. I'm joined now by Pastor Derek Reimer. Hey Pastor Reimer, thank you so much for joining
00:00:53.380 us today. You're actually the very first guest ever on the Alberta Roundup. So we're very excited
00:00:57.860 to have you on the show today. So many people are aware of your story. You were arrested a couple
00:01:03.020 weeks ago after sort of protesting a drag queen story hour at a public library in Calgary. I'm
00:01:09.040 wondering if you can walk us through the process. What led you to go to that event? What happened
00:01:13.160 while you were there? And then what followed that led to your arrest? Yeah, absolutely. I went to my
00:01:19.820 first drag protest in December. I just felt compelled by the Holy Spirit moving into January.
00:01:27.700 I started doing my homework and researching and finding out how frequent these events were and I
00:01:32.220 was disturbed of how many adult events were taking place, but then how many are involving children. So
00:01:38.400 I thought, okay, let's focus on the ones where it's not just consenting adults, which still the Bible
00:01:44.080 would forbid that, but when it's involving the innocent, not just myself, but there's a team of us
00:01:49.660 that felt really compelled to move in this direction, to take action. I formed a ministry
00:01:54.880 called, like separate from Mission 7 Ministries that I'm the founder of. This one is called
00:01:59.140 Exposing Darkness. It's inspired by Ephesians 5.11 and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works
00:02:04.100 of darkness, but rather expose them. So I take the approach also of 2 Timothy 4.2, where it says to
00:02:10.700 convince, rebuke, and exhort, which in the Greek it means to tell a fault, to warn, and to invite.
00:02:17.540 To tell a fault of the sin, to warn of God's judgment on that sin, to invite them into a
00:02:22.340 relationship with Jesus Christ. So sort of organizing protests with Seton in particular,
00:02:28.780 we just decided and strategized that we will go in there and just one at a time, we'll go in and
00:02:33.840 rebuke and just speak truth and preach Jesus. And then when one gets removed, then the other one
00:02:40.240 will take their place. So I went last and I just had it in my head that, hey, I'm going to preach and
00:02:45.760 expose as much as I can. And even if I get removed, I still want to preach and just exercise my freedom
00:02:52.220 of speech. So when cops get there, you can see in the video that they asked me to leave. And I thought,
00:02:57.100 okay, that jegs it up. Noah needs to be arrested needlessly. He's already here. So I just peacefully
00:03:02.800 left. We went outside and we continued our church service, which we do with counter-protesters and
00:03:07.020 anybody who's watching us, you know, singing songs, parodies, and preaching. Invite them into a
00:03:11.860 relationship with Christ, but exposing also darkness and wickedness, saying that a holy God is not okay
00:03:16.580 with this type of behavior. So moving forward, cops came to my residence, you know, about a half week
00:03:24.340 later, they wanted me to go to a cop shop with them. I couldn't get legal counsel on the phone that
00:03:30.840 morning. So I just said, you know, I'm not comfortable with that. I'm not going to go. He said
00:03:33.820 he'll issue some warrants. And yeah, he held up to that promise. The next day I called and he confirmed
00:03:39.620 that. So I was just kind of hanging out, waiting to be arrested. I went for a prayer walk and Rebel
00:03:45.960 News is just kind of hanging out with me the last day or two. And sure enough, early on in my prayer
00:03:51.160 walk, they scooped me up and they took me into a cop shop at Spy Hill, right by the Remax Center.
00:03:57.900 Saw Justice of the Peace. And it was a long bail hearing. It's about an hour and a half at the
00:04:04.700 recess. It was very contested. It was very interesting for the guards there. One guy,
00:04:11.540 he didn't even want to take his break because he wanted to see what was going to take place.
00:04:14.880 Another guard called it a nail biter that a lot of people knew of why I was in there.
00:04:20.200 Obviously, because of the media, I was granted bail. But, you know, the Lord said to me before
00:04:24.820 those papers got made up, what's more important to you, your freedom or preaching my word?
00:04:29.000 So getting to those bail papers, I didn't sign because I knew that I'd be right back in there.
00:04:34.540 That weekend, we had three protests that weekend alone. I knew going out, I'll just be at these
00:04:40.120 protests. I'll be right back at jail. Why sit this initial process? I already sat 12 hours. I said,
00:04:45.740 just take me to the Remax Center. Sat there the weekend. And, you know, just due to some urgent
00:04:51.800 health matters that I, they, the jail couldn't care for me. They had to take me to an outside
00:04:58.520 hospital. So they couldn't assure me when they could do that. So I just made the tough decision.
00:05:02.740 I signed those bail papers, didn't want to. And now just working on getting those conditions
00:05:08.640 loosen. I know people are wondering what those conditions are. I have in front of me, it says
00:05:13.460 that you must have no contact with by means of text, email, social media, or through a third party
00:05:17.960 with the identified gay community member. You must not attend or within 200 meters of any gay
00:05:25.900 community event, drag event. So my lawyer is bothered with the word indirectly, there directly
00:05:33.700 or indirectly. To me, these conditions is like saying, don't do your ministry. Don't do what
00:05:39.560 God has told you to do. And it's just, it's just not feasible. So today I had a bail hearing
00:05:48.660 to loosen these conditions and it got adjourned to another week or two. So I'm going to have
00:05:54.480 a meeting with my lawyer tomorrow. And it's just kind of taken a day by day. You know,
00:05:58.860 there's still protests. We still have the conviction and we're just letting God lead us
00:06:03.200 through this. And he's our defender. He goes before us and we're just believing that we're
00:06:07.940 going to have a mighty victory. We don't know how it's all going to look though.
00:06:12.360 So I just want to back it up a little bit. One of the things that the Calgary police is saying
00:06:16.400 is they're saying that when you actually entered that protest at the library, it was a sort
00:06:21.480 of a dry clean story hour that you made, you know, homophobic and transphobic slurs.
00:06:27.480 You've yourself just said now that you were speaking truth and you were speaking wisdom
00:06:31.480 to the audience there. What exactly did you say? And can you see how any of that would
00:06:35.940 be, you know, transferred as a sort of a hate crime or are they completely taking your
00:06:39.840 words out of context?
00:06:41.760 Right. I can see that with a secular world where they hate me. And it's a light versus
00:06:46.660 darkness. It's a spiritual battle. And, you know, people that are of the darkness that
00:06:51.160 don't believe in Jesus, they hate Jesus and they hate truth. They hate everything about
00:06:54.220 the Bible. So I just came in there saying, don't pervert the children. Don't expose them
00:07:00.020 to the sexualization. And I just continued to preach Bible verses like homosexuality is
00:07:05.580 a sin. First Corinthians six, those that want to live this lifestyle won't inherit the
00:07:09.560 kingdom, but God is faithful and just to forgive us of all of our sins, cleanse us of all
00:07:12.900 unrighteousness. And just that kind of rhetoric preaching where it's, hey, this isn't okay
00:07:18.120 to a holy God. We love you guys and we want you guys to inherit our life, but you've got
00:07:22.380 to turn away from this perversion. And it's not just me. There was a team of us where we
00:07:26.620 felt, again, compelled to expose and rebuke and reprove and to invite them into the gospel
00:07:31.920 of Christ. And we're going to continue to do that.
00:07:35.180 Something else that I'm sure many of my viewers are aware of, this is a video that went viral
00:07:39.100 online. It was a video of a man being dragged out of a drag queen story hour and being tackled
00:07:44.440 to the ground by one of the attendees. That video was circulating online and people were saying that
00:07:48.640 that was actually you in the video who was being tackled to the ground. I'm wondering if that's
00:07:52.660 correct. Were you tackled to the ground at any point during the protest or was it, as you
00:07:56.640 mentioned, you sort of just left when the police asked you to leave?
00:08:00.760 Right. So the drag queen story hour was in like a little blast room. So I went in there and just
00:08:07.160 started preaching on Jesus and saying, you know, turn away from this perversion. Don't expose your
00:08:10.980 kids to this. The parents came at me very aggressively and even violently. And they
00:08:17.040 started grabbing at me, two or three of them, and just holding me out. I was clutching on the walls,
00:08:21.640 just trying to hold myself up, regain my balance. And then you guys kind of catch it at the tail end
00:08:26.380 there where I'm gripping that glass door and they just violently throw me out on my back. And you
00:08:32.040 know what? I thought good when that happened. In terms of that, I want everybody to see that
00:08:37.820 they're hateful, they're violent. And as a Christian, I want to really display that we are set
00:08:45.000 apart, that we are holy people of the Lord, that we're not coming in violence. We don't need to come
00:08:49.600 in threats. We just come preaching the truth. And again, I can see how people take that as hate
00:08:54.200 speech. We don't hate people, but we're hating the same. That's contaminating people. And we're not
00:09:00.840 afraid to speak that truth. My understanding that despite you being violently thrown to the
00:09:07.860 ground, as you just mentioned, you were not violent yourself. Those people, those attendees,
00:09:12.600 those parents are not going to face any charges. The Calgary police saw no reason to charge them or to
00:09:18.520 arrest them. Does that surprise you? Do you feel that is an unfair sort of portrayal and application
00:09:24.660 of the law? Or is this pretty much what you expect in today's secular society, as you mentioned,
00:09:29.540 as a Christian going into that room, you are hated and you're treated differently as a result?
00:09:34.860 A hundred percent. That is the double standard. Everybody can see, like you said, the video goes
00:09:39.860 viral. The only person that was abused and assaulted was me. And I even chose, you know,
00:09:47.280 just as a Christian man, you know, I'm not going to pursue as of now any charges towards them and I
00:09:52.940 forgive them. And I just want to rise above that. I was on a mission to expose and to invite
00:09:57.680 into the gospel. And this is how people react. And also, I want the world to see that and how
00:10:04.940 we're going to continue at our peaceful disposition. But, you know, Mayor Gondek and the city,
00:10:10.460 they're coming against us and they're trying to pin us with a brush that we're full of hate and
00:10:15.020 hate motivated, hate crimes and transphobic and all of these terms and slurs and definitions.
00:10:21.460 It's like, you know what? I'm not surprised at all. And that's going to keep coming. But you know,
00:10:27.380 the Bible talks about too, when they slander you, when they defame you. So those that desire to live
00:10:32.840 godly in Christ Jesus, we will suffer persecution. And I just rejoice. And I'm kind of worthy to suffer
00:10:37.420 for Jesus name's sake. And I'm just going to continue on this path.
00:10:41.020 I just wanted to touch a little bit on some of the charges that you're facing. So it's my
00:10:45.060 understanding that you're facing eight charges, which the Calgary police are calling hate motivated
00:10:49.780 crimes. And six of those charges actually fall under the city's harassment bylaws.
00:10:55.000 And those could each carry up to six months in jail per charge and an additional $10,000 charge.
00:11:01.380 Let me know if any of that's changed since you've been released on bail or if those are in fact still
00:11:05.480 the charges that you're facing. I'm also wondering, you know, is this something that
00:11:09.140 you're fearful of? Are you fearful that you're going to have to spend time in jail over
00:11:12.820 preaching on your convictions? And are you worried about also the monetary fines that are
00:11:17.540 potentially coming along with this incident, you know, an incident of you, as I just mentioned,
00:11:21.780 really just preaching your convictions, something that should be protected under the Charter of
00:11:25.640 Rights and Freedoms? You know what, even with Mission 7, as we're getting attacked and we have
00:11:31.580 a plethora of fines that the bylaw officers throw at us, and I'm just pleading not guilty. And it was
00:11:36.760 either like $50 to plead guilty or to go to trial and found guilty $2,500. You know, the Lord just said to
00:11:44.500 me, you know, can you plead guilty? I was like, no, like I'm not guilty of this. And
00:11:48.660 he just said, give me an opportunity to show up. So that's why I want, it's applied to me,
00:11:53.740 but it's applied to every Christian believer too. We just got to be obedient to what the Lord is
00:11:57.620 calling us to. And we just got to give him an opportunity to show up. And what's more important
00:12:01.600 to us, our freedom or preaching God's word, being obedient to him. So yeah, the numbers can be scary.
00:12:08.700 You know, the giants, the mountains can be scary with the wind and the waves, you know,
00:12:12.520 spiritually speaking at the jail time, but I'm not looking at that. I'm looking at my God and how
00:12:17.780 he's taken me through this. He's going to carry me through it. And just like he showed up with
00:12:21.580 Hebrew boys in the fire, he's going to show up for me too in the fire. And he's delivered me
00:12:25.520 throughout the COVID era and the pandemic and, and, you know, rebel news has supported us and
00:12:30.760 supplied a lawyer and God's just working through many different entities and people to support
00:12:34.860 and just to help take care of us. So no, I'm not, not really worried about that. And I'm just
00:12:39.600 excited to see how he's going to show up in this battle as well.
00:12:43.420 You mentioned before this interview, and this is something perhaps you're not comfortable
00:12:47.340 chatting about now, in which case, I totally understand that we wanted to get this interview
00:12:51.320 done a little bit earlier. It's actually Tuesday when we're filming, this interview won't be
00:12:54.960 aired until Saturday. And one of the reasons we wanted to get it done early is because you
00:12:58.880 mentioned that you're fearful you were going to be arrested again. I'm wondering if that's
00:13:02.580 because you haven't been able to loosen up some of the charges that you're facing or sorry,
00:13:06.940 your bail restrictions rather, and your conditions about not being able to attend these protests.
00:13:11.460 Are you still planning on attending protests in the coming weeks or even abide by the conditions
00:13:15.960 of your bail restrictions until you're able to get them loosened, if not removed?
00:13:20.420 Right. Like, like I mentioned, I feel compelled to sign for health reasons that the jail can provide
00:13:27.420 for me. The conviction is still there. The love of the Lord and being obedient to him is still there.
00:13:34.600 There's still, um, drag events. There's still almost sexual events that are taking place in
00:13:40.960 this city. Exposing darkness is still here. We're still a team. We're still strategizing. We're still
00:13:46.380 planning. And, uh, I'll just say that we're trying to get a little bit, uh, more clever and strategic
00:13:52.860 moving forward. But yes, we do plan to, um, attend. We do plan to, uh, carry out God's will
00:14:00.680 as he's called us to do it. Yeah. Something else that's going on today is that Calgary City Council
00:14:07.180 is currently discussing two proposes from the city's administration that would essentially make
00:14:11.940 it harder for people like yourself to protest, drag Green Story Hour, and other, you know,
00:14:16.320 trans and gay events. Um, one of the proposals seeks to amend the city's harassment bylaws to
00:14:21.240 include intimidation, uh, which is rather vague and, and, you know, concerning as to what that would
00:14:25.880 exactly look like in practice. And then the city also wants to add an additional bylaw, which would
00:14:30.760 keep what they're calling specified protesters, a hundred meters from public spaces during these
00:14:36.700 types of events. And so protesters would have to be a hundred meters removed from say a public
00:14:41.140 library or a public pool when they're protesting drag Green Story Hour. Now the city is moving very
00:14:46.440 quickly on getting this passed. They want to have these amendments passed quickly and in places
00:14:50.720 quickly as soon as possible, even as early as Tuesday. What do you make of this happening so
00:14:55.140 quickly after the incident with you? Do you think that it's a direct fallout to your arrest and
00:14:59.920 your protest at the Drag Queen Story Hour? And also how will this impact your work in exposing
00:15:05.640 darkness? One of the ministries that you've started? Yeah, well, this is definitely linked to our
00:15:12.160 protests and I would call this an entrenchment on the charter rights and freedoms that we have under
00:15:18.960 the constitution. And that is already arising in the city council meeting. I was just listening to it
00:15:24.260 before we started this interview and I'm going to finish it afterwards. And then myself and the
00:15:30.260 team, we're going to have a call tonight. We want to talk about and discuss what's taking place,
00:15:34.920 what has transpired and what we want to do moving forward. But by no means are we going to back off
00:15:41.620 and just, you know, close down the ministry because, you know, the government here and they're acting like
00:15:48.900 dictators, it seems like we're, it doesn't matter about the constitution, doesn't matter about our
00:15:53.540 rights. And that's for all Calgarians that now they want to keep people a hundred meters away from
00:15:59.400 a venue. And that's, there's all kinds of implications and problems with this, which is
00:16:02.820 arising now. So like I said, we're going to review our options and continue on following the Lord's will.
00:16:11.160 Great. Just the last question I wanted to answer here before I let you go. You mentioned that
00:16:14.700 Rebel News is supplying a lawyer for you, for my viewers who are listening today and want to get
00:16:19.140 in touch with you or want to show their support. Is there any way that they can do that?
00:16:23.660 Absolutely. And I would direct people towards Rebel News as they are supplying a lawyer and they are
00:16:27.880 very costly. If you feel just on your heart that you want to support me and the ministry,
00:16:34.520 Mission 7 Ministries is my website. My email is on there, derich at mission7ministries.com.
00:16:41.080 I would appreciate any support, but you know, prayers is massive. And that's like even today,
00:16:46.500 getting attached to several of just things in my personal life and just out of nowhere.
00:16:51.360 But yeah, prayers and donations. But also I just want to finish off too, and this is what I do,
00:16:55.400 is all the interviews, just a call to action where we can all do something. You can call your
00:17:00.060 counselors, you can sign petitions, you can peacefully protest. Like there's many options that we can do
00:17:05.140 here. And just, I think even just making people aware of this pervert grooming hour that's taking place
00:17:10.300 in our cities and not just Calgary, but all over the world. Guys, let people know what's going on
00:17:15.120 and let's make a change. Let's push back against perversion and darkness. You don't have to just
00:17:19.700 be a Christian to have a conviction about this. Anybody with any morality or decency knows that
00:17:24.860 this is just wrong and wicked. So let's unite and let's push back against this together.
00:17:30.140 Derek, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate it. And I know my viewers will
00:17:34.000 as well, and we will all be following this story with interest in the coming weeks.
00:17:37.620 Thank you. God bless. Hey guys, so shortly after that interview was filmed on Tuesday,
00:17:42.640 Pastor Rymer was actually arrested again on Wednesday. Rebel News has a video. We'll play
00:17:47.720 that for you now.
00:17:48.740 Mr. Rymer, you are currently under arrest for breaching your 200-meter no-go condition.
00:17:55.740 200-meter? Yep, yep.
00:17:56.740 It's 200-meter.
00:17:57.740 No, unfortunately.
00:17:58.740 Excuse me, you can walk 200-meter.
00:18:01.740 How are you called too late? Have you helped by these 200 meters?
00:18:04.740 You stand, sir.
00:18:05.740 He has no way to help you here. 200-meter.
00:18:08.740 Where's the measuring tape? Excuse me, we're in the parking lot that's so far approved.
00:18:13.720 This is not lawful. This is not lawful.
00:18:16.720 Listen, we don't have a measuring tape. We're down here.
00:18:19.720 This is not lawfully unlawful. We're not to say anything. Anything you say
00:18:23.720 if you give any evidence against you? You can call a lawyer.
00:18:26.720 What are the exact meters from that library?
00:18:28.720 You can call a lawyer. You can call a lawyer.
00:18:30.720 I have four exact meters for distance from the library to where we are right now.
00:18:34.720 You can call a lawyer. You can call a lawyer. You can call a lawyer. You can call a lawyer.
00:18:47.720 And as he's being arrested there, you can hear one Calgary police officer tell Reimer he's being arrested
00:18:52.720 for breaching his 200-meter no-go condition, assuming that's the condition of his bail release there.
00:18:58.720 And moving back to Calgary City Hall, the council did end up approving an amendment to an existing bylaw.
00:19:03.720 That amendment was to add intimidation to the harassment.
00:19:06.720 So you can now be ticketed if you're found guilty of intimidation while protesting outside an event.
00:19:11.720 And then, of course, the other bylaw is that specified protesters are going to have to remain 100 meters away from public facilities while they're protesting events.
00:19:19.720 Thank you so much for tuning in to this exceptionally important episode of the Alberta Roundup.
00:19:24.720 Please comment in the section below what you thought about this new style.
00:19:27.720 Did you like the interview format? And do you hope to see more interviews on the Alberta Roundup?
00:19:32.720 If so, please let me know some of the guests that you would like to see and I will do my best to pick some of the best ones and have them on the show.
00:19:38.720 I really appreciate your support. I hope that you guys have a great rest of your week.
00:19:42.720 If you're able to, please consider supporting independent media over at donate.tnc.news.
00:19:47.720 I will see you guys next week Saturday. Have a great week and God bless.