Chrystia Freeland’s high-profile rescue of 18-year-old Saudi woman Rahaf Al-Qinan—who fled Kuwait and renounced Islam—garnered global media attention, yet she ignored Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, a Canadian on China’s death row for drug smuggling. Critics like Ezra Levant and Scott Gilmore argue her swift intervention lacked proper asylum review, possibly driven by political optics or agreements. Meanwhile, Canada’s Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), led by John Carpe, battles New Westminster’s denial of a city-owned venue to a Christian conference, fearing ideological censorship. Levant warns of broader threats to religious freedom, linking it to the CRTC’s underreported internet regulation push and Justin Trudeau’s alleged intolerance for dissent, questioning whether media and leaders prioritize spectacle over substance. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Christia Freeland rescues a young Saudi woman from the discomfort of a luxury airport hotel in Thailand, but is silent about a Canadian on death row in China.
It's January 14th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government about why I published them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
About 10 days ago, someone wrote this tweet in Arabic from a luxury airport hotel in Bangkok, Thailand.
Now you can see the English translation underneath.
That's Twitter's built-in translation.
It says, I am the girl who escaped from Kuwait to Thailand.
My life is at stake, and I am now in real danger if I am forcibly returned to Saudi Arabia.
That is a pretty dramatic tweet, you must say.
And as things go, if you ask me to choose between a young woman and a fascist theocracy of Saudi Arabia, I'm going to choose the young woman's freedom every time.
She wrote some more.
She said, my name is Raf Mohammed, and I will publish my full name on the case.
If my family in Saudi Arabia and the Kuwait embassy, man, do not stop chasing me.
So the translation is not perfect, but you get the point.
She started tweeting more and more and bolder and bolder.
Eventually, she did use her full real name.
Eventually, she showed her face and started showing forms of identification, too, to prove she was who she said she was.
And then she started tweeting in English, which makes sense politically, of course.
If you are a young woman who wants help to flee from Saudi Arabian imams, you speak in English, not Arabic.
She said, I'm the girl who run away from Kuwait to Thailand.
I'm in real danger because the Saudi embassy trying to forcing me to go back to Saudi Arabia while I'm at the airport waiting for my second flight.
So that's her own English, not Bing's translation, but it's pretty good English.
Now, one of the world's fastest newspapers, and what I mean by that is they really cover breaking news well, is the Daily Mail Online from the United Kingdom.
And they saw the power of this story.
It's quite a story, isn't it?
Let me read their headline, and I love how the Mail Online has their bullet points.
It's a great paper.
Here, let me read.
They say, I'm so scared.
I have to fight.
I don't want to lose my life.
Saudi woman, 18, battles to avoid being returned to her family, who she fears will kill K-I-L-L her after being stopped at Bangkok airport when she fled, having renounced Islam.
And then you see those bullet points?
I love that in a newspaper.
And here's the facts.
Rahaf Mohammed Al-Khanoun, 18, is being held in Bangkok, awaiting deportation.
She fled her Saudi family, having renounced Islam, and says they will kill her.
She told Mail Online, they will kill me.
I am so scared, I don't know what I will do.
I have to fight because I don't want to lose my life.
She was trying to reach Australia via Bangkok, but a Saudi official confiscated her passport after her male guardian said she was traveling without his permission.
She was due to be deported at 4.15 a.m., but the Kuwait flight she was set to be on has left without her today, officials said.
Activists and campaigners are publicizing her case with the hashtag SaveRahaf.
Again, I like the fact that she wants to be free, don't you?
And that she's a woman and that she rejects Islam and wants to feel the sun on her face, not wearing a cab.
What a pleasant change from the Muslim extremists who want to flood into the West, seeking to colonize and convert and bring Sharia law.
This woman looks like the opposite, doesn't she?
The fact that she's a pretty teenager who speaks English helps a little bit too.
At least that's what Christia Freeland, our foreign minister, must have thought.
Oh, Christia Freeland has had a terrible month.
Well, imagine what it's like for the hostages in China.
Look at this headline.
I've shown it to you before from Globe Mail.
13 Canadians have been detained in China since Huawei executives' arrest says Ottawa.
China has seized 13 of our fellow citizens as payback for our lawful arrest of a Chinese tycoon named Meng Wanzou.
China is still holding several of these hostages, including a former diplomat.
That is so outside the law.
But what a disaster has been.
So Freeland saw an opportunity for a quick media win, don't you think?
Now, the young woman in Bangkok, Rahaf Al-Khanoon, She wanted to go to Australia.
She was going to Australia.
She was on her way there.
She applied for asylum in Australia.
Australia, their government, was considering her application.
But Freeland moved faster.
She didn't need a hearing.
She didn't need any paperwork.
She saw the Twitter tweets, and we know that's how decisions in Canada are made.
That's how Justin Trudeau opened up our border between Quebec and New York State, this tweet.
A tweet saying, hey, everybody's welcome.
Come on in.
About 50,000 people have crossed illegally since.
So yeah, Twitter is our new rule of law under the Liberals.
And so while Australia was actually, you know, considering the application on the merits of the case, getting details like a biography and maybe some proof of things, you know, Freeland read the tweets and that was enough for her.
So she was so desperate for a PR win.
So she brought Al Khanoun to Canada on the weekend.
And she made sure that she was there to mug for the cameras when Al Khanoun walked in.
Look at this.
Look at this weird, domineering, handsy, smothering, mothering, showboating.
Just so weird.
Watch this.
This is Rahaf Al-Qinan, a very brave new Canadian.
And Rahaf wanted Canadians to see that she's arrived at her new home, but she's had a very long and tiring journey.
And so she would prefer not to take questions today.
So please respect her.
She's a very brave young woman who's been through a lot.
And she is now going to go to her new home.
And then I'll come out and say a few words to people who are like.
Hey, everybody, look at me.
Hey, everybody, I'm a politician.
I'm part of the story, too.
Only talk to me, okay?
Don't talk to her.
Hey, everybody.
She's with me, you know.
Look, I'm hugging her.
I'm here.
Hey, everybody.
It's me, Christy Freeland.
Oh, by the way, did she call Al-Khanun a Canadian?
Because she's actually not, is she?
I mean, you don't just become a Canadian because a media hound cabinet minister says you are and maybe touches you with her fairy wand.
You have to apply to be a Canadian for real.
You have to be a permanent resident first.
You have to have your refugee claim heard by a real court, not just by a politician.
Politicians just can't hand out citizenship like lootbacks.
Can't hand out refugee status like loopbacks.
That's actually covered by laws.
Even if Trudeau breaks those laws or encourages others to break the laws like our board, it's pretty weird and pretty gross, but I think the key word is pretty.
Rahaf al-Khanoun is a pretty girl from Arabia, much more intelligent than most of Trudeau's Muslim migrants who come to Canada wearing hijabs or the full face obscuring the cab and who bring medieval ideas with them, don't throw off their medieval ideas.
I like this girl.
Even though some of her story, well, some parts of it seem to change.
I mean, maybe it's not important that she sometimes says she's 18 and sometimes says she's 20.
She's obviously an elite member of Saudi society.
Her dad is apparently a governor or something.
No problem.
She was in Thailand.
That's a pretty good country.
On her way to Australia.
That's a pretty good country.
They were already helping her out.
It's pretty good.
So it didn't really feel like a crisis.
She was in a pretty comfy hotel.
But this was a great opportunity for Christia Freeland.
Certainly better than dealing with this news today.
And this is the news of the day in the New York Times.
China sentences a Canadian, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, to death.
He wasn't originally sentenced to death there, but they kicked it up a notch after Canada arrested Hmong in December.
Let me read the first sentence from the New York Times.
Ready?
China's diplomatic clash with Canada escalated sharply on Monday, that's today, when a Chinese court sentenced a Canadian to death for a drug smuggling at a one-day retrial ordered weeks after a Chinese executive's arrest in Canada.
That's how they roll in China, a one-day retrial, a do-over in one day to kill a guy.
I have no idea if he really is a drug dealer, but I do have an idea about Chinese courts.
They are not independent.
They're really just window dressing for whatever the Communist Party says.
There are some lawyers in China, but they're really symbolic.
The fix was in.
Maybe he really was a drug dealer, but it's certain that this was an escalation.
China is saying, you arrest one of ours, we kill one of yours.
So that was the news that Christia Freeland was facing today.
So why not scoop up a bounty, a prize, and make sure that she hugs you and make sure she doesn't say anything.
Only you get to talking.
Isn't that weird?
Now, as I do my research for this video, Christy Freeland has yet to put out a public statement on the death sentence in China.
Now, the last thing I see, and maybe this will change between when I speak this and when it goes to air, but the last thing I see on her Twitter feed is indeed about Thailand.
You see that thing, that Thai Pongal thing there?
That's just typical political pandering to some Thai ethnic festival of some sort.
So I scrolled back a few days and I saw nothing about this death sentence.
I saw this tweet by her a few days ago.
Canada is seriously alarmed by today's court decision in Myanmar, that's Burma, to uphold the imprisonment of Reuters journalists Wa Loan and Kia So.
Now I'm sure that Wa Loan and Kia So are good people.
I'm sure they've been mistreated.
I mean, I'm not sure, but let's assume that.
The problem is they're just not Canadian.
They have no connection to Canada.
They work for Reuters and so used to Christy Freeland work for Reuters before she ran for office.
So maybe this is a favor to her old company that, I don't know, that would be how the liberals work, but maybe she just really likes to virtue signal to show how much she cares about people.
Just not people she has any responsibility for or can do anything about.
I showed you the other day how Trudeau and Freeland literally made 10 public statements on Twitter about a Saudi national named Jamal Khashoggi who got into a fight between Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Turkey and the Saudis killed him, which is too bad.
Here's a picture of Khashoggi holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher with the Taliban.
So I'm not really surprised that his life ended in violence rather than in old age.
There's no Canadian connection to Jamal Khashoggi.
It's really none of our business, frankly, but Freeland deeply cared.
So did Trudeau.
It's weird that way.
A few weeks ago, this guy, scroll down, show his face.
A few weeks ago, this guy became a Twitter airport celebrity too.
Hassan al-Qantar is his name.
He was stuck in an airport in Malaysia.
Again, like Thailand, Malaysia is not a terrible place.
He's not a refugee.
He left Syria in 2006 to go work in the United Arab Emirates in marketing.
And his work visa expired, but he stayed there anyways until they finally kicked him out and sent him to Malaysia this year.
He wanted to go somewhere cool, like Ecuador, but he couldn't for whatever reason.
So he just stayed at the airport in Malaysia and blogged about it.
And he was really cool.
And he didn't want to go back to Syria, even though the civil war there is over.
And he's just some cool guy.
And so Christie Freeland saw him on Sinai.
Presto saw him on Twitter.
Presto, he's not a refugee here.
But he was brought here.
They turned him into a refugee.
But he's a refugee from what?
He hasn't even been in Syria in more than a decade.
Why are we taking all these Twitter heroes from airports around the world?
So you've got a couple of media savvy refugees jumping to the front of the queue.
But no help for this woman, Asia Bibi.
We talked about her before.
She's a Christian who has literally been sentenced to death in Pakistan for blasphemy because she would not submit to Islam.
She was literally sentenced to death and mobs hunted door to door to kill her.
No help for her though, because she's a gross Christian and some Pakistanis would be mad.
And Trudeau has ended Stephen Harper's policy of letting Christian refugees into Canada.
It's funny because Harper would talk about letting Christian refugees into Canada and in the 2015 campaign Trudeau called that disgusting.
He said it was disgusting that Harper would meet with these Christian refugees.
Do you remember this from the 2015 campaign?
Somewhere in the Prime Minister's office, staffers were pouring through their personal files to try and see whether these families or find out which families would be suitable for a photo op for the prime minister's re-election campaign?
That's disgusting.
That's not the Canada we want.
That's not the Canada we need to build.
Yeah, that was 2015 when he was campaigning in the last election.
This cringe fest is from the weekend.
This is Rahaf Al-Khinan, a very brave new Canadian.
And Rahaf wanted Canadians to see that she's arrived at her new home, but she's had a very long and tiring journey, and so she would prefer not to take questions today.
So please respect her.
She's a very brave young woman who's been through a lot.
And she is now going to go to her new home.
And then I'll come out and say a few words to people we're later.
Oh, by the way, obviously these things are scripted.
As we showed you a couple of years ago, just before Syrians get on the plane to Canada, Trudeau pressures them to sign a photo release, a waiver letting him use their pictures for his campaigning.
These are Syrians.
They don't know their rights.
They don't know what they have to do when the boss of the new country tells them that.
They don't know what happens if they were to say no.
Will Trudeau even let them on the plane anymore?
So of course they all sign the release to let Trudeau use them in photo ops.
Trudeau's Photo Campaign Pressure00:03:11
So much for being disgusting.
I wonder if Christy Freeland got a release from Rahaf al-Khanoun.
I wonder what she said in return for things.
I wonder what the deal was.
It was pretty weird and gross.
Even Scott Gilmore, do you know who he is?
He's that far-left open borders wacko at McLean's, better known as the house husband of Catherine McKenna, the far-left wacko environmental minister.
Anyways, Scott Gilmore was furious about this whole thing.
What?
Yeah, it's weird coming from one photo op liberal to another, isn't it?
Look at this.
Look at what Scott Gilmore said.
He said, I confess to mixed feelings about this.
I'm delighted she is now safe, but this is suspiciously fast.
Was there political pressure on officials to quickly approve her claim?
Does this mean politicians could also apply pressure to stop an application?
You can't have it both ways.
Whoa!
I have never seen a liberal oppose a refugee ever, not once before.
And this, he was saying that in reply to the New York Times story about Al-Qanoon Landing.
Look what he said in response to that.
He said, but not until I've paraded around with her in front of the cameras a bit.
Oh, that's a low blow.
When the house husband of Catherine McKenna is saying that you swan for the cameras too much, you know they're fighting rough.
And I have never in my life seen a liberal say this before.
There's something very grubby about using an asylum seeker recently traumatized by her own murderous family as a photoprop.
Whoa!
What is going on here?
Why is Mr. Catherine McKenna telling Christy Freeland to not do photo ops?
Well, I'm not quite sure.
We have someone, Rahaf Al-Khanoon, who says she's 18 or maybe she's 20, who says they're in danger if she goes back to Saudi Arabia, which could be true, but she's in Bangkok and Australia is open to taking her.
But then Christy Freeland swoops in, grabs her, physically grabs her, and makes sure she's there in a really cringy airport, welcome.
But no media, people.
No media.
Just media on me, Christy Freeland.
I'm the only one who gets to talk to the camera.
No one else, okay?
Why?
Why can't we hear even one word from the girl herself?
She has been quite loquacious on Twitter.
She has said everything about her situation on Twitter.
She surely has already disclosed everything, except perhaps what her deal with the Liberal Party was.
We know her name.
We know her father's name.
We know all her details, everything.
We've seen all her ID.
We just don't know what Christy Freeland said and did and what promises were exchanged and what releases were signed.
Were any photo releases signed in the airport there to agree to be in a political campaign?
I think that's what Catherine McKenna's house husband knows that the rest of us don't.
What do you think?
stay with us for more.
City Council's Decision00:15:32
Why did you come on down here today?
Just standing up for religious freedoms, our Constitution.
Yeah, and just not only for Christian faith, but all faiths.
I think it's important that we stand up for what's right.
What brought you down here today?
I just believe it's an important issue.
You always got to pick your battles, and I think this is a major battle.
As Mark Stein said, this is a hill to die on.
What is the central issue in your mind?
Freedom of space, freedom of religion, and I would be here if it was any other group as well.
Why are you here today?
I'm here because I don't believe that city council should be our moral compass.
And I believe that they shouldn't be making any motions on things that they're not informed about.
And I'm a huge believer in freedom of speech and freedom of expression.
Well, you might remember some of that.
That was about five years ago when the Nanaimo City Council went on a strange anti-Christian bender.
You see, there was a Christian conference in the States that was being telecast live by satellite to convention centers around North America.
So you could attend by video phone, really, a giant Skype screen, and enjoy the conference from Nanaimo, from Calgary, whatever, with your friends at a facility that had a big screen.
And so a local church in Nanaimo, British Columbia rented out the Vancouver Island Community Center in, or Convention Center in Nanaimo to watch this video.
It was very bland, by the way.
He had Condoleezza Rice, he had Laura Bush.
Like it was very mainstream Christian, a little bit conservative, but not much.
Well, when the Nanaimo City Council heard this, they went nuts.
I don't know why.
equated this conference with Boko Haram, a Muslim terrorist group from Africa.
They ripped up the contract that they had with this local church, and they actually passed a bylaw banning any Christian groups that they called divisive.
Who was divisive there?
You might recall that because that was the first campaign battle that I ever fought on TV.
We made a petition and one of the things we did that I think righted the wrongs was we hired John Carpe, this civil liberties lawyer, to take on the bullies and the bigots and we won.
And I should tell you that later that year, Nanaimo City Council was almost completely thrown out in the election.
Now I tell you all that because I read a story and I thought, oh my God, I have seen every single part of this before.
This exact same story, a local Christian group renting out a local government-owned facility just for some normal, normal stuff, and then some anti-Christian bigots ripping up the contract and joining us now to talk about it is the only man in Canada who cares enough to fight our friend John Carpe, who joins us now via Skype from Calgary.
John is the boss of the Justice Center for Constitutional References.
John, I'm not sure if I told that story very well, but that was a big win for us in Nanaimo.
We got the city council to back down.
It's like I've seen that movie before.
This is the sequel, but it's just across, it's across the Georgia Strait in New Westminster, B.C., am I right?
Yeah, it was five years ago, and the parallels are striking.
This time, New Westminster, not Nanaimo.
But you've got city facilities, you have a contract in place.
There's a small local multicultural church.
Lots of people from Africa.
And they don't have their own church building.
So they wanted to rent the New Westminster municipal facility, which is called the Anvil Center.
They wanted to rent it out for a conference.
Conference was called Let God Be True, which is LGBT kind of, you know, play on words there, Let God Be True.
And it was to address, among other things, address, you know, Christian perspective on sexuality and marriage and related issues.
And the city just up and canceled the contract that they had signed and agreed to.
And so now we've got a court action on the go.
Well, I remember in Nanaimo, and that was when you and I really fought, that was the first time we fought with a petition on TV.
And we flew out there and we had a bit of a protest outside the city hall.
And we really revved things up.
We went full-time.
We even had a pollster.
We pulled the city.
Like, I just thought this is, and it was crazy there.
But they dug in, they dug in their heels, they dug in their heels.
But within a day of you sending them a demand letter, they obviously got legal advice that showed they were going to lose.
And they've caved in completely.
They actually apologized.
And I think they wound up paying a sum of money to the Christian church.
I don't know how much for damages.
So that was a huge success.
And of course, later that year, the Nanaimo City Hall was thrown out.
And the mayor came in third.
was just trash.
What's New Westminster doing?
They're digging in their heels so far.
They're going to fight us hard on this.
And it's the same issue.
It's intolerance towards a religious approach to sexuality and marriage.
As you and I both know, not every Canadian agrees on when it comes to sex and marriage and sexual morality.
You know, on the one side, you've got Muslims and Orthodox Jews and practicing Christians who have one perspective on sex.
And on the other, you've got progressive or atheistic secularist.
And the thing is, in a free country, you allow both views and you allow members of both sides to use city facilities.
I mean, this is just a basic, this is a basic fundamental freedom.
If the city is going to have city-owned facilities that are available for rental, then you can't say, well, you're only allowed to use the city facilities if you have the correct viewpoint on marriage and sexuality.
And that was the reason for the cancellation in both in the Nanaimo case.
There was one of the sponsors of the telecast international Skype conference was Dan Cathy with Chick-fil-A, who was on record as opposing same-sex marriage.
And now here in BC, it's the same old thing.
It's the same old, same old.
You've got the city saying, you know, you can't have the incorrect view on sexuality.
And if you don't think the way that we do, then you're not allowed to use city-owned facilities.
And that's just completely unacceptable.
Yeah.
What was so incredible about the case in Nanaimo is, I mean, the Naimo is a fairly small city.
I like Nanaimo.
I go there every year in the summertime.
I love Vancouver Island.
How can you not?
It's a small city, though.
Like, it's under 100,000 people.
But they're so self-important, those politicians.
They video their city council meetings, and they have this gorgeous facility.
And so you could watch every single word on TV.
It was shocking.
And you saw counselors call them bigots, call them terrorists, compare them to the mafia.
I mentioned that one counselor compared them to Boko Haram.
So you saw the full anti-Christian bigotry on display.
Like it was so shocking.
Has New Westminster done any of that?
Have they been as bigoted and rude and derogatory in their language?
Or have they tried to couch it in some dry technicality?
We don't yet know of whether the city council was deliberating the matter as they did in Nanaimo.
So far, the only information we have was about a city clerk, a bureaucrat, who said, this is canceled.
We're refunding your deposit and this is not going ahead.
That's all that we're at for right now.
But as the court action progresses, who knows what might turn up.
Yeah, because of course in a court there's documentary disclosure where the parties have to give their related records, their records that touch on the matter.
Now you make an interesting point because of course I've just mentioned several times that it was the city council in Nanaimo that voted, I think it was six to one if memory serves, to shut down this Christian conference.
Are you saying that in New Westminster, as far as you know, it was just a single bureaucrat who made a fiat?
So it sounds, did I hear you right on that?
Yeah, to our knowledge, we're not saying it has not been discussed by city councillors, but we're not aware of discussions by city council.
So it was, as far as we know right now, it was a local bureaucrat.
But probably she went up the chain and got approval for this at some higher level, we assume.
But this is going to play itself out with the court action as it goes forward.
But they are fighting this.
They're not backing down and saying, oh, we made a mistake.
No, they're going to dig in their heels and try to justify their actions here in court.
Whereas in Nanaimo, it ended up not even going to court because the city council just did the right thing and apologized and backed down.
Yeah, I remember that.
I had never seen a politician fold quicker.
We had a little spontaneous protest outside the mayor's office.
100 people showed up in Nanaimo.
Like I say, a fairly small city.
100 people showed up.
I think the mayor knew he was peering through the window at us.
I remember that.
And when we announced that you were on the legal team, they folded immediately.
In fact, the mayor made a sort of apology.
And it was, and we had a big celebration barbecue, I remember afterwards.
800 people there.
And the mayor came to flip burgers.
Like, that's how contrite and conciliatory he was.
So let me check again.
You said to me twice that they're fighting this.
Have you actually filed the lawsuit or the originated document?
So you haven't just sent them a warning letter.
You've actually started a court action?
We sent them a warning letter in June, and they chose to ignore that.
And, you know, we explained the law to them that government has an obligation of neutrality.
If it's a private facility, it's different.
I mean, if a synagogue does not want to rent out its premises for use with some anti-Israel group, well, you know, that's fine.
It's a private facility.
But if it's a city-owned facility, then the government's not entitled to discriminate on the basis of people's political opinions.
What they've done here is because one of the speakers is Carrie Simpson, she's well known in British Columbia.
She's somewhat controversial in some circles, outspoken social conservative.
And the city actually accused the church of promoting hatred, racism, and violence because they had scheduled Kerry Simpson to be there as a speaker.
Well, they're going to have to prove in court that Carrie Simpson is promoting hatred, racism, violence, one or more of those three.
And they're going to have a hard time trying to prove that because somebody who's social conservative, who's got traditional views on sexuality in a free country, that cannot be seen as violent or hateful or criminal and so on.
Well, and to simply say you can't have that person come on these premises at all.
They've got cooties.
It's really, as juvenile as saying, you can't have them because they have bad idea germs or something.
That's not a thing.
You know, you can't ban someone because you, I mean, if someone was a we have in our criminal code a dangerous offender provision.
You can literally take someone off the streets if they are a public danger.
You've got to prove that in criminal court.
You can't just say, oh, she's dangerous.
It's crazy.
And obviously, the test for these things is would it ever happen to a gay group, to a Muslim group, to a group that was higher up on the politically correct pyramid than Christian conservatives.
Although you point out that this church in question you mentioned, they have a lot of black members.
You'd think that they would be higher up on the politically correct hierarchy.
We'll have to see how that plays itself out.
So far, that's not really, it doesn't seem to be helping them when it comes to the cancellation of their event.
Again, on the basis of having an outspoken social conservative to be one of the speakers at their conference, that was the reason.
And the city comes out saying that this is hatred and racism and violence.
That's actually the city's position.
So, yeah, they'll have a hard time proving that in court, I think.
Well, they'll certainly burn up a lot of their taxpayers' dollars on it.
I have one last question, and I know I've referred to Nanaimo about four times, but that was the archetype.
That was when I learned how to do a petition, use the petition to raise some funds, hire a lawyer, do a poll, have an event.
Like, we really, I remember doing that at the Sun News Network.
It was one of my favorite things back at the Sun.
And so let me ask you, do you think this church or its supporters, I mean, I don't know if I'm offering, I'm just wondering.
I mean, it's a big effort to do this, but do you think that they would be interested in a petition, in a protest?
Like I say, we had 100 people protest outside the mayor's office, and he was peeking through his window.
I think he was scared.
Is this something that they've either tried to have a political pushback, or do you think they're organized enough to be interested in having a political pushback?
I'd be happy to put you in touch with them, and you can discuss it.
I don't know, you know, like many people, a lot of people are just terrified of politics or very shy.
So I have no idea whether they have thought about this or whether they would be willing to do it.
But I'd be happy to put you in touch with them to discuss it.
Nothing, only good can come from considering an option.
There's no downside.
You know, you made me think of one more thing.
I remember when we organized, we had a real local champion, a mum in Nanaimo, who had a lot of kids and a big family and they really worked hard.
And it was so important that we had a key booster on the ground.
But you made me think of something, John.
No local clergy stood with the Nanaimo group that was kicked out.
Church Leaders and Protest00:04:47
None of them wanted to be part of the fight.
They said it was un-Christian to fight.
And I remember when we had that protest outside the mayor's office, and I remember when we had the victory dinner, not a single church leader would stand with the group that was thrown out.
Some came from far away to help, from other cities, even from the mainland.
But it was, and I'm not, I'm just remarking that some Christian leaders would rather get along to go along.
Oh, we don't want to fight.
And that stood out in my mind.
And I mean, I'm not Christian and I don't want to criticize Christians, but I detected cowardice there that was heartbreaking, actually.
I don't know why I'm ending on that note, but you made me think of that, that the actual church leaders in Nanaimo were nowhere to be found then.
Last word to you, John.
Well, you know, you raise a good point, and the whole problem of cowardice is as old as human nature itself.
I mean, it goes back 2,000 years, 4,000 years, 6,000 years.
I don't know the extent to which this local church has been networking with other pastors in New West or in Greater Vancouver.
I would certainly hope that if this church, because the Justice Center, we're focused on the legal stuff, so we're not really involved with the political side.
I would certainly hope that if this church in U West reaches out to other pastors, priests, or all religious leaders, imams and rabbis as well, they have a dog in this fight.
They have a stake in the game for their religious freedom rights as well.
So I would hope that if the church reaches out, that they would get a very positive response and a willingness to help from other religious leaders that would want to defend the free society.
That would be my hope.
Well, that's very interesting.
If you would be so kind as to flip me a note privately with the name and contact info of your contact with the church, I'd like to find out if they were doing something.
Maybe they're already doing something I don't know about.
Maybe they would just even want to do an interview on The Rebel and we could spread that video around.
Because I know we tipped the balance in the Naimo.
I know we made a difference.
And they were so arrogant and so abusive and then suddenly they just turned and ran as all bullies do when you finally confront them.
And it would really be bad if this precedent were set.
So zip me a note and I'll look into the political side of things.
You keep up on the legal side of things, of course, and folks can get the info on this at your website, and that's jccf.ca, right?
Correct.
W.jccf.ca.
All right, and I know folks can make a contribution there directly if they want to.
John, it's great to see you again.
I'm so glad you're fighting this fight, and I'm completely unsurprised, because you fought the identical fight five years ago.
Plus que sachange, plus que se la mêm chause.
Keep on fighting, right?
That's right, that's right.
All right, my friend.
Well, you keep up the fight.
Thanks for doing it.
All right.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right, there you have it John Carpe, the boss of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
There are so many similarities to the fight in Nanaimo.
And that was a really, there was such a great moment where we stood up to the bullies, won the immediate fight, and then threw out all the rascals from office.
Now, Nanaimo, of course, has larger political problems that endure.
But on that, it was a win.
I wonder.
I wonder if that could be done in New West again.
Oh, well, stay with us.
More ahead on The Rebel.
Hey, welcome back on my monologue Friday about the CRTC trying to regulate the Internet, Trinoculus.
Is that a first name or last name?
Writes.
As totalitarians lose their grip on the narrative, their true colors show, please be careful to vote for politicians that have a track record of love, of freedom for Canada, respect from the U.S.
Okay.
Yeah, I think the CRTC is big news.
Normally, journalists are the biggest navel gazers around.
Normally, journalists love to write about themselves and their industry.
Everyone else is bored, but really a lot of journalists just write to please themselves and their friends.
You would think that they would be all over a story about the CRTC wanting to regulate the internet and journalism and make it government-insured independence.
Journalists And Their Industry00:02:57
That's like jumbo shrimp, but it don't exist.
But I haven't seen any coverage of this CRTC story, have you?
Carol writes, Trudeau is upset that he has so much negative press in all social media, especially on Facebook.
Yeah, you know what?
He really is a totalist.
I'm not going to say totalitarianism, totalitarian, but Trudeau's media is so overwhelmingly positive.
Contrast it with Stephen Harbor.
Contrast it with Donald Trump, if you doubt me.
He just can't stand some people on Facebook or us here there.
He just can't stand having anybody dissent.
That's an authoritarian mind.
On my interview with Mark Moreno at a possible meat tax, Richard writes, the new green movement is a cult designed to deindustrialize Western countries.
Yeah, I think so.
It's also a big money grab, and I think it's just social control.
Vancouver Ride writes, people in the third world are largely vegan, just not by choice.
Okay, I know the point you're making.
I don't think that's true, of course.
And it's hard work to be a vegan, by the way, because you know what vegan means, right?
It means not even eggs or milk or cheese or anything.
And I think it also means no fish.
It's true that a lot of people in the poor parts of the world just eat a lot of rice and corn and things like that.
But they eat milk and cheese and cheap meat when they can.
I know your point is that when you're super poor, you can't afford meat.
And like so many environmental things, they glorify the profane.
I mentioned this when I said the whole ritual of sorting our garbage and don't flush here but flush there.
That's so uncivilized.
It's retreating backwards in time to when we had to touch our garbage and spend a lot of time with our garbage and sort our garbage.
And, you know, civilization moved us away from that.
The greens are moving us back to that.
And I suppose in the same way the greens are moving us away from, you know, 500 years ago, your ordinary Canadian would live as finely as the King of England and have better food.
King of England didn't have all the fruit and vegetable varieties you can get at your local Safeway.
I mean when you think about it, you and I live by many measures a finer life than kings themselves lived 500 years ago.
One word for you, dentistry, Tylenol, you know, x-rays, stitches, you know, just forget about pineapples and oranges.
So my point is, yeah, the left would take us down the ladder of evolution.
They would call it deindustrializing.
Deindustrializing Debate00:00:54
They actually use that word.
All right, don't get me started another 20-minute ramble about that.
Good Lord, I talked enough about that last week.
What do you think about this Rahaf al-Khanoon?
I think it's good that she's not in Saudi Arabia.
I think she would have been accepted by Australia.
I think Christy Freeland is super gross.
And I think that there's some other weird angle here that we don't know about, but that Scott Gilmore does know about.
And if Scott Gilmore is against a refugee, I've never seen that before.
He knows something fishy.
Well, we'll find out more if we find out more.
Until tomorrow.
Actually, I should tell you, I have a funeral.
I have to attend tomorrow, so I will not be here.
Please accept my absence.
I know I told you I would not go away if I could avoid it.
But of course, a funeral is a must-attend event.
I will be back on Wednesday.
Until then, on behalf of all of us here at Rubber World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.