At Canada’s and UK’s July 11th Media Freedom Conference, Ezra Levant exposed a "Potemkin village" facade: 20 minutes on free speech amid hours of "fake news" crackdowns, while Christy Freeland blocked The Rebel and TNC.news journalists from press access. Levant confronted Pakistan’s foreign minister over Asia Beebe’s blasphemy case and Twitter censorship, only to be deflected, while Pakistani journalist Irfan revealed his network’s forced shutdown—labeled a "technical error"—and judicial suppression of opposition voices like Mariam Namaz. The event’s prioritization of "hurt feelings" over dissent signals a dangerous global shift toward performative media freedom, especially as Canada’s election year tightens control. [Automatically generated summary]
Why should others go to jail when you're a 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 to the government about why I publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
You know what a Potemkin village is, don't you?
It's a fake.
It's something to show off to foreign media to, well, to lie about the way things really are.
And that's what this so-called Media Freedom Conference, co-sponsored by the governments of Canada and the UK, has been.
This is the second day of the conference, and I am convinced that the purpose of the conference is to further the globalist agenda that Justin Trudeau is definitely part of.
And I'm afraid the United Kingdom must be too, but many others, which is to divide the world's media into two parts.
Those that are controlled and subsidized by government, and those that are marginalized, demonized, and banned by government, with nothing left in between.
No independent media, no free media, no dissident media, just approved media and banned media.
Now, you might think that sounds astonishing.
How could the governments of Canada and the United Kingdom abide that?
Well, I'm telling you that for the last 48 hours, I've observed it with my own eyes.
I've listened to dozens, probably two dozen hours of conversations, or maybe not quite that much.
And the ideas of freedom, what it means to be free, have been incidental.
Maybe 20 minutes out of all the talk I've heard.
Much more common is the talk of banning fake news and disinformation.
But what is fake news or disinformation other than something someone disagrees with?
I think the theory of man-made global warming is fake news and disinformation.
I think the theory of Trump-Russia collusion is fake news, and I think it was proven that way.
But for the official narrative media, that was the truth.
So what we have here is a media censorship commission that calls itself a free speech conference.
It's a wolf in sheep's clothing.
It's a censor in free speech clothing.
I want to tell you about one particular moment when I knew this was coming true.
I actually wasn't there myself, but Sheila Gunread, our chief reporter, and Andrew Lawton from TNC.news were there.
As you know, Canada's foreign minister, Christy Freeland, was one of the co-sponsors of this event.
And she was having a press scrum.
And there was a gaggle of reporters, including from CTV and Global News and other mainstream media who frankly don't have a lot of time for us here at the Rebel.
Feelings mutual.
That's fine.
So this whole gaggle of Canadian reporters was going in.
And Sheila and Andrew were there and they said, oh, stop, you guys.
Stop.
Stop.
It's too crowded in here.
So two journalists can't make it.
And those two are you, Sheila, and you, Andrew.
Oh, my God.
It couldn't have been more transparent.
And in that moment, Christy Freeland showed her true colors at a free speech conference.
She censored Sheila and Andrew at the conference, moments after giving a lecture to everyone about how politicians must respect journalists, even if they ask tough questions.
If that story isn't incredible enough, what happened next was even more amazing.
Those other mainstream media journalists I just referred to, they actually stood up for a moment.
For us, maybe, but for free speech, for sure.
And they all said, if Sheila and Andrew aren't going in, we aren't going in.
And not just that, it wasn't just the Canadians.
An Al Jazeera reporter said that.
Stop and think about that for one second.
A government broadcaster from a government journalist from the state broadcaster of Qatar, an odious dictatorship, had more free speech in his blood than Christia Freeland, the co-chair of this conference.
Here, our friend Sheila Gunread was right there with her camera.
Take a look at how that went down.
What about the rest?
The rest of us?
The rest of us have to see that.
No, I know.
No, that's nonsense.
No, Let's take us to the room and we can see if we can.
No, we're not going for your time.
We're all going to be a good one.
This is a media freedom conference.
Yeah, this is ridiculous.
Please don't do that.
Yeah, we're not going there.
So that was the highlight.
The worst censor at the conference was Christia Freeland, the co-chair.
The best moment was Canadian journalists who discovered the, maybe they always had it.
It was latent.
They stood up for the rebel.
Pakistan's Media Freedom Question00:08:51
It was sort of amazing.
Anyways, there was a lot of interesting things.
There's a lot of depressing things.
I was actually invited to be on a panel, sort of a youth journalism panel.
I don't like when things are auto-officially divided up at the kids' table and the grown-ups' table, but hey, take it where you can get it, right?
I was invited on a panel at this conference.
Obviously, they didn't run that by Christia Freeland, so I was on it, and I was disappointed at how little, how shallow the roots of free speech are in the millennial generation.
I was very depressed by it.
And I think that the idea of hurt feelings that counterfeit human right not to be offended, I'm afraid that's taken deep root even at this conference.
But I want to tell you a story today that I thought was rather incredible.
As I mentioned, this was co-sponsored by Canada and the United Kingdom.
There's about a thousand delegates here.
I was told by a staffer there are 900 people working at this conference of a thousand.
And, you know, there was Brits and there's Americans here and Canadians and other Europeans and it was interesting.
And I just sat down in a session and I couldn't even find it on my agenda.
It wasn't an official part of the agenda.
And I sat down.
I wasn't really paying much attention because I didn't know who I was listening to.
And I heard him talking about how free the country of Pakistan was.
Pakistan?
Free?
Pakistan is a racist Islamic supremacist country in their constitution.
Their bigotry is hardwired in there.
They're extremely censorious.
Let me just give you one example.
I'm sure I could give you a dozen.
You know the case of Asia Beebe, the Christian woman who was sentenced to death for blasphemy against Islam.
Finally freed and actually came to Canada, if you can believe it.
The Pakistani foreign minister was a guest of honor speaking on the main stage.
That thug, and I call him a thug because he's part of the regime.
It would be like having Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela or Vladimir Putin.
I mean, they're not completely irredeemable, but to invite the foreign minister of Pakistan as an honored guest, and I couldn't even believe he was there.
And I was listening to him lie about free speech when I knew about Asia Bibi.
Surely Christia Freeland, the foreign minister who welcomed and took a photo op with these people coming from Pakistan, surely she would object.
No.
Well, I have a little censorship story involving Pakistan.
You see, I like to tweet on Twitter.
It's what I do, and I tweet about many subjects.
And one day I got an email from Twitter saying the government of Pakistan objected to a tweet I published.
And so they demanded it be deleted, and Twitter complied.
So you've got some thuggish Sharia supremacist in Pakistan telling a company in San Francisco, First Amendment free speech jurisdiction, to censor me, a Canadian journalist, in Toronto.
And they did it.
And that thuggish foreign minister of Pakistan was sitting right on the stage.
Well, you know me, I'm very diplomatic.
And when you have a careful, nuanced point you want to make, send an Ezra Levant.
And here's how that looked.
Thanks.
Actually, I'm not going to be directed by you.
I'm going to ask a question to the Pakistani gentleman.
Now you know.
Yes, I am.
This is the Media Freedom Conference, and you're not going to shut down questions about a censor.
You censored me, sir.
I have a Twitter account in Canada, and because I wrote something that produced some Pakistani blasphemy law, you complained to Twitter, which took down my tweet in Canada.
So can you explain why your Islamic supremacy in Pakistan is silencing my personal and journalistic freedom in Canada?
And I know it happens in the United States, too.
And frankly, you sure should be embarrassed to invite a censor like this.
But back to the thug.
Who the hell are you to censor me in Canada?
I know you don't because you don't like free speech.
You don't like free speech.
Okay, would you like to ask that free speech?
I'll just respond to you, sir.
First of all, I want your sentiments to be respected.
Is that the correct way?
You have a right to ask questions.
Well, then why did you censor me?
Did I censor you?
You shut down my Twitter.
I adopted.
Don't lie.
How am I responsible for that?
Because the government of Pakistan did.
The government of Pakistan.
I didn't respectful to you.
No, you were not.
You censored me.
I did not censor you.
Don't lie.
All right.
Why would I lie?
Because that's what you do.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Shame on you and shame on you.
Shame on you and shame on you for inviting me.
Shame on you.
You censorious thug.
You censorious thug.
And what you call freedom at times you are projecting certain sectors at your door.
Well, what do you think?
Did the shoe fit?
Was he a thug?
I enjoyed saying it.
I bet you 200 million Pakistanis wanted to say that to him, but alas, they can't because it's not free.
There were a number of speakers from unfree countries.
Anyways, as I was walking out, a young Pakistani man came right up to me and wanted to talk to me.
And I was worried it was part of the foreign minister's thuggish entourage.
It wasn't.
It was a young reporter who himself had been blackballed by that same foreign minister.
In fact, he was a TV journalist whose network was taken off the air.
I couldn't believe it.
Here, take a look.
He was so excited that someone finally held the foreign minister account.
Here's his story.
Take a look.
Irfan, after I asked the foreign minister a tough question, you came up to me.
At first, I thought you were maybe an enforcer of his, but the opposite.
The Pakistani government has censored you too, haven't they?
Thank you very much for your time.
You know, the first question which I asked the minister, I'm really shocked when coming to this world organization, like the conference where the whole world is watching you and putting the show to the world that in Pakistan the media is free, which is not.
The three channels have been taken off the air, right?
And this is something really disturbing for all the journalists because we don't know where we stand as a free journalist and what we have to do.
Because the reason was during the time when the PTI government in Pakistan, right, they were campaigning for the election.
The channels in Pakistan were actually showing the street power of PTI without any discrimination because this is everybody has a right to come in the street and talk about this is what happens in democracies.
But recently, since this government came into power, right, most of the media houses in Pakistan are actually controlled in their own way, that you cannot show this, you cannot show this.
There's a lot of censorship going on, right?
The question was, during the press conference of the political rival of the foreign ministers, Shah Mahmud Qureshi, Mariam Namaz, who is the daughter of the ex-prime minister in Pakistan, right?
And during her press conference, these channels have been taken off the air because what she was actually coming up with the evidence, what exactly happened with that particular judge, who actually admitting the fact that the whole decision in the case of the Prime Minister of Pakistan was influenced by some power corridors, right?
And tell me, you mentioned just before we turn the camera on that you yourself, your media outlet has been censored.
Tell me a little bit more about that.
You said you were taken off the air.
Yeah, in the most part of the country, Trilli for News is not live and the message came on the screen.
There's a technical error.
It wasn't a technical error, was it?
Technical error.
Everybody knows where the error was.
And it's just more like a censorship which the Pakistan media is actually facing right now.
Let me ask you one last question.
I know you're very busy.
Thanks for talking with me.
How did you feel as a journalist who's been censored by the government of Pakistan to see the foreign minister of Pakistan on stage being given the red carpet treatment?
Well, you know what?
That's the thing.
When you come to a world platform like this, and if you have to put the ball in somebody else's court, right?
Oh, this is not my job.
I'm the foreign minister.
This is a PEMRA who is doing in Pakistan, the regulatory body in Pakistan, then why are you here?
Send somebody who's the representative of the PEMRA so we can actually address to the people, the right people, the right question if you believe that.
I think this is absolutely defining the values of the journalism in Pakistan.
If someone of that level coming to media conferences like this, I think they're just filling the blanks and it's nothing more than that.
Irfan, thanks very much for talking with us and good luck.
Bully On Stage00:01:19
You are on the front lines of free speech and I hope you stay strong.
Thank you very much.
Thank you very much.
Nice to meet you.
Isn't that strange?
He was outrage too.
A Pakistani journalist who's looking to the United Kingdom and Canada perhaps for hope, for inspiration as a role model, he's invited to this conference where he's told it'll be about media freedom.
He's a hopeful young Pakistani man.
He wants our Western values of liberty.
And what does he see on the stage?
His jailer, his warden, his punisher, his censor, his bully, his boss, his tyrant, his dictator, his authoritarian.
Imagine how crestfallen he would have been.
He's invited to this fancy pants conference.
Jeremy Hunt, Foreign Secretary of the UK, Christia Freeland, Foreign Minister of Canada.
No expense spared.
This is going to be amazing.
We're going to talk about media freedom.
And he's a young Pakistani man.
He wants freedom there.
And he looks on the stage and he sees the tyrant.
That's the kind of conference this has been.
Well, folks, I was here for two days.
I'll have one more report on this tomorrow.
I think it's important because the kind of camouflage and misdirection and sleight of hand here on freedom of speech is exactly what you can expect to be pushed all around the world, especially in Canada, in this election year.