Ezra Levant and Sheila Gunn Reid expose Chrystia Freeland’s hypocrisy, citing her grandfather’s WWII-era pro-Nazi magazine while Freeland accuses Rebel Media of white supremacist ties—despite their Jewish founder. They critique Bill C-69’s 350-page environmental red tape, costing Canada’s clean oil sector $50B annually, while exempting foreign producers like Saudi Arabia. Freeland’s exclusion of Rebel Media from a press conference at a "Defend Press Freedom" event, despite accreditation, and the event’s selective censorship of cartoons—omitting Levant’s controversial Muhammad depictions—highlight double standards. Rebel Media’s legal win over Toronto’s 12 a.m. parking ticket underscores systemic absurdities, though the city refuses to correct its practices, revealing broader institutional flaws in transparency and fairness. [Automatically generated summary]
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Welcome to Rebel Roundup, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you, in which we look back at some of the very best commentaries of the week by your favorite rebels.
I'm your host, David Menzies.
So Minister Christia Freeland insinuated that the federal government shuns rebel media and gets other entities such as the UN to shun rebel media because of alleged ties to white supremacists.
And gee, who would that be?
Perhaps Grandpa Freeland?
Just wait till you hear Sheila Gunread's take on this wafer.
Bill 69 was voted into law.
It will only continue our ongoing blight of pipeline paralysis and it is downright hated by those toiling in the Alberta energy sector.
So why then did Alberta Senator Paula Simons vote for it?
Ezra Levant shall explain all.
And finally, letters.
We get your letters, we get your letters every minute of every day, and I'll share some of your responses regarding my personal legal victory in traffic court, in which I got out of a parking ticket by successfully arguing that there is no such time stamp as 12 a.m.
So is the city of Toronto going to comply with the law of the land and science itself?
Oh, apparently they're above that.
Those are your rebels.
let's round them up.
Mr. Freeland, all of our reporters have been blocked by the United Nations preventing us from reporting at any of their conferences, both the climate change conferences and at the Migration Pact conference.
We know through writing, the UN confirmed to us that that was done at the request of the Canadian government.
We also know that your government has met with our competitors in the Parliamentary Press Gallery to block our organization from reporting on events organized and managed by the Parliamentary Press Gallery.
Your government has also been admonished by the Information Commissioner, the Privy Council office in particular, that for blocking our access to information requests into the Prime Minister's office.
What are you going to do tangibly to change that when you get home?
Well, your question presupposes certain actions which I haven't committed to.
But let me simply say that you are here asking me a question and that's my choice and my decision.
And I certainly think at a media freedom conference, it's appropriate to have everyone who wants to ask a question ask a question.
I do also think that it is important for governments, for countries, for multilateral organizations to Be thoughtful about media organizations that are truly independent and truly impartial.
And I must say, I do have concerns about any media organization which is a home to voices advocating white supremacy.
That is a real threat to Canada.
Oh, you didn't know that The Rebel is the official news channel for neo-Nazi groups?
Wow, that's rich.
Our founder and commander-in-chief is Jewish.
Personally speaking, my grandfather sacrificed more than five years of his life fighting the Nazis in the Second World War.
But beyond that, simply watch any of the thousands of rebel videos that have been posted since our inception in 2015.
And please, if you do happen to find one that is pro-white supremacist, do let me know about it right away because I sure can't think of any.
And joining me now with more on this downright slanderous insinuation is the woman who was asking Minister Freeland the tough questions, and that would be Sheila Gunread.
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, my friend.
Hey, David, thanks for having me on.
It is always great, and what a conference, and so much to talk about, Sheila.
But let's start with this.
Freeland's outrageous slur, and that's what it is, is all the more odious given that one pertinent fact you point out later in your superb report, namely, while we have no ties to white supremacists, incredibly, Freeland can't say the same about herself, can she, Sheila?
No, I mean, her grandfather published a pro-Nazi magazine, and then when the Russian forces were advancing, he fled to Vienna so that he could continue publishing the Nazi magazine.
Eventually, he ended up in Canada.
And actually, he ended up in my hometown of Fort Saskatchewan, when really he should have ended up in Nuremberg with the rest of the Nazi collaborators.
Freeland has made it a point to praise her grandparents, her Nazi collaborating grandparents, in tweets in the past.
She's never actually renounced their ties to Nazism.
And when it all became public, she tried to blame the information on Putin and Kremlin propaganda when much of the information was gathered from the Ukrainian archives that are held by the Alberta government.
So, I mean, she tried to pass everything off as a big conspiracy theory instead of just saying, you know what?
Yes, my grandfather was a Nazi collaborator, but I'm not.
End of story.
Let's move forward.
She's never done that.
And Sheila, I think this is a profound point because a Freeland apologist might say, well, come on, is it fair to hold her account for the sins of the father or in this case, the sins of the grandfather?
I mean, she wasn't born even when all this was happening.
But the fact is, she could have made a statement, look, I have nothing to do with this man anymore.
Ever since I know, ever since I learned about his odious past, he is the black sheep of the family.
But instead, as you say, she's gone onto the Twitterverse to champion this very odious individual.
I mean, how in the world can she square this, you know, this idea that she still has love in her heart for this person and goes to us and claims we're doing the kind of garbage that her grandfather was really responsible for.
Yeah, and as you rightly pointed out, your family fought for the Allies.
Mine did too.
Hers actually fought for the Nazis, and yet she has the audacity to libel me as a white supremacist.
Anybody who says that I'm holding her accountable for the sins of the father, or in this instance, the grandfather, is totally glossing over the fact that she's trying to hold us at the Rebel accountable for this fringe, far-right, alt-right sub-sect of, and I wouldn't even call them conservatives, but just people on the very, very, very far right, this, you know, there's probably 10 of them out there in the entire world, these internet Nazis.
She's trying to make all of conservatism, including us, and I would say, given that we are the largest independent media outlet in the country, mainstream conservatives, we are absolutely in the mainstream, whether Freeland likes it or not.
She's trying to make mainstream conservatives like you and me and all of our viewers accountable and somehow try to link us to that far-right half a dozen or a dozen Nazi LARPers in their mom's basement somewhere.
Yeah, it is despicable, and I'm sure she realizes it deep down and that this is the worst kind of gutter-level politicking you can possibly do.
Press Conference Fiasco00:07:25
But moving on from that, the press conference began on an absolutely surreal note, Sheila.
There's no other word I can think of it.
And that was, of course, when all the media was waiting to go in and hear Minister Freeland give her remarks and get a question in.
And he had the likes of Globe and Mail, Global, CTV, CBC, Al Jazeera.
Hey, come on down.
But not Rebel Media and not the True North Center.
Our friend Andrew Lawton was there for them.
And lo and behold, in a twist ending, right out of something like the Six Sense, these mainstream media reporters said, uh-uh, it's all of us or none of us.
Sheila, I'm still trying to square why there was this come to Jesus moment at that particular juncture in terms of them standing up for us.
Was it simply because this was a conference called Defend Press Freedom and to not defend all the media in attendance would just be too hypocritical even for them?
Well, I think it's that too.
But I also think that the journalists who stood up for us, they weren't Ottawa-based.
Many of them weren't even Canada-based.
So there was one journalist from the CTV who's based in Vancouver.
And many of the other outlets, their journalists that were there at the conference were Europe-based.
So they're not part of that media clique that exists in Ottawa that, you know, it is to join the club, you have to hate me, you have to hate my boss, you have to hate the work I do, but you also have to have no qualms about stealing the work I do and republishing it as your own.
All of these people that were there, it wasn't risky for them to stand up for media freedom because it's not going to hurt their jobs.
It's not going to ruin any friendships for them.
It's not going to separate them from their colleagues because they aren't in that Ottawa bubble where hating the rebel is a must to join the club.
But I mean, for me to attend that press conference, I'd already overcome quite a few hurdles just to even find out about the press conference.
We had been, even though we were accredited as official media to cover the press conference, so we weren't there as delegates.
We were there as media.
We were supposed to have been on all the press release and media availability lists.
We were the only journalists left off it.
But thankfully, for me and for Ezra, Andrew Lawton was just forwarding those emails on to us.
So that's how I even found out about the press conference.
So when I, you know, I emailed Freeland's press secretary to let her know that I was indeed coming.
And I think that's when the panic started.
That's when, okay, we got to keep these journalists waiting.
We've got to figure out how we're not going to have her and Andrew at the press conference.
I mean, the excuse they gave was just so outrageous.
They said, oh, there's not enough room for everybody at this press conference.
It was a 16-acre building.
That's just the building.
That wasn't even the grounds.
And then, you know, if you've ever been to a scrum, you could hold one of those things in a prison cell because it's just, you know, like eight journalists standing sideways, holding either a camera or a microphone, or in my case, both, in a semicircle around a politician or whoever you're scrumming.
It doesn't take up that much room.
So for them to say, oh, we can't find any room to do this in a 16-acre building on probably a 20-acre grounds, I mean, crazy.
It was just outrageous.
And I think the journalists, the other journalists were sort of insulted that like their intelligence was being insulted.
And I think that put some of them off the rev limiter, too.
Yeah, not enough room.
Like we're holding this press conference in a phone booth or something.
I mean, give me a break.
And good on those journalists for standing up.
I call it as I see it.
So, you know, I denounce bad behavior and I applaud good behavior and good on them for going to bat for you, Sheila.
And, you know, and one final word on this.
I would just would have loved to have been a fly on the wall to see her assistant come in and give her the news that the rebel and Andrew Lawton must be admitted or there's going to be no press conference.
It must have been so humiliating for Freeland, who's so used to getting her way.
But I guess we'll never know until someone publishes some memoirs about that.
But some other bizarre aspects of this conference, Sheila, you posted a short video that I thought was excellent when you went into and you looked at the collection of editorial cartoons that have caused problems and have been censored.
And the one cartoon, like when you think of, you know, editorial cartoons and the word controversy in one sentence, it's got to be those Muhammad cartoons from some, I guess, 13 years ago now.
And those images weren't there.
Sheila, to me, that's like making a documentary about Stanley Cup dynasties and failing to include the Montreal Canadians in the account.
What do you make of that?
Was that just simple cowardice again?
Yeah, the whole conference was cowardice.
The whole conference was about appeasement and cowardice.
I called the conference fake news.
They literally would not shut up about disinformation, but the conference was an act of disinformation.
They had this display of all these cartoons about banned cartoons.
But when you're looking at the cartoons, they were just cartoons about how tough it is to be a cartoonist.
But, you know, they didn't actually have the one cartoon that has, in Ezra's instance, resulted in being dragged through a quasi-judicial kangaroo court and, you know, in an attempt to financially ruin him because he didn't play along with Sharia blasphemy law and resulted in a terror attack, the Prophet Muhammad cartoons.
Those weren't there.
A brave cartoonist, a brave journalist would have put those up.
And we know, I mean, Ezra's done it.
It's doable.
You can do it if you're willing to stand in the storm, but they just weren't.
I mean, the whole conference was about how to subsidize media and how to regulate media.
And then they called it the Orwellian Protect Media Freedom Conference.
It was so bizarre.
And they kept us sort of corralled up in this 16-acre warehouse where there was no daylight.
It was like an MKUltra experiment.
Oh, unbelievable, Sheila.
You know, we've just run out of time, but I'll end it with the final exclamation mark, which of course was Ezra perhaps in his finest moment addressing the Pakistani foreign minister.
I know the year still has five months more to go, but so far I think Ezra has the best line of 2019 thus far.
Ezra's Best Line00:15:19
You censorious thug.
And the irony is that A, they would invite this censorious thug to a media freedom conference.
And B, let's be honest, if Ezra had said that to this foreign minister in Karachi, we would never hear from Ezra again.
You know, so shame on that conference for even inviting that thug to begin with.
So I'm glad Ezra got home.
And of course, I'm glad you got home.
Great report and a way to go on reporting on a media freedom conference that was anything but that, Sheila.
Thanks, David.
You got it.
And that was Sheila Gunread in Alberta.
Keep it here, folks.
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
That was the part I tweeted the other day that Senator Paul Simon said, no, no, that's outdated.
No, no, no.
We fixed that with 99 Amendments.
I would never support that.
I mean, who told you that?
No, no, she's pulling a Trudeau on you.
Let me read this.
This is the law, the final version assented to last month that Paula Simons voted for against her own province, against her own people, out of loyalty to Justin Trudeau.
Quebecers are better than the rest of Canada because, you know, we're Quebecers.
Yeah, that Trudeau.
So that's who Paula Simons is loyal to.
Let me read at some length from the law as passed.
These are the new factors that the government must consider.
The word must is in there.
Not could, not should, not maybe, not can.
They must.
The government must consider.
Let me read it.
Factors to consider.
The Commission must make its recommendation taking into account, in light of, among other things, any Indigenous knowledge that has been provided to the Commission and scientific information and data.
All considerations that appear to it to be relevant and directly related to the pipeline, including the environmental effects, including any cumulative environmental effects, the safety and security of persons and the protection of property and the environment.
Okay, so good so far.
The health, social, and economic effects, including with respect to the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors.
I'll stop there for a moment.
Of course, the Commission should take into account environmental effects.
That's the whole point of this Commission.
Of course, people should be protected.
Of course, we don't want danger.
Those are criteria one and two.
But the third one, the very third one, is transgenderism and other identity factors.
Black Lives Matter, Hispanic rights, whatever, being gay, being what identity grievances are hardwired into the law and the government must take them into account and transgenderism is specifically in there.
Recently, the Senate approved into law Bill C-69.
This anti-pipeline legislation will only further kneecap Canada's struggling energy sector.
It will only further worsen Alberta's economy.
So you'd think that Alberta Senator Paula Simmons would be a champion for her province that she would vote against such profoundly flawed legislation, right?
But she didn't.
She supported it, despite the damage it will cause to her home province.
Then again, Paula does owe a political debt to Justin Trudeau, who appointed her as a senator last year.
And even though support for this legislation is virtually non-existent in Alberta, for Simmons, well, how does that old saying go again pertaining to her relationship with the prime minister?
Oh yeah, you scratch my back, I scratch yours.
Joining me now with more about a law that is going to further paralyze the development of ethical Canadian oil, yet turn a blind eye to the stuff the Saudis import into our great dominion is Rebel Commander Ezra Levant.
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, Ezra.
Well, thanks very much.
You know, the name of the law is very long.
Yes.
Probably more Canadians have heard of the bill called Bill C-69.
Once the bill becomes a law, it's no longer called C-69.
It's basically the new environmental regulations.
The first thing to know about the law, which was proclaimed last month, so it is now law, is that it's about 300 and it's more than 350 pages long.
So that's 350 more pages of red tape.
I mean, there's no business in the world that, I mean, you'd need to hire lawyers or a team of lawyers to navigate it.
So right there, just adding another like 10 feet of red tape to things.
Paula Simons, who claims to be an Alberta senator, but she's not.
She's Trudeau's senator to Alberta.
She said, well, I proposed a lot of amendments and Justin Trudeau graciously accepted a few of them.
Well, he may have, but I went through the law, the final version, and I was astounded.
She says, oh, it's not really a pipeline law.
Well, the word pipeline is actually in there dozens and dozens and dozens of times.
But it's not just that the word's in there.
This law says new rules for approving pipelines.
And one of the rules, in fact, the very third rule, is that pipelines that this new regulator must, not can or should or maybe or could, must take into consideration the intersection of sex and gender identity.
You know, I'm glad you brought that up, Ezra, because I did want to get into that with you.
I'm not playing dumb.
I don't know what this means, just as I didn't know what Trudeau's statement in the last election campaign, the budget will bounce itself.
I don't know what that means four years later either.
What does that mean?
Well, oh, and other identity groups.
So what's the problem?
So there's a trans focus to this.
There absolutely is a trans focus to it.
That's not even a joke.
Like that's what gender identity means.
Right?
So that's not a joke.
So if there's someone from Black Lives Matter, if there's some grievance group I can't even think of now, the regulator must take that into account.
Now, how on earth is there a gay or feminist or trans aspect to a pipeline?
Well, the only answer I can come up with, if I'm actually trying to be honest, is that in Canada, we don't stone gays to death as they do in Iran or Saudi Arabia.
Actually, they prefer to hang them in Iran.
They stone them in Saudi.
We don't ban women from driving, let alone running an oil rig, like they do in Saudi.
So if we were to do a gender analysis on oil, which I don't propose that we do, we would end up banning most OPEC oil because it fails the gender analysis.
But perversely, Bill C-69 only applies to Canadian domestic producers.
So you could have...
I'll make a measure if I can ask you.
Is that because there's maybe some international trade agreements where they couldn't have those kind of litmus tests for, say, Saudi and other OPEC nations importing their oil here?
That's part of it.
Another reason is that do you think Saudi Aramco, which is basically, or the other state, most OPEC countries, it's a state oil producer.
It's a government-run oil producer.
Like Saudi Aramco, there's the National Oil Company of Iran, I forget what it's called.
Do you think they're going to let Catherine McKenna poke around in their internal affairs?
So it would be unenforceable.
It would be laughable.
You're right to say it would probably be illegal under some trade agreements.
But also, Justin Trudeau doesn't hate Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela, Nigeria, or foreign oil sources.
So in fact, his brother, Alexandra Trudeau, did a propaganda film in support of Iranian oil.
So this is about smacking down capitalists, oilmen, Albertans in Canada.
It's not actually about fixing environmental problems.
Canadian oil is the most environmental oil in the world.
And listen, I love America very much.
I love Texas.
I've been to Texas.
I've been to Midland.
I've been to West Texas.
I've seen a lot of oil and gas.
We're a little cleaner up here in terms of how we clean things up.
I'm not anti-American.
I'm not against oil at all.
I'm just saying I've seen Texas oil fields and I've seen Alberto oil fields.
And I know which ones are cleaned up down to the last drop.
And it's ours.
So imagine bringing in a law that literally handicaps your domestic producers and does not apply to U.S. oil that comes up by rail or Saudi oil that comes in by tanker.
Why would you do that?
But you asked about the vagueness.
What does it mean to have when you must take into account gender analysis on the pipeline?
Well, no real person has ever done that.
That's not a thing.
What that is, is saying, oh, I know some professors of queer theory and some professors of black, gay intersectionality, and let's get them a grant to oppose this pipeline and let's just, like, it's about creating a new thing that doesn't exist.
And would you, if you had a choice to invest billions of dollars in Canada under this regime, or to invest in Texas, Alaska, where they're drilling offshore in the Gulf of Mexico, Australia, where they're opening up some of the largest fracked natural gas sets in the world, the world has never produced more oil or consumed more oil than it does today.
And that will continue for the foreseeable future, more than 100 million barrels every day.
And yet this year, for the first time in memory, Canadian oil production decreased.
America, it's up 25% in a couple years.
America's now an energy exporter.
I mean, it's unbelievable.
And here I am laughing at some of your statements, because they are so unbelievable and perversely amusing, Ezra.
But there's a very dark side to this.
You mentioned investments.
know that $50 billion a year is being diverted from the Canadian energy sector because of these types of policies.
First of all, we can't afford to play this game.
And secondly, can you think of any other oil-producing nation in the world that handcuffs its own oil industry?
Well, that's the thing.
I mean, the Trans Mountain Expansion Pipeline was fully funded by a private company called Kinder Morgan.
They didn't want a handout.
They were ready to build.
Trudeau nuked it and he said, oh, can I give you a $4.5 billion for your existing pipeline, which is a billion overmarket.
Basically, it was a $4.5 billion payment to shut up.
They haven't built it.
That expansion project was about a $10 billion job.
The Energy East pipeline was $15.7 billion.
The Northern Gateway was around $8, $9, $10 billion.
Just those three pipelines, all three of which were killed by Trudeau, what's the math on that?
That's about $30 billion.
You had the huge Petronas fracking and pipeline project.
What was that, $35 billion?
So right now we're coming up over $60 billion.
You have huge oil sands companies pulling out $5 billion here, $5 billion here, $5 billion there before, you know, and it really adds up.
But that's all private money.
And you have Trudeau and his ministers putting out press releases, and we gave $5 million to this job creation.
How about keep that tax money and just let these companies pour their money into our construction and hotels and rental trucks and surveyors and archaeologists and engineers, everything.
He's killed that.
And the thing about oil is it's found in not every country in the world, but quite a few.
And it's no skin off Exxon's nose or Shell's nose or Total's nose to say, okay, Canada, we're going to walk away slowly.
We'll see you later.
And they have no compunction about drilling in the most awful places in the world.
So if your goal in C69 is to have a more ethical industry, what you're actually doing is you're driving the money out of the only ethical producer in the world, and you're driving investment to regimes that are unfree.
You know, Ezra, it's just absolutely astonishing.
We've got probably less than a minute.
One last exit question.
Last week, Justin Trudeau was in Alberta.
He was there to make a so-called pipeline announcement, which turned out to be a complete nothing burger.
At the same time, Trudeau, you can see in Montreal holding up the hand of Stephen Gabald, you know, to run in a riding in Montreal.
And this is a guy that spent a quarter century of his life working for Greenpeace and other environmental organizations to strangle the Alberta oil industry.
You can't talk out of both sides of your mouth, and yet we're a prime minister is doing that.
Yeah, well, you know what?
I keep referring to the Angus Reid polls on Justin Trudeau, but frankly, any pollster will give you more or less the same information.
When people break out of their trance of supporting Trudeau, a lot of people were swept up in the trance because there wasn't a lot of information about him.
The media was in love with him.
The media themselves were in love.
But a lot of that, they've fallen out of love.
I mean, to me, the iconic moment was when Paul Wells wrote what was basically a dear diary story on the cover of MacLean's called The Imposter.
It wasn't even about Justin Trudeau.
It was about how Paul Wells was disillusioned.
Paul Wells felt lied to because his boyfriend hero turned out to be a fraud.
And what happens in Canada, according to Angus Reid, is when you fall out of love with Justin Trudeau, you don't just slightly dislike him.
You despise him.
So normally there's a bell curve.
Most people are sort of so-so.
Some like him, some dislike him, and very few in the bell curve hate him or love him.
With Trudeau, it's an unusual curve.
Most people who say they don't like Trudeau say they passionately hate him because he's such a phony.
He's a fake feminist.
We all know he's a groper.
He's such a transparent phony.
It's that dramatic actor.
So when he comes to Alberta and says, I'm here, I support the pipeline, while he, I don't even know what that accent was, while he's got Stephen Gilbeau.
People don't just dislike that.
Midnight Misunderstanding00:08:11
They say, not only are you wrong, but you're trying to deceive me and treat me like a fool.
Treat me like one of those girlfriends that you molested like when he was in that BC, in Creston, BC, and he groped that woman, Rose Knight.
You're trying to treat me like Rose Knight, and you're treating me with great disrespect.
You're not just disagreeing with me.
You're disrespecting me.
You're lying to me.
You're deceiving me.
That's how Alberta feels.
That's how Saskatchewan feels.
That's how, believe it or not, a lot of women in Aboriginal people feel after having been disillusioned.
That's how some of the media party feels after being disillusioned.
My only hope is that enough people vote with their conscience and dispose of him this fall because if Justin Trudeau is re-elected, these negative trends we're talking about, investment and jobs and oil production, we're in deep trouble.
I know, I agree.
Well, let's see if there is indeed regime change Ezra until October 21st.
And folks, there you have it.
I always thought that when it came to the Trans Mountain pipeline, trans meant for transnational.
I guess it really means for transgender under the Trudeau liberals.
Ah, yeah, yeah, you couldn't make this thing up.
It's not even a parody.
Keep it here.
more of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
I also referred to the National Physical Laboratory at the National Measurement Institute.
This institution has a mandate of improving timekeeping accuracy.
It echoed the position of Greenwich.
When I had the meter maid take the stand, one of my pertinent questions was, on what basis do you consider 12 a.m. to be midnight?
And her answer was, quote, everybody knows that 12 a.m. is midnight, end quote.
She might want to inform the actual scientists who look after the time file about that assessment.
But the most damning evidence regarding my case regarding the AMPM ambiguity came ironically via the City of Toronto itself, which is to say, check out these other signs involving timestamps that the city posts to purposely veer away from the inherent confusion of 12 a.m. and 12 p.m.
For example, here's a photo of First Street permit parking.
The sign states that permit parking is effective beginning at 12.01 a.m. as opposed to 12 a.m.
Signs like this one in Toronto have been posted for decades.
Why 1201?
Well, I'm assuming because whoever was in charge of parking signage way back then wanted to avoid confusion.
And just like that, I fought the law and the law lost.
Yes, I successfully had my parking ticket tossed in court because City of Toronto bureaucrats are ignorant regarding the nuances of timekeeping, which is to say 12 a.m. and 12 p.m. simply do not exist.
Thus, my argument in court was that a sign stating that paid parking was in effect until 12 a.m. could technically mean either 12 noon or 12 midnight, and the judge agreed.
Case dismissed.
But get this, even though Toronto's signage is out of compliance, even though science is on my side, even though a legal precedent was set, the city of Toronto has no plans to fix this problem anytime soon.
And meter maids are going to continue to illicitly ticket cars after 12 noon because apparently the bylaw department, well, they're never wrong, even when they are wrong.
In any event, here's what some of you had to say about my parking predicament victory.
Rapture Ready writes, it's a money grab on a technicality hoping people, unlike you, won't go to court and fight it.
Well, you are correct, Rapture Ready.
This is when the process of fighting back becomes the actual penalty.
For the amount of time I spent fighting this and paying for parking outside the court, by the way, I would have been ahead of the game had I simply paid that $30 ticket.
But for me, it was a matter of principle, and I have communicated with the city that it is in the wrong, but it seems to be falling on deaf ears.
Maybe I need to amp up the messaging, a la Jim Kerry in the mask.
I think he wants to communicate.
Rap writes, I'm parking for free tomorrow.
I love the rebel.
Ha ha.
Well, you're welcome, Brap, but please keep in mind, contrary to popular belief, you do not get a cash reward along with your free parking.
This actually prompted Hasbro to include these so-called house rules in later games as an option, one of the most popular of which is that every tax dollar and fine goes into the center of the board, which is then given to whatever player lands on free parking.
This misconception about what actually happens when you land on free parking is probably not the only way you're not playing Monopoly by the book.
Gavin Miles writes, is this actually a thing?
Is it a Canadian thing?
12 a.m. is always midnight.
Feels like I've fallen into another dimension.
No, Gavin, you're not in the Twilight Zone and the non-existence of 12 a.m. is not a Canadian thing.
It's a scientific thing backed up by the likes of the Royal Greenwich Museums in England and the National Measurement Institute.
Trust me, these august authorities have forgotten more about timekeeping than you and I are ever going to learn.
So come on, listen up already.
What we've got here is failure to communicate.
The mucinator writes, dude, I love you, but you're bragging about breaking the law by nitpicking.
Well, Mucinator, thanks for the love, but you missed the point.
I might indeed be nitpicking, something bureaucrats love to do, by the way.
But I am not breaking the law.
The city is breaking the law.
They are enforcing a time stamp that does not exist.
Period.
Hey, look, lover, you need to direct your anger at them, not me.
It's all over, lawbreaker.
Your spree is at an end.
I'll take any stolen goods you have.
The next move is yours.
Pay your fine, or I'll haul you away.
Lawrence Dollha writes, midnight by the military is called 000 hours, not 2,400 hours.
Well, Mr. Dollha, you are indeed correct.
I made a mistake in stating that 2,400 hours is midnight in military time.
Obviously, I'm not much of a soldier, but unlike the city of Toronto, I can admit when I get it wrong.
So a mia culpa to everyone for that fumble.
Gee, who knew timekeeping was so complicated?
Maybe we need to go back to the curly Howard way of telling time.
How long has that been the soup, Froghead?
About, um, hey, what's the idea of the three watches?
So we had to tell the time.
How do you tell the time?
This one runs 10 minutes slow every two hours.
This runs 20 minutes fast every four hours.
The one in the middle is broken and stopped at two o'clock.
Well, how do you tell the time?
I take the 10 minutes on this one and subtract it from the 20 minutes on that one.
Then I divide by the two in the middle.
Well, what time is it now?
Oh, 10 minutes to four.
Hmm, so it is.
Best comedy team ever.
Well, that wraps up another edition of Rebel Roundup.
Thanks so much for joining us.
See you next week.
And hey, folks, never forget, without risk, there can be no glory.