Sheila Gunn-Reid, Alberta Bureau Chief for The Rebel, faces prosecution by Elections Commissioner Lauren Gibson’s "hunter-killer" unit—led by Ken Brander, a private investigator linked to a 2004 crash killing a child and costing Edmonton $5M in compensation—for demanding her private notes, emails, and editorial records on Stop Notley, a top-selling 2019 book critiquing the NDP. With Jason Kenney’s UCP unable to dismiss Gibson due to ongoing leadership contest investigations, Gunn-Reid refuses, risking fines under Section 45, vowing jail over compliance. The fight escalates as The Rebel crowdsources legal costs at savesheila.com, framing this as a broader assault on press freedom and free speech, where journalists could face severe penalties for criticism. [Automatically generated summary]
It's about one of our friends, Sheila Gunread, our chief reporter, our Alberta Bureau Chief.
She's being prosecuted by the Elections Commissioner of Alberta.
Now you might be saying, hang on a second, Jason Kenney's the Premier of Alberta.
What's going on there?
Well, this is a holdover appointed by Rachel Notley to get her enemies.
And on the top of that enemies list is Sheila Gunread.
Well, we have to fight back.
I want you to listen to the whole thing.
And I want you to listen to the recordings of the prosecutors threatening us, the investigators rather, threatening us.
And I'd like you to help if you could.
Hey, one way you can help is to become a premium subscriber.
It gives us $8 a month.
That adds up, you know.
It's $80 a year.
You can get a bit of a discount if you type in the coupon code podcast.
Just go to the rebel.media slash shows.
Besides helping us, you get access to the video version of this podcast and other shows by Sheila Gunread and David Menzies.
Okay, I really hope you can listen to this whole show today.
I think it's probably the most important video we've done in a year.
Thanks.
Tonight, government prosecutors make their move against Sheila Gunread for her book, Stop Notley.
I need your help to protect her.
It's July 24th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
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.
For three months, we have been privately fighting against an illegal and unconstitutional attempt by the Alberta government to prosecute Sheila Gunn-Reed, our star reporter and Alberta bureau chief, for writing her best-selling book, Stop Notley.
That book is the most popular book on Alberta politics in 2019, reaching the number two spot on the Amazon.ca national bestseller list.
It was great journalism, and it's Sheila's third best-selling book.
She wrote another one about the NDP three years ago called The Destroyers, and one just last year about David Suzuki.
They're great books, and the Rebel is proud to publish them.
But Rachel Notley hated them because Sheila is the toughest journalist in the Alberta Press Corps, one of the few who would ever challenge Notley.
Sheila broke more news scoops than any other Alberta reporter these past four years, including the incredible scoop that Rachel Notley canceled every single water bomber contract just days before the wildfire tore through Fort McMurray.
Notley actually banned Sheila from the legislature as punishment for her reporting, literally sending an armed sheriff to block her from coming into the legislature.
And then Notley had Alberta's Justice Department write to us, banning us or anyone connected to us from going on government property anywhere.
That's illegal, of course, but Notley didn't care.
It was only when her weird Venezuela-style censorship was mocked in the national press that Notley backed down, but she never forgave Sheila.
So last year, Notley created a special new hunter-killer office called the Election Commissioner.
Not the chief electoral officer, not the guy in charge of running the elections.
Alberta's always had one of those, obviously.
Notley created a new officer in charge of political crimes and called him the elections commissioner.
And she hired a disgraced anti-conservative activist named Lorne Gibson, who actually sued the conservatives in his personal capacity and was laughed out of court.
But Notley gave him the last laugh, appointing that unbalanced kook to be the elections commissioner to investigate her enemies.
And he loved doing it because they were his enemies too.
Now, Gibson has taken a run at us several times before, but we've always fought him off, and he's always backed down.
In fact, Alexis Alberta actually published a series of apologies to us every day for a week on Twitter.
Actually, I couldn't believe it, for falsely smearing us earlier this year.
They're so dirty over there.
But now they're coming to kill us.
They're threatening to prosecute Sheila Gonread for her book.
They say that.
It's her book.
They're not hiding that.
They're literally prosecuting her for her book, Stop Notley.
They're demanding, here's what's incredible.
Here's what's so scary.
They're demanding that she hand over all her notes and emails and editorial plans about the book.
She's an author.
They're threatening her with, quote, severe consequences if she doesn't.
Here, to explain the story better, let me let Sheila tell you about it directly.
Now, Sheila recorded this 20-minute video, and I'm going to play the whole thing.
You really must see it all.
Listen to all of her evidence, including the voice recordings and emails from Notley staff.
Okay, listen to this.
I'll see you in 20 minutes.
Yeah, I mean, we have that Sheila where people don't cooperate, and then they get, you know, they get obstruction, you know, the offense for obstruction can be pretty severe.
I have some terrible news to share with you today.
We have been trying to work quietly to get ourselves out of the trouble that we're facing, but it's become clear in recent days.
We can't do this quietly anymore, and we cannot do this alone.
I need your help now.
NDP-appointed holdovers in the Alberta government are coming for me because I wrote a best-selling book that hurt Rachel Notley's feelings.
I'm potentially facing tens of thousands of dollars in fines and what the government officer involved calls severe consequences, but the biggest threat is to freedom of the press for all of us.
Let me explain this mess.
We have to go back a few months to the very beginning.
This video is long, but I have to tell you the whole story and I have to show you the proof of what's happening, or you just would not believe it.
Back in April, we received a letter from Alberta's elections commissioner.
That entire bureaucracy is a recent creation of the NDP and it was weaponized against Notley's conservative critics.
They have come after us about billboards critical of the NDP on two separate occasions in the past, and they lost.
This new threat letter in April came from the elections commissioner, Lauren Gibson, and it was addressed to me, but it was sent to our Toronto office.
So the Alberta election was over.
Jason Kenney was the new premier.
But Notley's hand-picked enforcer was still on the job, and he still is today.
He said he was opening an investigation after complaints about lawn signs promoting my best-selling book.
Here's part of his letter.
We will be seeking your answers to a number of questions, including the following.
What was the basis upon which you determined the selling price of the Stop Notley book?
What was the date you began to make this book available to the public?
Was the availability of the Stop Notley book to the public time to occur with the 2019 provincial election campaign, or was the book planned to be made available to the public regardless of whether there was an election or not?
What is the estimated cost of the Stop Notley advertising book promotion campaign?
What is the contact information for the company that published the Stop Notley book?
And the company that designed, produced, and distributed the Stop Notley signs.
Gibson said he would be contacting me for an interview, or to put it another way, I'd be interrogated by the government about a book I wrote about the government.
Now, his letter didn't even tell me who's under investigation or for what?
Is it me or the publisher of my book?
Who's in trouble here?
Is it for the book or the lawn signs promoting the book?
And really, it doesn't matter anyway, or it shouldn't, because we have a free press in Canada, and here is the elections law that specifically exempts books.
Section 44D2 reads: Elections advertising does not include the distribution of a book or the promotion of the sale of a book for no less than its commercial value if the book was planned to be made available to the public, regardless of whether there was to be an election.
Apparently, even Alberta's draconian elections censorship law recognizes the importance of a free press.
And of course, we lawyered my book up and down before we published it.
In fact, legal fees are one of the largest expenses here at the Rebel.
So I first emailed Stephen Kay, the investigator noted in the letter.
And I said this: Dear Mr. K, I am a journalist and author.
In my view, your investigation of me is legally inappropriate and contrary to Canada's constitutional freedoms, especially freedom of expression.
Your decision to keep these complaints against me a secret is inappropriate if they really do exist.
By keeping them secret, you stop me from knowing the details of the case against me and from making a proper response.
You still haven't been clear about why I'm being investigated.
Perhaps the complaints would also shed light on that.
Your email says the complaints are about the signs which marketed my book, but most of the questions in your letter ask about the Stop Not Lee book itself.
Are you investigating me for the book or the signs which brought it to the attention of the public?
Am I personally being investigated for not registering as a third party?
You still haven't actually told me what I've allegedly done.
And that's when another investigator tasked with the file, a former city cop named Ken Brander, emailed me saying he would answer my questions in a phone call.
So I called Brander and recorded the call because not only am I a journalist, but I need to protect myself in case I am actually the target of this investigation because they wouldn't tell me.
Here, I'd like to play some excerpts from that conversation for you.
Right away, this investigator said he wasn't interested in my book, just the lawn signs, which I had nothing to do with.
That was my publisher's idea, which I loved, but I'm just the book's author.
I'll be able to tell you what the gist of the complaints are.
It just has to do with advertising.
People see the lawn signs and they go, oh, that lawn sign looks just like the political lawn sign.
So this person must be doing political advertising.
So the complaints are all about the lawn signs and if they're political advertising or if they're not.
So if the book was fine, then why was he calling me the author?
And he repeated that again.
He claimed he wasn't investigating me.
Am I personally being investigated for not registering as a third party?
No.
Okay.
No.
Okay.
No, it's just the lawns, the lawns of the signs themselves.
But then after telling me he wasn't investigating my book, he started investigating my book.
Why did I write it?
When I wrote it?
Pretty dumb question.
It's a political book in an election year.
But why was he grilling me, an author and journalist?
There's something about the timing of the book.
So, you know, I'd be looking for just a little bit of background information on when was the book written?
When was it going to be published?
Was it like a last-minute thing?
Like, you know, that type of thing.
At the end of the call, he said he was 90% sure the book was fine, but he still had a lot of questions for me.
I guess to be clear, what is it that I have alleged to have done that would break the law?
Well, it's alleged that the sign associated to the book, or it's alleged that that lawn sign is election advertising.
So for me, the elements that I have to show are that either yes, it is election advertising or no, it's not election advertising.
If it's not election advertising, then it's case closed.
If it is election advertising, then the investigation has to continue to see who's putting it out.
Are they registered as a third-party advertiser or are they not?
But the first hurdle is the first element to determine whether it's election advertising or not.
At this point, I'm 90% sure that it's not election advertising.
I ended that call by telling him the name of the media freedom lawyer I have, Fred Kozak, who helped me fight back when Rachel Notley illegally banned me from the legislature a few years ago.
Could you share your counsel's name just so I know?
Oh, yes, it's Fred Kozak.
Fred Kozak?
Yes, from Reynolds Mirth Richardson Farmer.
I was still unclear, though.
Is Brender investigating me as an author or my publisher?
Especially since Brander has never contacted my publisher for any of the details he was asking me about.
And why does he keep asking me about the book if he's not investigating the book?
So I called him a second time.
The reason I'm phoning you is that I understand that you're the author of the book.
So the questions that I have answered to, you know, those final elements that I have to address in the exemption, I believe you probably have the answers to those questions.
So at this point, it's the whole, there's no particular person under investigation, like no suspect, you know, to use a police term.
Is it normal in a free country for the government to hire investigators to interrogate authors of books that criticize the government?
It is not.
So I asked Brander what would happen if I refused to answer.
I'm going to play a two-minute clip of his answer.
It's absolutely terrifying.
Listen to what he says he'll do to me if I don't answer all of his questions about why I wrote my Rachel Notley book.
You've asked me to come by and answer your questions.
Now, if I don't do that, can you order me to answer with a summons or something like that, like a subpoena?
You want a subpoena?
No, I'm just asking you, like if I don't come by and answer your questions about my book, what happens then?
Will you issue me a summons?
I'm, that's not, that wasn't really my, it's not that I don't want to clear this up at all.
I'm just curious, what happens if I don't come by?
Well, yeah, I mean, there's all kinds of authority for the election commissioner to, you know, to not compel, but there are consequences, you know, there are, yeah, the word is consequences for people that, you know, that don't provide the information and that type of thing.
Consequences Unavoided00:08:07
So, I mean, if you carry it to a logical conclusion, yeah, I mean, there's production orders, there's all kinds of things that there's all kinds of tools that can be done, but they're all fairly extreme.
And, you know, when we do those things, you know, we can do those types of things, but it's, you know, in this case, I really think that we can just kind of clear this up pretty quickly Just with, you know, just with the conversation.
And if you can, if you there's documents, you can show me about, you know, this is when, if there's a book deal, this is when it was signed, this is when it was planned to be, you know, this is kind of when we think it might hit the market, be available for the public, just, you know, when those first plans started to be made, that type of thing.
Just a little bit of background about that.
So hang on.
Again and again, he's told me he's not investigating the book, but he's demanding that I, as the author, agree to be interrogated.
And he wants editorial information about the book's plans, any briefing notes, and even editorial emails.
Just listen.
The area that I can't stick off yet is just the part about the planning of when it was to be made available.
And I'm going to see that through things like, you know, either a contract or some type of briefing note or, you know, a schedule or, you know, emails or something like that saying, yeah, this is, you know, this is when I'm starting before.
Even a statement from you.
This is when I started writing the book.
You know, this is when it was planned to be, you know, the season or whatever when we were thinking of releasing the book, whatever.
And just in case he wasn't clear, he tells me that if I don't hand over my editorial notes, the consequences will be severe.
Yeah, I mean, we have that, Sheila, where people don't cooperate and then they get, you know, they get obstruction.
You know, the offense for obstruction can be pretty severe.
You know, there's, you know, I hope rather it's not come to that.
I think it's something that we can be cleared up pretty easily.
He says it one more time.
I'm an author, and he needs my email records.
A statement would be good, like a written statement, but if you have any types of email records, anything like that, anywhere I need to be.
The government of Alberta has hired an ex-cop, two actually, to investigate a journalist for writing a book in Canada in 2019, not 1984.
We've been quietly fighting against this for three months at great expense.
And we thought we had scared them off, but then last week, I got a call from Brander, the investigator.
I'll play it for you.
It's a threat.
Either I give him all of my editorial records now or he prosecutes me.
Here.
Just calling you about this outstanding matter that we have under investigation.
I'm just kind of, you know, still kind of waiting confirmation from you that you're going to participate in this investigation.
There are some documents that we require.
It is a lawful request for those documents.
We expect that you'll comply.
Like I said, I think we're pretty close to being able to conclude the matter, but those documents that we're waiting for, and I can't conclude the matter until we review those documents.
So, you know, I'll send you a follow-up email, but we're kind of getting to the point now where we've asked many, many, many times.
We've sent emails requesting, we've had conversations about it.
I'm satisfied that you know what it is that I'm asking for.
So I'm hoping that you'll participate.
And we can, I think if you participate and provide the documents requesting, I think we can wrap this up.
But I can't conclude it until you participate.
Can you call me when you get a chance, please, Sheila?
And get back to me and let me know what your intentions are.
Thanks very much.
Bye.
And in case that wasn't threatening enough, he immediately sent a letter demanding the same thing.
He knows I have a lawyer and he knows my lawyer's name, but he's contacting me directly.
Here's the latest email.
We have shared a number of phone calls together and we have discussed this investigation.
I have been expecting to hear from you and for you to provide the documentation I requested.
I would like to conclude this matter.
However, I cannot without your participation and the documents I require.
And now, here's the threat.
There is a provision, Section 45, in the Elections, Finance, and Contribution Disclosure Act, which creates an offense for withholding documents.
Please have a look at that provision, Sheila.
It is a serious offense.
Our office has been asking for these documents and records for several months now.
You have not provided them and have not provided a reason why.
This is becoming a concern.
I'm a journalist who criticized the government, and now the government is demanding my private notes, saying I'll be prosecuted for a serious offense if I don't hand them over.
And it gets worse.
In the kangaroo court of the Election Commissioner, I don't have a right not to testify against myself like any other Canadian in legal jeopardy.
I don't even have the same rights as a murderer to remain silent in this investigation.
I can be compelled to offer evidence against myself and forced to hand over my notes.
I want you to know that I've spoken to my family a lot about the possibility of being prosecuted.
And of course, I've spoken to Ezra and like with everything that troubles me, I've preyed on this.
And we all agree that if that's what it comes down to, prosecutions and serious fines or bending a knee to the state on the issue of free speech, then I won't be complying with any demand from the state to produce documents about why and when I wrote a book that is critical of the government of the day.
I'll do what I have to do, but I won't back down and I'm not giving in.
They are not getting a single thing out of me.
This is a free country with a constitution that protects me.
And unfortunately for the Elections Commission, Albertans have a long tradition of civil disobedience against bad laws, from those who refused to register their grandpa's guns when the Liberals told them to, to Western farmers who were jailed by the Liberals for selling their own meat.
I also want to assure you that I have the full support of the entire rebel team behind me.
I want to be completely transparent now with you.
We have already spent $32,000 in legal fees fighting this up till now, and we just received another bill for $16,000.
So all told, we're $48,000 deep in legal fees to fight for my free speech and my right to give you information about the government that the government doesn't want you to have.
That's a huge legal bill, but we have the best free speech lawyer in Alberta, and we will win if we can see this through till the end.
The trouble is, unlike the Elections Commissioner, we don't have bottomless pockets constantly refilled by the taxpayer to go around bullying people.
We're crowdfunded by people like you.
We fight on.
I fight on because people like you want me to.
I'm going public with this today, after a three-month fight, because they're coming for me now.
I need your help now more than ever.
I need your support.
I need your help to offset our ballooning legal bills.
Can you help me?
You can do that at savesheila.com and please share this video so the whole world knows what Rachel Notley Swamp is still trying to do to freedom of the press in Alberta.
But I'm also calling on my friends, my colleagues, my frenemies, and even my enemies in the rest of the media.
Now's your time to stand up and be counted.
Do you stand for free speech?
Do you stand for a free press?
Or do you stand aside and say nothing because you don't like me or my boss more than you like being able to say what you want to say when you want to say it without Big Brother weighing in?
Call To Action00:03:06
Is the Edmonton Journal the same one that won a Pulitzer Prize for their fight for the free press against the Aberhart government?
Or are they just government pets here in 2019?
I promise everyone today, we are going to resist every single attempt to bully, interrogate, and intimidate me every step of the way.
And when we are done with these people and when we do win, it's my hope that Rachel Notley's terrible law will be struck down and the office of the elections commissioner as we know it will be no more.
If you can help me with this very important fight, please go to savesheila.com.
I want to add one more detail.
about the man who's coming to get Sheila.
There are two ex-cops being sent after us by Notley's hunter-killer, Lauren Gibson.
One of those ex-cops is named Ken Brander.
He's the disgraced Edmonton police officer.
If you're from Alberta, maybe you know that one terrible day about 15 years ago, he was driving his unmarked police car and he raced it through an intersection in a car chase, but without his siren or his lights on.
Just no warning to any innocent people.
He was tearing down a city street at least 120 kilometers an hour.
Some experts said it would have been much higher than that.
And here's what the judge said.
He said, it was there that an unmarked police car being driven eastbound at a high rate of speed by Kenneth Brander crashed broadside into Carlos Ramirez's tempo as it turned left across the police car's path.
As a result of the crash, Carlos Ramirez's grandson, Giovanni, was killed.
His grandson Jonathan was seriously injured, and he and his daughter Gloria were injured.
So this dirty cop that the court said was negligent, he was found negligent.
He killed one child.
He maimed another child so badly, his hands were burned off.
And he injured the family, the city paid out millions of dollars to the family to clean up Brander's mess.
And instead of going away to live a life of reflection and penitence and maybe even to try to seek redemption, that child killer went to work for the government.
He was hired by Lauren Gibson to investigate Rachel Notley's personal enemies.
Brander, that child killer, is the great moral authority coming to silence Sheila.
I wonder if he even has a soul, if he ever did, or if his sense of good and evil was finally and fully extinguished when he killed that boy and forever damaged a family.
Rachel Notley is low for coming after us.
Her appointee, Lauren Gibson, is a bizarre, unbalanced partisan.
But the actual ex-cop, this dirty ex-cop they have sent after our Sheila is literally a man who, because of his negligence, killed a child because he couldn't be bothered to put on his lights and his sirens as he raced down the city streets.
Let Me Calm Down00:04:26
I am so furious, but let me calm down.
Let me calm down and let us now talk to our Sheila and how we are going to save her from these butchers.
And joining me now is a person who the NDP wants to make the victim of the story, but she shall not be made a victim.
She shall be our hero and champion, not just for her own interests, but for ours.
And by ours, I don't just mean the rebel, I mean ours and yours.
And any Canadian who believes in freedom of the press and the right for an author to criticize the government without punishment, our dear friend, Sheila Gunnreed.
Sheila, great to see you.
Hey, thanks for having me on the show.
I want to let you know publicly, as I've let you know privately so many times over the last few months, that we stand with you completely and we will do everything and anything in our power and our resources to defend your rights and we will protect you all the way.
Well, I think that's been evidently clear with the amount of support the company has given me up till now.
I think we're approaching nearly $50,000 in legal fees already dealing with the elections commissioner.
That's all being paid by the rebel.
I couldn't, there's no way that I could ask my family to pay those sorts of legal fees to fight for free speech.
And I've been indemnified by the rebel to go out there and fight for the free press here in Alberta.
Well, we're grateful to you.
And I know this is not the first time to use an Alberta phrase.
This isn't your first rodeo.
You have been targeted by Rachel Notley's NDP several times.
She kicked you out of the legislature.
She banned you from all government events.
You know, other governments have tried the same thing and we fought back every time.
We do keep winning, but they put us through this $50,000, $200,000 process.
Last year, we spent $350,000 on lawyers.
That's basically $1,000 a day on lawyers, and 90% of it is defensive protection against censors.
Yeah, I think a lot of people don't really realize how often we turn to our lawyers to make sure that we aren't crossing any sort of legal lines when we go after the people in power that we're critical of.
Because these people would love to see the rebel shut down.
They'd love to see us slapped with libel lawsuits.
They'd love to use lawfare against us to bankrupt us.
So we are very careful.
I guess we use lawyers like a prophylactic to make sure that we don't get ourselves in trouble when we're doing our stories.
And it's so important because any mistake that we do make, any line that we do cross, is just another reason for our critics to try to shut us down.
Yeah, I mean, this whole conversation is absurd.
You wrote a book about the Premier of Alberta criticizing the Premier of Alberta.
It couldn't have been more transparent.
Everyone knows where you're coming from.
You are an accountability style journalist who has been covering Rachel Notley her whole time as Premier.
You've had best-selling books before.
None of this is remarkable in any way.
None of it is unusual.
Journalists publish books.
Authors publish books.
They are often opinionated.
There is nothing strange or unusual or remarkable here other than your success is great.
For them to prosecute you, investigate you, threaten you, and try to cut you off from us.
Try to cut you off from your lawyer.
Talk to you directly instead of your lawyer.
Talk to you instead of law.
I've never received a letter from these people, even though I am the publisher, the rebel and I are your publishers.
We're the ones who did the business side of things.
They're picking on you, and they're not coming for us.
And I find that noteworthy and frankly despicable.
Refusing Moral Redemption00:03:04
Yeah, I think it's pretty tricky.
You can see in the voice in the phone calls that I recorded with the investigator Ken Brender, we're cordial enough, for sure.
I'm not a miserable person.
But I am completely aware that it is his job to trip me up and catch me doing something wrong.
And I've done nothing wrong.
But the fact that he persists in communicating with me when I've told him from the very beginning who my lawyer is and that he should be communicating with my lawyer or that I would be getting in touch with my lawyer, and yet he still insists on talking to me and talking to me very casually.
And another thing he's refusing to do is refusing to send answers to my questions in writing.
He prefers to speak to me in phone calls.
I find that entirely unprofessional and pretty darn tricky.
I think it's his goal.
I mean, he's a former police officer.
It's his goal to try to trip me up and get me to say or admit to doing something wrong when I've done nothing wrong.
Yeah.
You know, I had not heard of Ken Brander before.
Why would I?
He's a former cop from Edmonton.
I think he left the force about 15 years ago.
So, I mean, I lived in Edmonton for a few years, but I never heard of him.
Why would I?
But I see now, just from Googling his name, that he didn't leave the force as a hero.
He didn't retire after like 40 years of service.
He left in disgrace and shame.
And I don't want to get into details because it's not an important part of the story, but it is part of the story here.
He was racing his police car, his unmarked car, on the street.
He was chasing someone.
He did not put his siren on.
He did not put his flashing lights on.
And he was racing 120, 130 kilometers an hour on a city street.
And he hit a car of a family.
He immediately killed one, he killed one child.
The gas tank exploded.
It burned the hands off another child.
It injured others in the car.
He killed a child and maimed for life another child.
And a court found him, quote, negligent.
They didn't say he committed a crime, but they said he was negligent and he was unreasonable.
He killed a child.
He ruined lives.
And instead of resigning in disgrace and going away to find some sort of redemption in life, he has found himself investigating journalists and threatening journalists and threatening to prosecute journalists.
I'm sorry, I refuse to take any moral lessons from a child killer, Sheila.
And I know that people might say, What's that got to do with it?
God Forbids00:15:07
Well, that's the kind of people telling you you don't have your constitutional freedom of speech.
I think this Ken Brander should spend a lifetime in repentance for killing a child.
Well, and just doing some cursory research on what happened there, it sounds like the city of Edmonton paid out roughly $5 million to the family that was devastated by Brander's actions that day.
And really, I don't know what Brander's done since then to try to make it right, but he has gone on to have a pretty successful career in private investigations, including the current contract he has with the Alberta government to investigate journalists for doing journalism.
And moreover, to the point of just the sheer cost to the taxpayer caused by Ken Brander, I know we are close to $50,000 in legal fees, plus all the time and man hours that you and I have been putting into all of this to fight back.
What is his investigation of me, the journalist, costing the taxpayer?
What does his contract right now look like that Rachel Lotley gave him to come after me?
Yeah.
Yeah, I'd be very curious about that.
And that's what's so weird here.
And I know some of our viewers must be saying, hang on, isn't Jason Kenney the Premier of Alberta now?
Hang on, how come Rachel Notley's handpick election commissioner is still persecuting the rebel?
Well, the answer is that handpick Rachel Notley appointee named Lauren Gibson, he's still the election commissioner.
Jason Kenney has not turfed him.
He's still following Rachel Notley's battle plan.
And really, public enemy number one to the NDP in the media was always you, Sheila.
They've come for you time and again.
It's disgraceful that he's doing it, but it blows me away that Jason Kenney is his boss and Jason Kenney is allowing this to happen.
And forget about partisan politics.
This is unconstitutional and it's un-Albertan.
It is.
But I think because of the current investigations by the Elections Commissioner into the leadership contest with the United Conservative Party and the fact that this investigator, the one that's coming after me, just a week ago issued $91,000 in fines to participants in the UCP leadership race for what they're calling a kamikaze campaign.
Jason Kenney can't nuke the office of the elections commissioner as an unconstitutional catastrophe.
That falls on us.
He's politically unable to deal with this because of problems within the UCP.
So it absolutely falls on us to fight this fight alone.
It's terrifying to see you mention those $91,000 in fines he handed out.
I've told you this privately.
Our lawyers know this.
And again, I'll just say it on the record.
We will not allow him to touch one hair on your head.
And God forbid, if he does fine you $10,000 or even, God forbid, $91,000, obviously we will hold you harmless and we will cover that.
Now, we don't have a mountain of dollars sitting around here.
We will crowdfund it because Sheila, I believe that hundreds of thousands of Albertans and indeed people across Canada and even around the world value your journalism substantively.
But even if they disagree with you, they know that if a journalist like you can be prosecuted for writing a book about a politician, none of us have our freedoms.
And so I hope that other reporters who don't much like the cut of your jib because you're conservative and they're left-wing activists, this is beyond that now.
This isn't even about what you wrote.
It's about does a government have the power to harass a journalist and say, you give us your editorial notes, your memos, your emails, give it to us now.
And if you don't, we will have, quote, severe consequences.
I don't care if you're at the Calgary Herald, the Edmonton Journal, Global News, even the government reporters at the CBC, surely they have a tiny little cell in their body called press freedom that says, you know what, I might not like that Sheila Gunread, but damn it, it's outrageous that the government is demanding she hand over her editorial notes.
Yeah, you know, it's going to be interesting to see if the Edmonton Journal in 2019 is the same Edmonton Journal that fought the Eberhard government and won and won a Pulitzer Prize for their defense of press freedom here in Alberta.
I'll be quite frankly shocked to see them come out in my defense.
I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that much of what I do involves eating their lunch every day.
I don't expect to see a lot of support from the mean girl media party clique that surrounds Ottawa and exists in the Ottawa bubble.
But I do think we will see some people in the mainstream media come out in our defense.
We saw it at the press freedom conference.
I'm still shocked and mind-blown that some journalists, some of which were based in Canada and some were based in Europe, who refused to attend a press conference with Christia Freeland if we were excluded.
So I do think there are still some journalists who take their craft seriously and who realize that they can only do the jobs they do because of press freedom and because of the battles that people like you and I are fighting every day to maintain it.
You know, I appreciate your positive attitude and you are correct to remind me that it was just two weeks ago that we actually saw a startling case of solidarity from, if I recall correctly, CTV, CBC, Global, Globe and Mail, and even Al Jazeera, if you can believe it.
Al Jazeera.
I mean, who knew?
I mean, pigs are flying, you know, hell freezes over, whatever your analogy is.
It actually happens.
So I should not be so pessimistic.
I guess I've learned to be pessimistic over time.
You know, there's also a senator from your city named Paula Simons, who used to be a columnist for the Edmonton Journal.
Now, she sure talked a good game about being for free speech as a columnist, and the Edmonton Journal did win a Pulitzer Prize in 1938 for free speech.
I wonder if Paula Simons, who's been bought off by Justin Trudeau with a Senate seat for life, I wonder if she will stand up for you.
I've privately requested her help in the past for you, and she has not.
It'll be interesting to me if she helps you out here.
But you know what?
If we were to live by the help of our competitors, we would have long ago been dead, Sheila.
And in this case, we will win the same way we've won before, and that is by asking our viewers who value our work and value their freedom to chip in.
You mentioned we're at about $48,000 in legal fees down the toilet already here.
I'm sorry, it's just a fact.
Some people might say, well, why can't you find a pro bono lawyer?
I'm sorry, we need the best media lawyer in Alberta.
His name is Fred Kozak.
He's an expert in this.
He solved the problem for us when they banned Sheila from the legislature.
He is the only lawyer we can responsibly use.
He's the best.
He will win.
But I'm afraid this will cost us many tens of thousands of dollars more before we get there.
And so once again, I must ask our viewers, if they are as appalled by this as you and I are, would they please go to savesheila.com?
And when I say I'm going to indemnify Sheila, that's really what I mean.
Because I don't have $91,000 in my pocket or $48,000.
I've got to ask for our viewers, so please help me help Sheila, and we're going to take care of her, and we're going to take care of the rebel, and we're going to take care of media freedom in Alberta, even if no one else will.
Last word to you, Sheila.
Well, I think I predict that the investigators are going to move on us pretty quickly here.
They were a little bit more, not pleasant, that's not the right word, and they have been running out of patience with me, but they've been more tolerant of working with us as long as we were keeping the secret of what they were trying to do to us.
Now that we've gone public, I think things are going to start happening pretty fast.
And I think it's really important that people, frankly, help us as quickly as they can.
Yeah.
Well, let me just throw one more comment there.
And before I let you go, thank you for your time.
It is true that we first got their threat letter in April, but we made the decision to resolve it.
Obviously, we would never sell out our freedom.
But look, we're in this business to be journalists, not to litigate.
So let's see if we can handle this.
Let's see if we can just, like, we don't need another battle.
We did not rush to this battle.
You emailed him.
You phoned him.
He emailed you, he phoned you, letters back and forth.
And instead of resolving it, it just made them angrier.
And as we've just played for everybody, they started to make the threats.
And those threats seem so qualitatively different now.
They're threatening consequences.
They're threatening severe punishments.
They're threatening fines.
They're threatening subpoenas and summonses.
And we just had to pull the trigger on this now.
We had to go public and blow the whistle on this now because they're coming to get us.
And our attempt to try and diplomatically make the problem go away has failed.
These guys are killers.
And I mean that literally Ken Brander is a, if someone's willing to brazenly, you know, continue policing after killing a child, he has no compunction about going after journalists.
He's a disgusting person.
I'm sorry.
I don't say that about people in general, but what he did for him to still show his face and to go to work prosecuting journalists is something I'll never forgive, let alone the family.
And we stand by you, Sheila, and let me just end it on that note.
And let me encourage everyone to go to saveSheila.com.
I am furious that we have to do this again, but that is what we do.
Sheila, thanks for staying so strong.
Thanks for being such a pillar.
Other people would have collapsed.
You did not.
Well, like you said off the top, I have the support of the entire Rebel team and I'm firmly grounded in my faith and my family.
And I have all the support of the viewers at home who are cheering for us to continue to fight every single day.
Yeah.
You know what?
I'm going to, I hope you don't mind.
This is a private conversation you and I held.
And if you want, I'll delete this from the interview.
But you told me that you talked to your family about the possibility of jail time if you don't pay the fines and if you're held in contempt, theoretically, you could be sent to jail over this.
And I said to you, Sheila, there's no way I'm going to tell a mum of three to go to jail.
And you told me that you spoke with your family and that they actually are so supportive of you that they would stand by you if you made that choice.
And I hope I'm not embarrassing you or telling tales out of school.
But when you said that, I thought, my God, if you're willing to go to jail, I must do everything in my power to support you and protect you and all of us.
Well, it is true.
You know, we joke around the house here.
Ah, the kids could use the break from me anyway.
But I think it's so important that at the end of the day, I'm not just fighting for my free speech, but theirs also.
Well, thank you, my friends.
I will do everything I can.
Our whole team is united behind you.
It's so important that your family is united behind you.
They're great.
They're just great.
They share you with us every day.
And on behalf of our viewers around the world, I pledge to you we will do everything, everything, everything, everything to protect you.
And I would call on our viewers to help me keep that promise at savesheila.com.
Good luck, my friend.
Thank you.
All right.
Stay with us.
My final thoughts are next.
Welcome back.
I'm sorry I'm so angry.
I'm angry about what they're doing about Sheila, but when I discovered who they hired to go after Sheila, my stomach turned.
Maybe it's because I have young children that age, and I could only imagine such a person holding himself as an arbiter of right and wrong who was found negligent.
I'm sorry I was so angry there.
Maybe that's irrelevant.
Maybe all that matters is they're coming to extinguish freedom and I shouldn't care about the fact that this dirty cop killed a kid.
I don't know.
Sorry, it's hard for me.
I'm a dad.
Maybe if you're not a dad, it doesn't sting you as much.
But I swear on the altar of God, I swear to you as my viewers, and I swear on my conscience, and I swear to my friend, Sheila, that I will do everything I can to stop them from coming for her.
I will use every penny we have.
I will use every penny I have.
I will do everything I can do to fight back.
We shall not let this stand.
Do you know what Alberta's motto is?
It's strong and free.
It is not a place where we prosecute or investigate journalists for criticizing the government.
And I am deeply proud that Sheila told me privately, and she confirmed later on the phone to me that she's okay with me saying it to you publicly.
She said to me that she would go to prison before she bent the knee to this disgraced crew.
And I said to her, I would never ask a mom to go to prison.
Your kids need you.
But she said she met with, she talked with her family, and they all supported her.
What an amazing woman with an amazing family.
And if she is willing to go to prison for our freedom, should we all not do whatever we can for her?
And I will, but I need your help.
I need your help.
We have incurred $48,000 fighting this privately so far.
It's not private anymore.
They're going to come for us with torches now.
Please help me out.
Please go to savesheila.com.
Normally, this entire show is behind a paywall.
It's just for our subscribers, our premium subscribers.
Thank you for being a premium subscriber and supporting us with $8 a month.
But this is so important.
I am going to release this entire video onto YouTube.
And I would say to those who are not our premium subscribers, I would say, help me help Sheila.
Go to savesheila.com.
We're not done.
We're not done.
We will not be done until we're free.
Thank you on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home.