Ezra Levant and Rebel News sued Justin Trudeau’s government after conservative journalists Kian Becksty (34 years experience) and David Menzies were banned from the 2019 leaders’ debates, despite accreditation for outlets like Al Jazeera. The Debates Commission, backed by taxpayer-funded lawyers, argued over 100 pages of claims against them, ignoring prior support for left-wing media. A judge ruled in their favor at an emergency hearing, forcing immediate accreditation and establishing a precedent: Trudeau cannot silence journalists based on political bias. The victory underscores how judicial independence can override government censorship when press freedom is fiercely defended by those excluded. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, Rebel News takes Justin Trudeau to court.
We're here today.
How will it end?
It's October 7th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Well, I am standing inside the federal court building at 180 Queen Street West with these symbolic canoes.
That's the theme of the building here, Aboriginal reconciliation.
I wonder if Justin Trudeau can reconcile himself to freedom of speech.
The reason I say that is we're here in this court building suing Justin Trudeau and his hand-picked debates commission because on Friday, the last possible day, they told us that our reporters, Kian Becksty and David Menzies, were banned, prohibited from even attending the leaders' debates tonight in Gatineau, just across the river from Ottawa.
We immediately retained a law firm.
They worked all weekend, and here we are on Monday morning at the court before the court even opens.
We don't know how it will go, but we know a few things.
First of all, we know we've had to spend $10,000 so far on legal bills.
The second thing we know is that Justin Trudeau has put not one, not two, but three government lawyers on the other side, filing more than 100 pages of arguments why they should not allow conservative journalists in because they say we, well, I'll explain what they say in some detail and you can hear how absurd it is.
But I guess the most disappointing thing is how alone we are.
Rebel News is fighting this in court and so is our friend Andrew Lawton and Candace Malcolm of True North.
But other than Rebel News and True North, there is no one here, no other media in solidarity for the principle and precedent of free speech.
No civil liberties groups, no Penn International, no Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, no Canadian Civil Liberties Association, all of the groups that would be skawaking if it were Doug Ford or Stephen Harper who had kept out left-wing journalists.
But when it's right-wing journalists kept out and journalists not on the government payroll, well, they couldn't care less.
Now, I want to tell you a little bit about our case and the case that the Trudeau government has filed in response.
And then I'm going to briefly talk to Kian and David.
Then we're going to go into the court and we'll film the later half of this show once we get out.
But let me tell you our argument.
It's quite simple.
We're journalists.
This is the major journalistic event of the campaign.
It's the only English language debate that Justin Trudeau deigns to participate in, and it's our right to cover it.
We've been accredited around the world, from the White House and the U.S. Congress to the Parliament of the United Kingdom to the Knesset of Israel and a half dozen other countries.
Simply put, we are journalists.
Journalists are not a profession.
It's not like doctors or even engineers.
You do journalism.
That's what makes you a journalist.
And we do journalism every day, 13,000 videos and counting.
There are other journalistic groups who have been accredited tonight who have our pedigree or less, so to speak.
For example, National Observer has an accredited journalist.
They're activists, just like we are, but on the other side.
They do petitions all the time.
There are state-run media organizations like the OPEC dictatorship of Qatar.
Al Jazeera has not one, not two, but three journalists accredited the debate tonight.
So do many other foreign media outlets from Germany, Vietnam, the Philippines, and other countries like that.
Why would foreign media be accredited to cover a Canadian political debate, but not Canadian journalists?
There are activists, the Aboriginal People TV Network, a very activist TV station.
They're accredited as they should be.
Banned Journalists' Defense00:06:38
I have no beef with that.
Why would they be accredited and we're not?
I looked through the entire list and the most striking thing is that there are close to 50 journalists accredited from the CBC, English, and French sides of things.
So they have 50 CBC journalists, but they don't have room for a single Rebel News journalist.
I read the arguments put forward by the Trudeau government over the weekend with their three high-priced lawyers, and they go to great lengths to imply that we somehow don't meet the same criteria that other journalists do, but there is nothing they can criticize us for that other journalists wouldn't be excluded for the same thing.
It's very clear this is a conservative litmus test, and we and Andrew Lawton have been banned.
Well, we are going to court to see if we can turn that around.
I want to be very candid.
I'm not optimistic.
The federal court is the most radical of the Canadian courts, the most left-wing of Canadian courts.
I don't know who our judges are, but it would shock me if they weren't liberal-leaning, if not liberal-appointed.
Now, you might say, well, that means nothing.
They will apply the law as it is.
Well, I certainly hope so.
But what I'm sensing is that in Canada, more and more, the entire establishment believes in de-platforming voices that are outside the official establishment.
And I suppose that's the lesson that I'll take away today, if we lose, which I have to say, I expect we will, is that while the establishment will gloat in victory that the Rebel and True North have been banned, I don't think it's a real victory.
It's a Pyrrhic victory because every Canadian who feels that the establishment is out to get them, to block them, that the game is rigged, that it's all a stitch-up, that it's all the insiders versus the populace, they'll be confirmed in that.
So if we are indeed banned today, well, I guess score one for Justin Trudeau and his government lawyers, but score one for us and our central thesis that the media party and the Liberal Party and I suppose the court party are really all the same thing.
And we've got no one on our side.
No one, I suppose, except the people.
Coming up, an interview with our two banned reporters.
Well, joining me now in the foyer of the Federal Court Building are my friends David Menzzi and Kian Bextie.
How you doing, fellas?
Very good, Ezra.
Nice to be with you.
Good, yeah, it's good to be here.
Well, I'm glad you're here in Toronto this morning.
We are sending you to Ottawa this afternoon no matter what.
Either you'll be inside or outside the debates, but so far yet, we still have some freedom of movement in Canada, although who knows, they might try and handcuff you again, David.
What do you think about the Trudeau government arguing that you're not a professional journalist?
You have a journalism degree.
You've been doing this for 34 years.
What do you make of that argument by Trudeau?
Well, it's preposterous, Ezra, and as you said in the beginning of your show, look at all the other so-called activist journalistic organizations that are part of this.
The second thing is, I think the root of this is downright pettiness.
Because at the end of the day, Ezra, they have created this story, not us, by banning us.
Why would we be banned?
We're not going to be able to ask a question at the debate.
We're going to be just part of the observers.
So to the Justin Trudeau brand of Sunnyways, Transparency, Liberalism, this is all about a draconian censorship move.
And I think it looks bad on them.
I think it's all about making them look like censorious thugs, to use one of your words.
And again, this would not be a story had it not been for what I believe to be their own pettiness, their own hatred of the rebel being the engine behind this.
You're so right.
I mean, we're obviously living rent-free in their heads.
But I want to, of course, the blame is on Trudeau.
He controls the commission.
He put his three government lawyers on this all weekend.
Of course, that's true.
But I can't help but notice that there has been not one word from any of 338 conservative MPs or candidates, including from the leader.
I don't expect the NDP or the bloc or the Green Party to care much about freedom of speech, but I note that not one conservative candidate or senator has said a word.
And of course, it was the Conservatives that put you in handcuffs.
I also noted earlier that there's been no allies here.
I know in the past, when one media company would be in legal trouble, all the others would form a coalition to go to court together.
They would all actually join forces and hire one lawyer together.
And it was quite a powerful symbol, all the newspapers, all the TV stations backing the one in trouble.
None of that here.
No.
And Ezra, I just want to say this, that had the shoe been on the other foot, had a Globe and Mail or a Toronto Star or a CBC journalist been banned from anything that was allegedly open to all media, I would stand up for those people.
But as you saw, at the conservative press event just last Monday, when I was actually put in the handcuffs, I reached out to the, you know, the Unifor appointed and approved journalists and said, can I have some solidarity here?
And what really bothered me, Ezra, is that they didn't even answer the question.
They wouldn't even say no and here's why.
They just stood there like drone bees filming, I guess, what was supposed to be a humiliation of me.
And it comes down to this, Ezra.
Either you believe in free speech or not.
There's no such thing as being a little bit pregnant or I believe in free speech except this kind of free speech.
They have shamed themselves in going against, I would say, the ethics of journalism.
Yeah, I think they'll have a good laugh over it with champagne cocktails at some high-priced downtown Toronto bar and they'll think they had a real win.
But I think for millions of severely normal people, it'll simply prove the theory that the elites are against the people here.
Free Speech vs. Drone Bees00:06:31
Now let's switch around here.
Kean, come forward here.
Kean, I saw the video of you and David on the streets of Montreal during the French language debate.
If I'm not mistaken, no fewer than 11 police officers accosted you, one of them demanding an illegal search of you.
Just to remind our people, here's a little clip of that.
And you called me on the phone, and maybe it was you who called me on the phone.
I did a little bit of hollering here.
Here's a reminder of what happened the last time you were outside a debate on the street, not even in the building.
Here, take a look.
I'm documenting everything.
Why?
No.
What do you mean, why?
Because I'm a journalist.
Cool.
Hey, show me your idea of journalists.
You said you're a journalist, that it's just bullshit, or...?
No, it's not just bullshit, and I have no obligation to show you anything.
We receive a complaint against you.
You receive a complaint.
From who?
From whom?
I don't know.
I have the right to tell you to stay away like 300 meters from here if you don't show me what's in your bag.
Show me, you tell me you're a journalist, but you don't have an ID that shows me you're a journalist.
I'm not going to show you what's in my bag.
Okay, so you will go outside to where?
Where's the line?
Okay.
Next corner.
Do you mind if I call my lawyer quickly?
It's Andrew Levant here.
I'm the publisher of Rebel News.
Who do I have the pleasure of speaking?
I don't have to speak to a lawyer.
I'm calling because it sounds like you're harassing my journalist.
I'm not harassing.
I'm just asking, please.
Norbert Kutzer.
I'm from the RCMP.
Badge number 57788.
And on what basis are you interrogating or threatening to detain him?
I'm not threatening anybody.
I'm just asking why is he standing right beside where the Prime Minister is gonna because it's a goddamn free country.
Any other questions?
What?
Oh my god.
Happy to answer.
I can't see what's in his bag.
He doesn't want to show his ID.
You don't have a search warrant, that's why.
No, I have the right to tell him.
The case law, Knowlton, you know that?
Yes, I do.
All right.
So I have the right to tell him to stay away.
A warrantless search on him, you can expect a civil suit and a complaint to the RCMP Complaints Commission.
So I encourage you to talk to your supervising officer this minute.
Yeah, he's coming right away.
Well, they clearly were targeting Rebel News.
There were many other people protesting on the streets that day.
They were not subject to an illegal, warrantless search.
If we don't get in tonight, you still plan on going to Gatno, which is just across from Ottawa.
Am I right?
What's your plan?
My plan is to pose a question to Justin Trudeau, however possible.
Justin Trudeau and his campaigners, and Gerald Buss, I'm sure, have meticulously planned this campaign to make sure that no hostile questions can be asked whatsoever.
And I think that's the chief reason why we're not allowed in the debate.
Sure, if we went, it would be unlikely that we were even able to ask a question.
But even that small risk of asking an accountability question of dear leader is totally unacceptable to Justin Trudeau.
We got very close last time.
He snuck out a garbage door, literally the cargo hold of the broadcasting corporation that it was held at in Montreal.
He snuck out of after running the bus around the block a few times.
We were very close.
I stuck the microphone through the door of his bus and he waved at me like a jerk, thinking that journalism really is a joke to him.
Well, for him and his circle, it is funny because he doesn't have to answer.
But I think that an enormous number of Canadians want to answer.
I want to pick up on something you said.
I noticed that the Liberal Party, they're not giving out their campaign events far in advance at all.
At least not ones where journalists could possibly ask a question.
In fact, I've seen them announce media events as short a time as 15 minutes in advance.
So the only people who could ask questions are the vetted house journalists on the bus with them.
So they're really in this enclosed bubble going from event to event.
They keep it secret where they're about to go if there's any chance of a public encounter.
He really is afraid.
I think Gerald Butts is obsessed with us.
I know Trudeau is obsessed with us because we're the one people he can't control.
We're so much smaller than the CBC and CDV and Globe and Mail star.
But the fact that we're not under his thumb, that irks them so much.
Why won't we be dominated by them?
Why won't we submit to them?
It's so disproportionate, and I think that it's starting to look bad.
Do you expect to be accosted by police again tonight?
Without a doubt.
I mean, it's in Quebec, so it's not actually in Ottawa.
It's across the river, so who knows how the police over there are going to be acting.
The Montreal police were, I mean, I haven't been to Montreal often.
I haven't dealt with Montreal police before then, but the few encounters that I had that night with them, they were absolutely below board.
I don't have high hopes.
I think that the police are going to be doing whatever they can to protect Justin Trudeau, especially his security detail.
He has undercover cops wherever he goes, making sure that nobody is a risk to him.
Not a security risk, mind you, a question risk.
Well, that's the thing is I absolutely support a prime minister being protected from genuine security risks, and I understand that in the heat of the moment, the discretion of the officer should have priority.
I accept all of that for Trudeau as much as I would for Stephen Harper.
But it's so clear that what they're trying to do is stop a political insecurity, a question they don't like.
All right, we're, you know, I want to keep an eye on the clock because we're going to head on in here, and then after a while, you guys are going to make your way to Ottawa.
I'm pessimistic.
I think I've become that way over the last five years as I've seen deplatforming become the establishment point of view.
Whether We Have a Chance00:02:49
What do you think?
Am I being too sad about things?
Do we have a chance here in court?
It still is a court.
These judges still do take an oath to uphold the law neutrally, even if they are liberals at heart.
What do you think we're going to see today?
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is clear.
We have a right to practice journalism along with other forms of media.
That's exactly what the Charter says.
Whether or not the judge recognizes that or twists the words of it to make it convenient for the Liberals is a different question.
I hold out hope, but I'm new at this, so who knows?
All right.
Well, that's our pre-trial conversation.
We're going to go into the court.
I have to say, we don't even know for sure that a judge will grant us a hearing because, like I say, this all happened on such an emergency basis.
We found out we were being banned on Friday morning.
We retained a lawyer Friday afternoon.
Saturday, we filed our application.
To their credit, the government lawyers worked all weekend to reply to it, so they're ready to go.
The question of whether or not a judge will actually take this case remains up in the air.
And getting an emergency injunction is difficult, as the emergency part suggests.
But our argument is the balance of convenience is to let us in.
How does it possibly harm the debates if we're allowed in the building?
We're not one of the five question askers.
How does it possibly harm anyone?
Whereas if we're kept out, that's an irreparable harm.
We can never get that back.
And given that the criteria for keeping us out is so obviously made up, there are other activists or advocacy-style journalists in there.
Justin Ling, a radical activist who sometimes write for the Globe and Mail and Weiss, National Observer, Aboriginal People TV Network, foreign extremists with Al Jazeera.
Obviously, we're not being kept out for any legitimate reason.
It's so obvious I barely need to say it.
We're kept out because we're conservative.
All right, let's go in.
Well, it's about 9.30 in the morning, and we're still waiting to see if a judge at the federal court will be seized with this matter.
What I mean by that is, given the emergent nature of this, that we were only banned on Friday, lawyered up Friday afternoon, filed our motions and applications on the weekend, this is actually the first time judges have heard of this, and they have to rearrange their schedule, decide if they even want to hear the case.
Of course, it's quite urgent given that the debate starts in mere hours.
Here at the courthouse, I'm joined by Candace Malcolm.
Judges Hear Convincing Case00:14:24
You know her.
We had her on the show just the other day, the editor-in-chief of True North, and she joins us now.
Great to see you.
Hi, Ezra.
Good to be here.
Well, I guess it's good to be here because we're both fighting for freedom, but the fact that we have to be here is bad.
You guys are the other journalistic organization applying for an injunction to let us both in because your report has been kicked out too, right?
That's right.
Yeah, no, I mean, we wish we didn't have to be here.
We'd way rather be out reporting.
And Andrew Lawton, our journalist, is actually reporting right now.
He's in Ottawa at a press conference with Andrew Sears.
So, you know, the government's not stopping us from reporting.
Unfortunately, what they are doing, Ezra, is they're stopping us from attending a debate for journalists.
The journalists are allowed to be in.
They're supposed to be there.
They want to be able to report to their audience.
We have a unique audience at True North that want to see our perspective, want to see the other side of the story.
And the fact that the government delivered this 11th hour notice letting us know that we weren't part of the group of journalists allowed in is absolutely unacceptable and that's why we're here.
We're fighting.
We're fighting for True North.
We're also fighting for journalists and freedom of the press in this country.
You know, I agree with every word you said.
And in fact, I've said similar things myself.
But I look around and I see no one from the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, from various media guilds.
There's actually a whole journalist union called the Canadian Media Guild.
Of course, there's Unifor.
I think one of the reasons they're not here is because we're competitors to them.
I think another reason is that they're ideologically left-wing.
They're supporting an anti-Andrew Scheer third-party campaign.
So I think they're putting momentary partisanship ahead of the principle of freedom of the press.
I tend to agree, Ezra.
You know, there's so many, we talked about this on your show the other day.
There's so many left-leaning editorial news outlets in Canada.
There's so many.
You can hardly even count them.
They're almost all left-leaning.
There's a small, small handful of outlets that lean right editorially.
You know, we're a digital upstart media company.
We're new.
You know, we haven't been around for a long time.
We're not part of the legacy media.
But that doesn't mean that we're not journalists.
And in our organization, we have a combined about eight decades of journalism.
Andrew Lawton, the journalist that they're banning, has been a journalist.
He interviewed Trudeau himself.
I mean, Trudeau thought he was journalist enough to do a full radio interview with him before, so what's changed?
Right, exactly.
Well, back in 2015, Justin Trudeau still believed in freedom of the press because he wasn't the prime minister yet.
And now that he's prime minister, a couple of years in office has already corrupted that view.
But anyway, we are journalists, regardless of what some government bureaucrats say, regardless of what the Trudeau liberals say, and now the Trudeau government.
And I think it's incredibly important for us to fight, to fight for our right to report.
Just because some bureaucrat or some government official or some overzealous liberal staffer says that we're not a journalist, that doesn't make it true.
We are journalists and we're here to fight and repeat that over and over again.
You know, it's one thing for the liberals or even the conservatives to ban us from a private event.
I don't think it's a good look, but I suppose it's legally their right.
But this event, this debate, was nationalized by Trudeau, so it's a government thing.
And for the government to ban us, that infringes on our charter rights.
And it's sort of funny that we have to teach the son of Pierre Trudeau what the charter means.
I don't know.
I find it depressing.
I don't know if we're going to win today.
Our lawyers say that an emergency injunction in a quasi-political matter is something judges don't like to meddle with.
But I don't think the judges would be meddling.
I think Trudeau's done the meddling.
I have to say I'm a little pessimistic.
We don't know anything today, but would you call yourself an optimist or a pessimist for today in court?
You know, I'm generally an optimist, Ezra.
I think that things will work out and things err on the side of justice.
So I think that we have a pretty good case just because they had an arbitrary standard.
They gave us a very last-minute decision.
They didn't clearly explain why we were being excluded.
They just kind of said in one sentence, because you do advocacy.
Well, for the case of TrueNorth, we actually don't.
TrueNorth is a charity.
We're federally registered.
We're not allowed to do advocacy.
And TrueNorth News is the news outlet within that charity.
So they're incorrect in their statement.
And because of that, but also just because the debate is tonight, they created this commission to determine who shouldn't and should be allowed.
It was very unclear.
They didn't post any standards.
They didn't tell journalists, this is what we're looking for.
This is the criteria.
These are the rules.
I think that they've made some mistakes.
And because of that, I'm optimistic.
I don't think there's 100% chance that we're going to be successful today.
But even if we're not, the fact that a judge could say, okay, let them in today, even though it's last minute and it's not completely common, even if they don't do that today, Ezra, we're not going to stop fighting.
We're going to continue to push the government to continue to stand up for our rights as journalists, to continue to fight against these arbitrary decisions.
And we're going to keep fighting until they recognize that we are journalists and let us do our job.
Well, I'm really glad to hear that.
I'm not surprised by that because you're a fighter.
I want to give a quick shout out to Candace.
Like us, she doesn't take any government money.
You have helped pay for our lawyer tonight at letusreport.com.
Candace is raising dough also at tnc.news.
tnc.news.
Obviously, we need the support, but I encourage you to support Candice too because you guys don't take a dime from the bailout money.
That's right, that's right.
We're here just like you.
We've completely crowdfunded our entire mission.
We wanted Andrew Lawton to cover this election long ago before any of it even started.
We crowdfunded that.
We were successful.
When we decided to fight against this, we've had an overwhelming amount of support from what I call TrueNorth Nation.
They've really, really been there for us supporting, not just financially, but just messages of support.
I really feel like it's not just us in court today.
We're here on behalf of a lot of Canadians who are fighting for free press.
So thank you for everyone for supporting us and thank you for the people who have supported us and we're going to continue to fight.
You know, I feel the same way, really, when you're reliant on your grassroots supporters and then you're in court like this, you've got to pretend in your mind that there's thousands of people here because of course they can't physically be here, but they're here in spirit, they're here financially because they helped chip in for the lawyers.
Well you've made me feel a tiny bit better, but you can't get more establishment than the federal court at 180 Queen Street West in downtown Toronto.
It is as fancy pants downtown Toronto as it gets and we're a little bit rabbly at the rebel.
You guys are slightly less rabbly than us, but you're still very grassrootsy.
And I just have this feeling that the whole country's establishment is moving towards narrowing the bandwidth, deplatforming.
Forgive my pessimism.
I think it's because I'm a little older than you and I've fought more battles and I see the trends.
But I hope you're right.
I hope your optimism and enthusiasm are right.
You've got an excellent lawyer.
I feel like we have excellent lawyers.
So if there's a chance, if there's a chance, we'll get it.
Last word to you, Candice.
Well, I agree.
And again, you know, just because some established, say the judge disagrees and refuses to do the injunction and let us report tonight, again, that's not going to stop us.
We're the future of media.
We are.
You know, we're digital, we're online, we're fresh.
We have a lot to offer to Canadians.
And so, you know, as things change and as new journalism outlets pop up, the government's going to have to deal with this a lot.
So we're just at the frontier of this fight and we're going to continue to fight for freedom of press for all Canadians, for all journalists in this country.
Well, that's Candace Malcolm, the editor-in-chief of True North.
It's not quite 10 a.m.
We've been at, at least I've been at the court for almost three hours now.
We still don't know if a judge will hear the case.
Which judge will hear the case?
Will it be in person or by phone?
How will it go down?
Of course, the debate starts tonight.
So this is all very urgent.
Thus, the emergency application.
We'll keep you posted and hopefully we'll have some good news.
I literally this moment got an email and this is from the Courts Administration Service here at the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto.
Let me read it to you in its entirety.
It's addressed to our lawyers, Candace Malcolm's lawyers, and the government lawyers.
It says, Good morning, counsel.
The court directs the following: The court will hear the applicant's motion.
That's our request.
In person today, October 7th, 2019, at 3 p.m. in courtroom 4C.
Please confirm and receive this direction via reply email.
Thank you, Abigail Grimes.
So, we will be getting a hearing in person, 3 p.m. at the federal court.
Right now, it's 11:33, so I'm going to go back to the office, but I'll be back here for 3 p.m.
I'm glad they're hearing it.
It was within their purview to say, No, we're not even going to hear it.
I'm still pessimistic, but the fact that we'll at least be able to have our say before a neutral judge rather than Trudeau's hand-picked hats is very encouraging.
By the way, if you can help us out, please go to letusreport.com.
So far, we've spent $10,000 on lawyers.
I think it's money well spent.
We're not just fighting for us, we're fighting for all freedom in this country.
Let usreport.com.
I'm standing as you can see perhaps by the sign behind me at 180 Queen Street West.
That is the office of the Federal Court of Canada here in Toronto.
Let me spin around so you can see.
And I think you can see my smile.
I can't believe it, but Rebel News.
Oh, let me stop locking the camera.
Rebel News just won in court along with Candace Malcolm and Andrew Lutton of True North.
Our two reporters, Kian Beckstey and David Menzies, had applied for accreditation at the leaders' debate in Ottawa tonight.
And we applied like everyone else, and so did Andrew Lutton of True North.
And we applied and we filled out the forms.
And then at the very last minute, on Friday morning, we all received an email, but the email didn't come from the Debates Commission.
It came from the Government of Canada saying, Sorry, you can't go because you're too much advocacy journalist or something like that.
It doesn't even make sense.
What's an advocacy journalist?
The government had a tough time explaining that today.
Anyways, so we found out that news on Friday morning, and it was obviously sharp practice on behalf of the government to give us no time to file a lawsuit, but we did, anyways.
We retained a law firm.
They worked all weekend full tilt.
They filed the documents over the course of the weekend.
And at 8:30 a.m., we all came to court today and sort of surprised the courthouse because, of course, while the government of Canada, their lawyers were on it, no judges knew this was cooked until 8:30.
So the first thing they had to do is find a judge who was able to take this case on short notice.
And then the judge had to read literally hundreds of pages.
Now the judge didn't read every single word, but he read enough, he read the affidavits, he skimmed other materials.
And then he had a 90-minute hearing.
And the first thing they know about that hearing is that the lawyers on our side were paid for by us, by our viewers, but the lawyers on the other side were paid for by, I'm sorry to say it, you.
The government used taxpayers' money to bring not only Justice Department lawyers, but also lawyers from the Debate Commission.
And what was so frustrating to me is not only that there were five lawyers on the other side, but there were lawyers from the Attorney General who said, oh, we have no horse in this fight.
We aren't taking his side.
But then they proceeded to take up 20 minutes arguing against us.
But I got a good feeling quite soon because, first of all, the lawyer for True North was excellent.
And then our lawyers were excellent.
I couldn't believe.
I've had a lot of lawyers.
They were so concise.
They made the case so convincingly.
And then I saw the questions from the judge.
He had a few questions here and there, but his questions really started zeroing in on the government.
Questions like, if it's not important and valuable to be invited in, why does everyone want to get in?
And did the commission really make this decision?
Or did they hand it back to the government?
There were lots of good questions and I didn't want my hopes to rise.
I'll tell you candidly, our lawyers said we didn't have a big chance and I didn't want to allow hope to grow.
And what can you say?
But the judge said, I'll be back in 15 minutes.
And he came back in.
And long story short, he ordered, he ordered, he commanded that the Debates Commission immediately accredit David Menzies and Kian Bexte for the debates tonight.
He ordered the Debates Commission to do it.
And I want to say, besides the outstanding performance of the lawyers, I'm just thrilled and I know I'm gushing about the lawyers.
And besides the fact that David Menzies, Kian Becky, and Andrew Lawton applied and said, we're not going to roll over.
And I salute Candace Malcolm of True North 2.
What was so notable to me was the absence of any journalism organizations and the absence of any civil liberties groups in the courthouse itself.
What do I mean by that?
There's a group called Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
They've been silent on this.
There's a group called Canadian Association of Journalists.
Not only are they silent on this, the government invoked them as a reason to ban us.
There's a group called Penn Canada.
They weren't there.
There's a group called Amnesty International.
They weren't there.
There's a group called the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
They weren't there.
There was no one there.
There were no other media organizations that thought, well, you know, we might not like Rebel News or True North, but just it's in the interests of a free society that we actually have freedom of the press and it's not up to the whims of the government.
Not a single intervener, not a single friend.
Shame On The Media00:03:13
But you know what?
Liberty didn't need any other friends today because it had our lawyers and it had Rebel and True North and we won.
We bloody well won.
I can't believe it.
We won in 15 minutes.
So to sum up, excuse me, the judge said, not only is the Debate Commission ordered to accredit us, but granted that immediate injunction, but I believe that this has set a new standard, a new legal precedent in Canada, that Justin Trudeau cannot simply discredit or ban journalists he doesn't like.
And you would think that that is normal and that everyone would have that point of view, but no.
No, there was no one else in court today.
Shame on the other media for, frankly, being fine with it because they all got in and they're all on the bailout.
Shame on the other media.
Shame on the Civil Liberties Associations for being anything but.
Shame on Justin Trudeau, of course, but shame on Andrew Scheer, who was asked about this this morning by Andrew Lawton.
And he had nothing to say because he doesn't really believe in freedom of speech.
Congratulations to Candace Malcolm of True North, who actually was the first to file a lawsuit.
We were the second.
And I suppose the final thank you would be a massive thank you to our rebel viewers who chipped in to pay for our legal costs.
Now, the court at the end made a ruling saying costs will be in the cause, which means if this matter continues through court, like we're going to meet in today, there's no two ways about it, Kian and David will be allowed in today.
But if the government appeals and wants a bigger fight, then the cost for today's event will be determined at the end of that.
That's what costs in the cause mean.
Anyway, I just want to give you a quick live update on this.
I'm just thrilled.
It's vindication.
Sometimes you give up.
Sometimes you think, you know, is the entire establishment against us?
You've got the universities, you've got pop culture, you've got the media party, you've got so many activist groups.
Here we found a judge on the federal court who said, you know what?
The rule of law still means something.
And Justin Trudeau might think he's a prince, but we got a few rules.
And whatever, the judge says he'll produce detailed reasons if required.
He didn't get into the detailed reasons today, but for whatever reason, today a judge said you simply can't ban reporters from an event because you have a different political point of view.
Should be obvious.
And maybe now it's obvious.
But look, that's the thing about Justin Trudeau and Gerald Butts.
They never really respected the independence of the judiciary.
Don't ask me, ask Jody Wilson-Raybold.
All right, folks, that's it for now.
I'm just going to hop in my car, drive back up to the office, do a little bit of work.
But for now, I think freedom took a great leap forward, and not because of any official civil liberties groups.
They were hidden, hiding under the bed, but because of Rebel News and True North and our supporters fought for freedom, which is what we do every day.