Ezra Levant’s legal fight exposes Canada’s Debates Commission as a tool of Trudeau government bias, mirroring the Oldham riot where police filmed 3,000 Tommy Robinson supporters but ignored masked rioters. Interpol requested their footage to identify criminals, not targets—contrasting Greater Manchester Police’s selective surveillance. Levant’s past battles, like the Human Rights Commission case over Danish cartoons and CBC’s alleged attempt to silence him via Sun News, reveal systemic erosion of press freedom and rule of law under Trudeau, from altered Environment Canada data to PMO-influenced judges. His team’s resilience against hostile politicians underscores media’s shrinking independence, demanding financial support for their appeal at campaign2019.com to challenge institutional corruption threatening democracy. [Automatically generated summary]
It was much worse than that Bernier thing in Oldham, a town near Manchester in the north of England.
As you might recall, we had sent our reporter, Jessica S., there to cover Tommy Robinson's political campaign.
And I think back then, Jessica was actually still a student journalist.
And we had thrown her right into the deep end to sink or swim.
And I think she swam pretty well.
I should say we crowdfunded the cost of her security guard.
And I'm glad we did because she was absolutely in some danger, as everyone was.
And in fact, she was hit, not grievously, but she was hit by something thrown by rioters.
Okay, here's a bit of her footage from her coverage that day.
I'm Jessica's winning offspring with the Rebel.
Here in the UK, Tommy's Tommy Robinson's campaign head to Olden, which is a heavily Muslim populated area.
The protesters are behind us.
The police did have to push them back.
They started with throwing eggs and other riots going into the bench and going into the trash bin, picking up bottles and throwing it to the site.
I found a hundred of them.
They started on one side, police didn't block them, and they actually came around the street to another corner, all running towards the rally, throwing eggs, throwing bottles that they're finding in bins lying around in front of the houses.
I even saw them throw some bricks at Tommy Robinson's crowd.
Yeah, it's the United Kingdom these days, in case you're wondering.
I thought that was pretty good coverage by Jessica, and I thought she kept her calm pretty well.
I mean, here's a young student from calm, peaceful Canada being dumped in the middle of a race riot where a group that called itself the Muslim Defense League wore face masks and threw bottles and bricks at peaceful British men, women, and children.
Oh, did I not mention this part?
Police didn't make a single arrest that day.
Not one.
In fact, police did the opposite.
I know what you're about to hear is hard to believe, but you see, most of those rioters that day didn't come from Oldham.
They came from the big city, from Manchester and other places.
They didn't actually know their way around Oldham.
They'd never been there before.
It's a bit of a walk from the train station into Oldham itself, and then they had to find where's Tommy Robinson's campaign event in this town.
So they had no clue where they were going.
Hey, no worries.
The police literally escorted the rioters to the right place.
Let me say that again.
Police met the rioters when they arrived at the train station, some of whom were already wearing face masks.
And the police showed them the way.
They literally accompanied them to get them straight to Tommy Robinson and the men, women, and children who were gathered to hear him give a political speech.
He was running for the European Parliament.
Here's a bit of a video and an explanation that Tommy himself put together.
Look at this.
On Saturday, I visited a working class estate in Oldham.
Just like for the last three weeks, I've traveled the Northwest, visiting different working-class estates.
Each one of my events have been peaceful family events where people have brought their children.
So an opportunity for me to speak to my future constituents.
The difference for Oldham was for the past week, a Muslim organization on Facebook has literally been inciting attacks against me and organizing and planning attacks against me in Oldham, telling people to come and throw milkshakes at me.
But not just milkshakes, anything they want.
Yeah, we've got about 300 people with this book.
Let's go to the front number my boys.
The Halifax Pakistanis ripping in Aldum.
And they've come from Halifax, Halifax, Pakistanis.
Halifax isn't even in the northwest.
This is premeditated.
Gangs of young men, young Muslim men, armed and wearing balaclavas, intent on attacking a political campaign.
Police Surveillance Tactics00:11:44
not just intent on attacking it, but aided and abetted and supported and directed there by the local police.
Tommy, Tommy, Tommy!
We're here, man!
We're here, where are ya?
Good man!
This is under attack by who?
By the council of protest, mate.
I have no idea who it is, but the council of protest.
The council of protest, that's all we know, mate.
Here you'll see the political correctness.
When asking the police officer to identify who it is that's attacking their police officers, he says counter-protesters.
Do these people look like ordinary counter-protesters wearing balaclavas?
His political quickness can't even bring him to admit it's gangs of Muslim youths that are attacking the police.
So that's what it was like.
Can you believe it?
Police escorting criminals to commit a crime.
Anyways, back to the police call I got.
Interpol contacted the Toronto Police Service on behalf of the Greater Manchester Police.
They were asking me for any footage that Jessica had recorded from the riots that we hadn't published.
Of course, we published some.
I showed you some of it.
But as with all news reports, we record much more video than we broadcast, or else every broadcast would be very, very long and probably boring.
So we have some footage that we didn't broadcast, and that's what the police wanted.
Now, our answer normally to any police force, at least those in a free country where police aren't just political bullies, is to tell the police, just get a court order and we'll comply.
Obviously, we would never give video footage to police from China or Iran or anything like that.
But we've had police requests for video footage before, such as when our reporters were caught in the middle of an antifur riot in Washington, D.C. during Donald Trump's inauguration.
And we generally require a court order for a few reasons.
First of all, that's not a hard thing for police to get if they have a legitimate reason that they need the footage.
It's not like we're asking them to do something difficult.
And of course, it's not their own personal funds.
They have the unlimited resources of the state.
They have full-time in-house lawyers.
It's not a high hurdle.
And second of all, we don't work for the police.
We don't work for the state.
And when people see our reporters and our cameras, I don't want them to think that we're part of the government surveillance apparatus.
I mean, the whole world is now covered in closed-circuit TVs.
It's hard to imagine anything isn't being recorded, certainly of all of what we send via email or the internet at all, anything we upload to Facebook or whatever.
It's all traffic.
I don't know if you ever read those very long legalistic terms of service when you sign on to Facebook or Instagram.
And really, who even does?
You'll see that if you read it, I know this is unbelievable.
You actually give those companies a license to use your photos in any way they want.
They can sell your photo.
They can use your photos for ads.
They can share your photos with anyone, including the CIA or Chinese secret police.
There are no limits at all under the contract you agreed to when you sign up for those photo services.
So really, I have trouble believing that the cops don't already have all of our footage and everyone else's footage there.
But my point is, we don't work for the cops.
And when we point a camera at someone, I want people to know that it's just for journalistic purposes, not for the purposes of the surveillance state.
But in the case of these riots in Oldham, we weren't just journalists, we were actually a victim of the riot.
Jessica was hit by a flying projectile thrown by a rider.
Now obviously she wasn't really hurt.
She was more startled than anything.
She was jostled a little bit too.
I'm glad we had a bodyguard there, but my point is the Muslim Defense League, as those masked rioters called themselves, they were attacking us too.
So I told the Manchester Police directly that yes, we would assist them on the undertaking, that our footage would only be used for that purpose.
To tell you the truth, it wouldn't surprise me one bit if the only people they were wanting to charge in the whole thing was Tommy Robinson or his supporters.
So we had them agree to an undertaking that it was only to charge the rioters.
So the Toronto detective called me up on behalf of Interpol, and we did, in fact, send the footage over today.
But I want to show you a clip from some of that unpublished footage.
Again, remember what the request is for, to help identify the rioters, because we had a camera.
But look at this.
I'm just going to show you 30 seconds or so from our footage that we sent the cops today via Interpol.
Let's have a look.
So there was a police video unit there.
Look at that.
They had two cops filming, at least two.
They had a surveillance squad there.
One of them is on a video camera on a monopole.
That's what that long stick is called.
The other looks like a still photo, but you can record video on it too.
But look who they were pointing their cameras at.
Not the rioters who were 50 feet behind them the other way.
They were filming every single face of every single Tommy Robinson supporter.
I don't know if you heard that woman hollering in that clip there.
Why don't you push them back?
She said, a woman, first of all.
The rioters were all young men.
And the woman was being pushed away.
The woman was being filmed.
The rioting Muslim men in masks.
No problem, mate.
No arrests.
I say again, the police actually brought them to the women and children.
So the police did have a surveillance squad there.
They did.
You just saw it.
But their instructions were film all the faces of Tommy Robinson's supporters.
They didn't make one arrest of the rioters that day.
Police do this at all Tommy events.
They film every face in the crowd.
Here's a photo I took at the surveillance squad.
Again, a camera.
It's on a bit of a body holster you can see there.
Outside the Old Bailey in July, on the day that Tommy Robinson was sentenced to prison for contempt of court.
Get every face on camera was his instruction.
They even had a special surveillance truck, as you can see, taking pictures for sure.
Maybe they were scanning cell phones for text messages or voice calls.
I don't know what that special truck was doing.
That was outside the Old Bailey too.
Because with modern facial recognition software, simply panning a video camera at a crowd can immediately create a police database with names and detailed identification of every person.
It'll immediately associate your face with your name, your phone number, your home address.
You can compare it against any other police database, criminal records, taxes, whatever.
So you had two, 3,000 people at Tommy Robinson rally.
Police go there and just slowly, slowly, slowly catch each face.
And now they have a 3,000-person database of who was there.
Not just the pictures, the names, using facial recognition software.
I bet Tommy himself doesn't know the names of all 3,000 people who were at his rally.
The police do.
They know every face and every name of the peaceful men and women and children who came to listen to Tommy Robinson give an election speech in Oldham.
But they didn't bother to get the name or the face of any rioter.
I mean, why bother, right?
They didn't arrest them.
Who cares?
I mean, what are they going to do?
There are already 23,000 jihadists in the United Kingdom, 3,000 of whom are a serious enough threat, imminent enough threat, that they're actually under 24-hour surveillance by the police.
Not sure what good that does anyways, if they're driving and suddenly swerve onto the road on a bridge in London and kill people as they do.
So really, adding another few hundred rioters to the list, it's not like they prosecute or jail or deport them.
And most of them are born in the UK now anyway, so deport them to where?
Send them to prisons, prisons that are halal, that are run by Muslim prison gangs.
The police don't even bother anymore.
What they do want to do is list and arrest Tommy's supporters, pictures of all of them.
Just like they do in Communist China, they call it social credit in China.
Say something wrong, get blacklisted.
Do something wrong, get blacklisted.
You can't get a plane ticket.
You can't get an apartment.
You can't get a job.
They call it social credit.
Remember this?
Dear passengers, people who travel without tickets or behave disorderly or smoke in public areas will be punished according to regulations.
And their behavior will be recorded in the individual credit information system.
To avoid any negative record of personal credit, please follow the relevant regulations and help with the orders on the train and at the station.
That's why the democracy protesters in Hong Kong wear face masks.
They're not violent ones like the antifoot protesters we have in Canada who cover their face.
These folks want to hide their identities from the Chinese secret police.
They've tried other things.
They've tried lasers to defeat Chinese police cameras.
Here's the latest Hong Kong trick.
I thought this was amazing.
Look at that.
Do you see what's going on there?
They have a little projector projecting a fake face on top of their real face to fool facial recognition.
That's how they roll in Hong Kong.
So yeah, I sent in the footage of the rioters.
I didn't send in footage of any Tommy's friends.
The Manchester Police already have all of those for their secret police files.
I sent in the footage of the protesters because the Manchester Police couldn't be bothered at the time.
Hey, here's an excerpt of what I wrote to the Toronto cop who had passed on the Interpol request to me.
I got no beef with him, and I think his request was legitimate.
I just think it's a disgrace that the Manchester Police assisted the rioters and thought that the riot victims were the enemies to be databased.
I won't give you the name of the Toronto cop or show you most of my letter, but I did add a few paragraphs of commentary.
Here's what I said.
Here's a Dropbox links with our footage that shows the riot.
I can't help but notice from that footage that the Greater Manchester Police had their own camera unit at the riot, but they didn't film the violent rioters.
They filmed the riot victims instead because they were politically sympathetic to Tommy Robinson.
I guess it was more important to get a list of every peaceful Tommy Robinson supporter in the UK than to document a riot from the self-styled Muslim Defense League.
I don't know how much you've read about this riot, but the Manchester Police literally led the rioters directly to the victims.
The rioters had come in from out of town and didn't know where to go in Oldham.
The police escorted them, even the ones wearing masks.
And I have a YouTube link to show the Toronto cop.
You can see that some of that footage came from Tommy Robinson himself.
Maybe the Manchester Police can ask him for help, or maybe they are actually after footage that would incriminate him.
The Manchester Police are a disgrace.
I hope the Toronto Police Service takes their conduct as a cautionary tale, not a model to be followed.
That's what I wrote to the Toronto Cop.
I sent him the footage.
That's how bad it is in the UK.
Conservatives Secure Debate Access00:05:21
It's not that bad here in Canada or the US yet.
Is it?
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, the election is getting more exciting, at least for me, because we were able to have a little victory for freedom of the press and get access to the leaders' debate, where our own reporter, Kian Bexte, asked six questions of three different leaders, including the Prime Minister himself.
Our friend, Andrew Lawton, also got two questions into the Prime Minister, and I mentioned him because he, too, needed a court injunction to break down the barriers that had been put up by the Debates Commission.
Let me just refresh your memory of the question that Kian Bexte asked of Justin Trudeau, and this was at the debate on Monday night.
Hi, Mr. Trudeau.
Since your multiple use of blackface became an international scandal, Canada's international reputation has been irreparably harmed.
Have you reached out to any African leaders or any leaders from the Middle East to apologize for your conduct?
Canada will continue to engage in a positive, constructive way around the world, standing up for human rights, engaging with leaders right around the world, because we know that promoting our values and prosperity for everyone around the world is good for Canadians and creates better opportunities for everyone.
So that didn't answer the question at all.
Have you spoken to any African leaders or leaders from the Middle East to apologize for your personal conduct?
I have continued to engage with leaders around the world in a responsible way.
During an election campaign, my focus is connecting with Canadians as I was able to tonight.
And I was very pleased to see so many of the questions turned to the environment in all sections.
There was a clear contrast between those on stage who don't think we should be fighting climate change and those of us who do.
And again, we are the only party with a clear plan to fight climate change.
Well, that was a good one.
Trudeau did not answer.
Just very quickly, let me show you the question asked by our friend Andrew Lawton that went directly to freedom of the press.
Take a look at that.
Good evening, Prime Minister, Andrew Lawton from True North.
This afternoon, a federal court judge ruled that I had a right to be here to cover this debate as a journalist, despite opposition from your Attorney General.
This comes after two weeks of me being kicked out of or not allowed into your campaign rallies.
The Conservatives have criticized you for being not as advertised.
You've advertised yourself as a champion of a press freedom.
Will you take a stand right now, sir, as the leader of the Liberal Party and allow me to cover your campaign like every other journalist?
We are a party and we are a country that respects journalistic rights and respects the freedom of the press.
We will continue to.
So is that a yes, sir?
We are a party and a country that respects the hard work and the freedom of the press.
We will continue to.
Then what time is your plan leaving tomorrow, sir?
So that's what happened on Monday night, but I have to say, we didn't think those journalists would make it in at all because it was an uphill legal battle to convince the federal court to give us an emergency injunction.
Well, speaking of injunctions and things like that and politics and debates, may I introduce to you my friend Manny Montenegrino, who has a lot to say.
Manny, great to see you again.
Great to see you.
And congratulations.
Did so much for journalism, the law this week.
It's unfortunate that the debate on Monday overshadowed your great work, but this story that you have done is a huge story, and unfortunately, it was overshadowed by the debate.
But congratulations, Ezra and Andrew.
Great job.
Yeah.
Well, I thank you for that, Manny.
Obviously, a lot of credit goes to the lawyers who did a really good job.
And of course, our donors, because we had to come up with the dough to pay a retainer to the firm very quickly.
Manny, just let me quickly say, and then I'll turn things back to you.
When I hired our lawyers, they warned me that it was going to be an uphill battle because getting an emergency injunction like that, they told me, is difficult.
And I know it's true.
So I assumed we would lose, but we would die trying to win.
That just made it feel great.
But there was no one there in the room to celebrate with.
It was us and the True North News.
That's Candace Malcolm's team and Andrew Lawton.
But there were no civil liberties groups.
There were no other media companies.
And I felt like we should have had 10 allies in the room, but no one was there, Manny.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's why you are correct.
And your lawyer was probably correct by saying it's almost impossible to win when the natural allies are not there in court.
And as I understand it, Ezra, you had the Attorney General, who is supposed to be on the sideline and not have any dog in the race, actually giving argument against freedom of speech and freedom of press.
So it is remarkable that you won, but it tells you something else.
Debates Commissioner's Concerns00:15:49
It tells you something about this newly created debates commission.
Yeah.
Well, Manny, we are not done with the debates commission because this was just an emergency injunction to get us in.
But we still have a larger, more methodical, less rushed judicial review of their treatment of us that I want to continue to proceed.
So in some ways it's moot because we're in the debates, but I think we still ought to have a court review the shenanigans because I want to expose what I sense in my bones is collusion between the supposedly independent commission and the Trudeau government.
Yeah, and you know what, Ezra?
When your case was finally decided, it gave me a support of what I have been feeling about the debates commission itself.
And so let me go through it.
First of all, you know, Ezra, we start right from the beginning.
Why is Justin Trudeau creating a debates commission and can we trust him on anything?
So I start there.
And clearly, he has no credibility.
He's been found to be not credible by a judge, the ethics commissioner, basically a lawyer when he said the Aga Connolly was his friend and the debates commissioner, sorry, the ethics commissioner said, no, no, no, no, I don't accept that.
That's pretty damning.
We start there.
Then we add to that, what has happened to the Canadian institutions while Justin Trudeau has been prime minister?
Well, we've seen the biggest, the most non-biased institution is the Privy Council of Canada.
Unprecedented, he had to quit.
Michael Wernick quit because he felt that he can no longer do his duties because there's an apprehension of bias.
Then we've seen bias in the media.
I don't need to go into that, the $600 million offering and so on.
We've seen bias by this government and corruption with respect to the charging of Admiral Norman.
We've seen the RCMP styneed.
So when I look at, when I start my analysis of what about this debates commissioner, I start, well, there's a good chance I'm going to see either bias or I'm going to see an apprehension of bias because every institution in Canada, I mean, even the judiciary was seen to be thrown under the bus of the Manitoba judge that the PMO decided to attack.
So I think.
But he had in the independent senators too, the so-called independent senators.
Oh, right.
Because they, I saw a study, believe it or not, it was published in the CBC, which shocked me, that showed these so-called independent senators actually vote more in lockstep with Trudeau than even partisan liberal senators do, which is hard to believe.
Exactly.
And I was coming to that.
So I didn't mean to jump ahead.
No, there's so many.
There's so many.
So I start with the premise.
I start and say there's a good chance the debates commissioner starts in the soup of bias or in the apprehension of bias.
And then we go on.
The very first thing, and the Canadian public was right to comment on how is it possible that there are five moderators that are all female when we are trying to strive for gender parity.
So that was one of the first things that brought to my attention, saying, well, that looks odd.
That doesn't seem right for an unbiased and especially a debates commissioner that's seeking no apprehension of bias.
Right off the gun, we have what appears to be at least a concern by the Canadian public that was never addressed.
I mean, I think of there are incredible, I mean, the person who is found many, many, broke many stories, a male that hasn't been invited.
So it starts there.
The second thing I thought of, and this is really disturbing because it's 2019.
Why was the debate held at 7 p.m. when people in BC are at work and people in Alberta are on their way home from work?
Basically, 30% of Canadians could not or would not be able to see on a regular basis as Eastern Canada did.
That says to me, what are you doing?
Why?
What's the purpose of that?
Clearly, we know that the debate could have been at 9 o'clock Eastern time and everyone would have at least been able to see it in Canada.
And I found that to add to my pattern of concern.
The other thing that I looked at very carefully, very carefully, was who was admitted into the debate.
And there were three criteria.
And Ezra, as a lawyer, I read the three criteria.
They were very simplistic.
And they basically, all you had to do is meet two of the three.
And if you go through their criteria, they're very simplistic.
And I'll be very simple.
You had to be elected in the brand that you're running.
You have to have at least 300 people running or you had to have a viability, a strong viability of electing some members.
So that basically, I thought the bar was so low that it would include anyone.
It would include certainly the People's Party, but Maxime did not qualify.
He only met one.
And then so he was ruled out.
And then the debates commissioner then does takes an appeal.
And I looked into it very carefully.
There seemed to have been, and as he did, as the debates commissioner did in your case, he downloaded his responsibility to a pollster to say, well, what's a possibility?
Could you win five seats?
Well, the pollster, and I looked at the question, I looked at the polls.
It was nowhere near any other polls that are out there.
And so it got me some concern.
Well, wait a minute.
It's not in the three criterias.
It's not two of the three criteria.
So it seemed that the debates commissioner was moving the yardsticks again.
And it didn't seem like, again, I felt there was an apprehension of bias to include.
So that was the third.
And then I looked at your case very carefully.
And not only was it wrong in law, not only was it wrong in the principles of freedom of the press, but the way they handled it and the way they downloaded it.
They gave you the decision on Friday.
Everybody knows that by Monday, it is an impossibility unless lawyers, and I've done this, work through the weekend and your lawyers did that.
God bless them.
And they did that because they strategically knew that if you put it on Friday, Ezra will not be in court.
But they don't know, Ezra, unfortunately.
So now, Ezra, a little bit, I'm not going to give you some legal advice here, but when there's this type of egregious behavior by a litigant, courts not only order costs, but they should be ordering punitive or soliciting their own client costs.
When I practice law, it's very hard to get that.
But when you put a person to the onus on Friday for a hearing that has to be heard by Monday, and it was done intentionally, you should be able to get punitive costs for that egregious behavior.
So when I look at these four or five patterns, I sit there and say, and it's clear.
And in your case, they downloaded.
I looked at Justice Zinn's questions and how he basically said, well, did you make the decision yourself, Debase Commissioner?
No, we kind of let somebody else do it.
Well, it wasn't somebody else.
It was giving it back to the government.
The government said you're independent, independent, independent.
They used that word so many times.
The actual decision, the so-called independent group, checked with the government, gave the government.
And that's the case in everything that we talked about, the corruption of all our bureaucracies.
I mean, the clerk of the Privy Council, I got to check with the government.
No, your job is to protect the bureaucracy.
Can you imagine the trial that Admiral Norman went through?
We got to check with the government.
In fact, Ezra, I forget the exact words, but the judge in that case said, well, it looks like the private prosecutor is run by the PMO.
That was a verbatim arbiter statement in open court.
And so everything checks through this government.
So it is folly to think.
And especially when I read your case, and I didn't read the whole decision, Ezra, but clearly the debates commissioner falls into that group.
And what that has done is, I mean, there's a lot of things that are important in Canada.
And certainly elections are extremely important.
And the right of the media to be there is extremely important.
But to have at least the apprehension of bias or evidence of liberal bias by the debates commissioner, I think there's a strong case.
And I'm at five points in my pattern.
And I believe me, as time will go on, Ezra, we'll see more as you appeal this and as you'll get dig into the facts.
It clearly was just an arm of the PMO, pretty much like the trial of Admiral Norman was an arm of the PMO.
So there's a whole pattern of it, Ezra.
And, you know, I wish I was around arguing your case because you are going to succeed.
And I would, Ezra, you look at all the pattern that Canadians, I think you have to not only stand up for yourself and every journalist who wasn't there for you, but you have to stand up in your argument for every independent institution in Canada that's seen itself corrupted by this government.
You have to be the voice as well for that.
Sorry for putting so much burden.
But we need somebody, Ezra.
You know, Manny, I remember, and it was a dozen years ago, more even, when the Human Rights Commission came for me for publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.
And I remember saying to my friends, and that was the start of a whole bunch of things in my life I didn't even know were going to come that put me on a path I didn't even know.
But I remember saying to my colleagues and friends, I said, I don't like being prosecuted, but in some ways I'm very lucky to be the one because almost anyone else would say, this is done, just settle it, or this isn't worth it.
And so although it was in some ways very punishing, how lucky it was that it was me rather than someone who said, oh, just throw 10 grand at it, make it go away.
Exactly.
And so here I am.
And Manny, I tell you honestly, we just wanted to go and cover the debate.
That's why we applied.
We did not want them to say no to us.
And we did not want to have to sue to get in.
We did not want the burden.
We just wanted to do journalism here.
But they brought the fight to us.
And I say again, in some strange way, I'm not going to call that luck, but sometimes, Manny, I feel like a strangely shaped puzzle piece.
And every once in a while, maybe once every 10 years, I fit perfectly into a puzzle.
And I think it was that way with the Danish cartoons of Mohammed.
And it may be here, because this bigger judicial inquiry, a judicial review of the debate commission, I think it will expose a lot of things.
It'll expose internal communications, emails, memos, maybe even notes from phone calls that would have otherwise been hidden.
And I think if we can expose how the Trudeau government works and how they try to interfere with the media and debates, I think that's very useful to the country to see.
I feel like I have a sense of mission here, Manny, even though I know it's going to cost us more than $100,000 to see this thing through.
Ezra, I'm going to tell you something very simply.
If I was legal counsel for the government, knowing what Justin Trudeau has done, and I say corrupted every institution, and you will find those emails.
You will find the connection and the direction by the government to the Independent Debates Commissioner.
If I were them, I would be doing the very same thing as they did with the Admiral Norman case.
I'd be sending you a huge offer and getting you to sign an NDA and getting you out of my life because you are going to do more harm to what the government has done to Canadians and destroying what we cherish the most, and that is our precious institutions.
I mean, to see the clerk of the Privy Council, to see our military, to see the Attorney General.
And Ezra, nothing bothers me more than seeing the Attorney General and the Public Prosecutor's Office directed by the PMO, Ezra.
And I'm going to tell you this, even if they offer you $10.5 million, don't sign the NDA.
Well, Manny, if they were going to offer me money and a bribe, I'm sure they would have done it by now.
We'd be in a pain in their side.
And we have made a moral decision here at the Rebel not to take government money.
I remember even at Sun News, I got an access to information document from the CBC.
I was criticizing the CBC so much, their vice president actually asked in an internal email, can we just hire off Ezra?
Like they thought I was a problem.
said just hire him.
That's the government instinct.
There's a problem, hire him, buy him off, throw money at him.
Manny, I'm 47, almost 48.
I've chosen the path in my life.
It's a path of being a dissident.
Sometimes that's a stressful path, and it's certainly not a lucrative path.
But if this is, I mean, obviously I'm not in the same kind of jeopardy that Vice Admiral Mark Norman was.
My life is not being ruined in the same way his was.
But if I have the ability to expose the wrongdoings of this government, I feel like I have an obligation to see it through.
Like I say, it's one of those once every 10-year moments where this strangely shaped puzzle piece called Ezra Levant maybe fits the occasion.
So Ezra, you are the person.
I mean, of course, when we saw what you did 10 years ago with the Human Rights Commission, maybe you are the person because I sit and I'm retired and I see, you know, Canada is great, not because necessarily of its government, but because of its institutions.
I've seen almost every institution corrupted.
There are reports that Environment Canada has changed certain data.
Every institution has been corrupted.
And we are Canadians that, and the person that protects our institutions was the clerk of the Privy Council, unprecedented.
Never in Canada's history did he resign in shame because of what appears to be an apprehension of bias.
When our institutions fall, Ezra, Canada falls.
And we need to have, and you know what?
You know, you're Atlas, you're carrying that world on your social media.
The Greatest Institution Chipped Away00:04:05
Well, you're praising me too much, my friend, and perhaps I speak too much in my own sense.
I'm just trying to come to terms and trying to wrap my head around what we're getting into because it all happened so fast.
But I think I have to get my strength because if we go forward, it's going to be a brutal fight.
Mark Norman was out of pocket, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
He relied on crowdfunding, and I'm sure his lawyer gave him some terms to pay.
He was at great risk financially.
Sure, he was.
Let alone his liberty.
Like, theoretically, he could have faced prison, I think.
Sure.
So I'm certainly not in the jeopardy he was, but I appreciate you giving me confidence.
But he wasn't, but Ezra, Mark Norman wasn't trying to save the institutions of Canada.
Right now, you have, like, you know, I love this country.
This is the greatest country in the world.
And because of its cherished institutions and its rule of law and our charter.
And it is being chipped away.
Freedoms are being chipped away.
Freedom of speech, freedom.
I mean, so I've watched under this government.
I mean, the institutions under Harper were strong and challenged him.
And that gave us a great government and great institutions.
The institutions under Justin Trudeau have capitulated Capitulated and it's become a dictatorship, and Canadians have nothing to protect them against a terrible government, a tyrannical government, and our institutions need to be saved.
And you know what, Ezra?
Somebody tapped you in the shoulder and said, Okay, buddy, it's your turn.
You better do it.
Well, you've got me revved up, Manny, and I thank you for the pep talk.
And I'm going to show this video to our lawyers.
And they might even, I know you're not practicing law anymore, but they might even give you a phone call and bounce somebody.
No, you know what?
I'd love ID.
I mean, you know, I was a creative lawyer, and I think, number one, you go hard on the costs because, you know, when I look at this case and I see that they sat and they gave you the decision and they downloaded the decision to the government and they deprived you and you sat there and spoke to it for every journalist.
And every journalist should be sending you champagne and saying, thank you very much for protecting our, you know, and to me, you know, Ezra, there's a lot of great institutions.
I'm a lawyer.
I believe the rule of law and our legal system is the greatest institution.
But let me tell you, journalism is right there next to law.
And without a strong legal system and a strong, you know, journalism, journalistic integrity, we have no Canada.
So, you know, you're both a lawyer and you're both a journalist.
And so you understand it and you're fighting.
And every journalist should hang their hat in shame for not being there with you.
And they should be the first people that should be funding your appeal and your continued.
You've given me too much praise, but you've given me a lot of encouragement.
I'm going to take it to heart.
That's a good idea to try and get these media organizations to join us.
Late they come, but that's better late than never.
Manny, you've given me so much to think about.
You've made me think about this case as more important than just the momentary barrier we were trying to get through.
This is a larger thing that goes to the rule of law, independence of institutions, and a bit of an institutional rot that I think Trudeau has set in.
So I thank you for this.
And you've got my head buzzing with ideas now.
And we're going to go do it, Manny.
Thank you, buddy.
Accepting the Challenge00:03:01
And that's great.
And I tell you, you know, even the people that don't want this to happen are there in your corner.
And I think it'll be wonderful for Canada.
Well, thank you.
And I accept your charge.
I accept your challenge.
And God help us all.
Thank you, my friend.
All right.
Take care of it.
All right.
There you have it.
Manny Montenegrino, a great friend and advisor and commentator, former senior lawyer, former prime minister's lawyer, and always a great political conversation.
I will take to heart his message to me today.
Stay with us.
More ahead on The Ripple.
Hello, my friends on the show yesterday.
Liz writes, How the heck did Keen manage to be the first up to the mic and get so many questions in?
Andrew Lawton's question was epic as well, I thought.
It really shone a light on what Trudeau was made of.
Well, you know, isn't that a good point?
Because I say again, the judge on Monday said it's like a lottery in there.
What are your chances?
Well, what are the chances?
Kean got six questions off, and Andrew Lawton got two.
More than any other network, by the way.
Keen and Andrew, if they were a network, it's two buddies, you know.
That's just what a little bit of initiative and a little bit of effort does.
The CBC, CTV, Global, they're just phoning it in.
I remind you that these networks had the Trudeau blackface photos in hand.
They were holding them.
It was only when Time magazine rolled out the picture that they said, oh, gosh, well, we don't want to be being scooped.
We may as well join the party.
Paul writes, Trudeau wanted to ban the Rebel because you guys don't ask him puff questions.
Yeah, ain't that the truth?
Oh, you know, I know I've shown you the shampoo question and the, what are you listening to on your iPod?
And hey, what books are you reading?
You know what?
It's been a while since I've been on a first date happily married.
Back off, ladies, I'm taking.
But, you know, I remember dates.
Hi, what are you reading?
Do you listen to music?
What's your favorite music?
See any good shows lately?
Those were the questions that Rosemary Barton was asking Justin Trudeau in that bachelorette style platonic date they went on.
You've got the prime minister of the country there.
The cameras are rolling.
He's not going to dash away.
He's not going to, you know, he's agreed to be there.
He's not going to run away if you ask him something tough.
That would look awful.
And all you ask him is, hey, what books are you doing?
What's that cologne you're wearing?
That's wonderful.
You've got the prime minister and that's what you ask.
He's not going to date you, Rosemary.
On my interview with Kean Bexty, George writes, Ian is already a good journalist.
He's going to be great with more experience.
Looking forward to seeing him toughen up.
Holy macaroni, I don't want him to toughen up.
That kid's like an armadillo already.
He's got a thick skin.
I've got a thick skin with a thick layer.
I've got a thin skin with a thick layer of fat underneath.
It looks like I got a thick skin.
David Menzies' Thick Skin00:00:54
But Kian is tough as nails.
And you know what?
I think he controls himself.
I mean, there's an old proverb, who is strong, he who can control himself.
Isn't that the truth?
And it's tough when you're engaging with snippy, snarky politicians to stay calm and make them make the unforced error.
But Kian can do it.
David Menzies is also very good at that, don't you think?
Well, they've done a great job on the campaign trail, and so has Sheila and Jessica S. That's our show for today.
Oh, by the way, you know, if you want to help us out, we need some money to help pay for all these flights.
If you want to, please go to campaign2019.com.
If you want to chip in a few quid, as they say, in old old'em, oi mite, where's your protest license?
Well, we got our journalism license from Justice Zinn, didn't we?
Folks, that's the show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home, good night.