Andrew Lawton of True North exposed Justin Trudeau’s government for excluding journalists—himself, Keon, and David Menzies—from Conservative campaign rallies despite press freedom claims, after a Federal Court judge ruled they had the right to attend. Lawton secured an injunction, allowing him to ask more questions than mainstream outlets at a 2019 debate, yet faced silence from Globe and Mail, CBC, CTV, and Al Jazeera when Rebel Media journalists later confronted censorship. Trudeau’s mandate letters deputize Facebook and Twitter to remove "hate speech" in 24 hours, risking arbitrary enforcement without legal oversight, while Canada’s media often mirrors the UK’s bias against figures like Tommy Robinson. Lawton warns of escalating censorship in 2020 but vows to fight back, arguing free speech is the only countermeasure. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, what's the state of freedom of the press and freedom of speech in Canada?
A feature interview with our friend Andrew Lawton.
It's December 30th, 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 published is because it's my bloody right to do so.
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.
Well, that is a clip of our friend Andrew Lawton from True North putting a question to Justin Trudeau at the leaders' debates in the federal election in October.
Now, Andrew was not supposed to be there, just like our rebel reporters, Kean Becky and David Menzies, were not supposed to be there, because short days earlier, the Federal Debate Commission, a government agency handpicked by Justin Trudeau, declared that the three of us, that is, Andrew Lawton, Keon, and David, were not real journalists, and so we were banned.
So Andrew, Keon, and David went to court, the federal court, and a justice, Russell Zinn was his name of the federal court, gave us an emergency injunction requiring that government agency to let us in.
And the rest was history.
If you can believe it, Andrew, Keon, and David asked more questions of Trudeau than any other news network.
That's just one of 100 stories of censorship and free speech in battle in Canada, a subject we'll go deep on with Andrew himself, who joins us now via Skype.
Andrew, great to see you again.
And once again, congratulations on being the pointy end of the spear on free speech.
Well, to you as well.
I mean, this was in many cases a very dismal year for free speech, but I also think there were some positives that we'll get to in that how often we had the opportunity specifically to raise the alarm and sound the alarm about these issues.
So the debate clip, The Glory Days of the Campaign, was just one of several examples this year where we really got to shine the spotlight on that.
So it was unfortunate in some ways, but very fortunate in others.
Yeah, well, I'm really glad that you care about that.
And I know we all say we care about freedom of speech.
Certainly, if you ask any journalist, they'll all say, oh, yes, yes, yes, I care.
And they'll do that because they know they're supposed to say that.
And they care about their own free speech.
But it's tougher to care about free speech for someone else, especially someone else you might find irritating or even contrary to your own views.
And that's what I think is slipping away.
I think that journalists are very fastidious about their own freedoms.
But if it's a rival journalist, especially in this age of social media censorship and bailout money, I think most other journalists have decided, yeah, they don't care so much about that.
Do you think I'm being too pessimistic, Andrew?
Well, I think the answer to that is always it depends.
I mean, there are going to be individual voices that do care and that are on side with that.
And there are going to be at the same time people that don't.
And more importantly, I think the institutions themselves are growing less supportive of free speech.
I mean, one of the highlights of my year, quite frankly, was being in London for the Global Conference for Media Freedom alongside you and Sheila Gunread of Rebel.
And we saw in that little few days of the conference, reporters from the mainstream media actually stand up for press freedom.
As many people remember, we have the standing up for free speech and press freedom rights for Sheila and I when the ministry of Christia Freeland's office was trying to block us from a press conference.
And that was a profoundly impactful moment when the Globe and Mail, CTV, CBC, Al Jazeera English, they're all standing firm and saying, listen, we're not covering this press conference unless everyone is there.
And I think that that moment was a hugely positive one.
But you fast forward a couple of months, you're in the federal court, Candace Malcolm's in the federal court.
I'm holed up in a hotel room in Ottawa wondering if I'll get to go to the debate.
And the sounds we heard from the mainstream media were non-existent.
It was silence from them.
And I think that we need more like that London story and less like the Ottawa story.
Yeah, that London story was truly amazing.
For one flicker of a moment, I thought that maybe the tide was turning for freedom.
And it was at a media freedom conference.
And the fact that Christian Freeland was trying to block journalists at that conference, I think that, combined with the fact that it was you and Sheila, so it seemed like it was not just one person, it was a whole thing.
Let me play a clip of that because Sheila caught most of that on tape.
and take a look at this.
The rest of us?
The rest of you have to see that.
No, I know.
We know that's nonsense.
No, no, no, no, that's not a good question.
Let's take us to the room and we can see if we can.
No, we're not going for your job.
We're all going to be a good one.
This is a media freedom conference.
Yeah, this is ridiculous.
Please don't do that.
Yeah, you're not going that.
I thought that was a beautiful moment.
But as you pointed out a moment ago, when we were in court in Federal Court of Canada in Toronto, there were no interveners.
And I'm old enough to know, Andrew, that it was only 10 years ago that if one media company got in trouble in a way that could set a bad precedent, they all went in as a coalition of journalists.
Like, you would often see one lawyer who would go to the court to intervene and say, Your Honor, I'm here on behalf of a coalition of the National Post and the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Sun and CTV and CBC.
Like it was almost a standing order that everyone, all for one and one for all, they wouldn't, you wouldn't see five lawyers for five newspapers, but you would see one excellent lawyer who was instructed by all the big media companies to fight for the precedent.
That day is gone, Andrew.
I mean, maybe on some matters, but it was just your lawyer and our lawyers in that room fighting the government lawyers by ourselves.
No other media and not even civil liberties groups like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
That made me say, that took away all the love I felt at that London free speech event and replaced it with sadness.
Well, I will say to the credit of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, they did put a message of support out near the end of the case.
I think the case had been heard, but the decision hadn't been announced yet, and they've been supportive since.
But I do agree that there was a time when these things would be a given, that press freedom's under attack.
It's like a rampage of press and other media companies to the courtroom to say we're standing on principle.
And that hasn't happened now.
And I do think that the concerns I would raise on this are that everyone's so focused on the context of what happens if we support rebels' right to press freedom.
I don't know if we want to do that.
And that's very dangerous because the whole point of freedom is that it's not supposed to be contingent on whether you like or dislike the person, the outlet, or the position.
And now it is.
And we saw this after the London example, where people were actually Twitter harassing the reporters who stood up for Sheila and I because they're saying, oh my goodness, this is just this right-wing media conspiracy, which I find laughable for many reasons.
You know, they're legitimizing Rebel, same as when you had your op-ed on press freedom in the Globe and Mail.
Again, I'd say that's a win for free speech, you having that.
But then people say, oh, but you're legitimizing them.
And they're more concerned about what it means to their culture battle than what it means for the broader culture.
Yeah.
You know, I'm glad you reminded me of that Globe and Mail op-ed.
I was delighted to be published there because I was telling the story of censorship.
I was telling the story of how, in particular, we were kept out, me and Kian were kept out of a Christia Freeland press conference and had to be sort of smuggled in by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
We went in with his media delegation.
I thought that was really pitiful and lame.
I wrote about it in the Globe, and the reaction was almost comical.
It was like they were playing right into my narrative, my narrative.
The union, the Unifor Union for the Globe and Mail, wrote a scorching letter to their own editor, outraged that they would let me have an op-ed.
They didn't challenge what I said in the op-ed.
They were just angry that I was given a voice at all.
They proved my point.
I think that's a very dark sign, too, that a media union, the only thing they have to say about free speech is, let's have less of it.
That was in some ways a crazier moment than any.
Yeah.
Well, it's an interesting point you raise about the backdoor way into that press conference being through the U.S. Because when I was going through my ordeal, which you and I spoke about during the federal election campaign, just to give the brief primer for those not familiar with it, I was banned from covering Justin Trudeau's campaign.
They said I wasn't accredited media.
And at one point, I think we actually have the clip here, I was denied entry.
And then moments later, two students from, I think they were from a university in the Burnaby area were allowed in.
And I think we have that clip of them trying to justify why they did that.
Yeah, let's take a look at that.
You know inville in survival to Friday?
Hey.
I've been told, unfortunately, you're not an accredited person.
Okay, but you just asked her to show you articles so I can show you articles I've read.
I've just been told, unfortunately.
I know, but why was the benchmark for her?
Just, you know, pull up on her phone things she's written.
I can show you things I've written under my name.
My understanding is that accreditation wasn't provided.
But you just provided accreditation?
They had already been provided.
They were provided the news release and everything.
And so I knew where to come.
That's how I knew where to come.
So you see right there, they're making it up as they go.
But the point about the U.S. is important because I had tried to get a lot more attention to this in the Canadian media.
And I ended up having to go to the Washington Post, which published an op-ed of mine on this.
And that was, again, a great way to get exposure to this.
But it's amazing how there's a lot more interest in this, even in a Canadian context, from Americans than there is from Canadians.
You're so right.
And it shouldn't be that way.
I mean, I know they have their First Amendment, and I'm very jealous of that.
I wish we had it.
But we still do have a history.
I mean, I remember a few years back, I was trying to find a true Canadian free speech hero.
Well, we actually do have one.
His name is Joseph Howe.
He was the first Premier of Nova Scotia.
But before that, he was a newspaper publisher who exposed corruption in Halifax City Hall.
And they prosecuted him for seditious libel.
It was true what he said, but they prosecuted him anyways.
The judge directed a guilty verdict, but the jury acquitted.
And he was his own lawyer.
And his final argument was so powerful.
To this day, you can read it on the government of Nova Scotia's website.
Joseph Howe became a hero.
And it was a, I would call that the purest free speech moment in Canadian history.
It was, I don't know, about a little bit less, about 150 years ago.
And so it's a Canadian thing too, but I think it's being eroded just like in the UK.
I think Canada and the UK used to be just as free speechy as America, but somehow both Canada and the UK have lost it.
One of the most dismal things that we see in the Canadian government narrative on free speech is that freedom of speech is an American concept.
And you'll remember this actually back from the glory days of the Human Rights Commission fight.
One of the investigators or commissioners of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Dean Stesey, had testified in a deposition that, oh, freedom of speech is an American concept.
We don't have that here.
And more recently, when the Parliament of Canada was doing its study on online hate, basically the study on whether to revive Section 13, there was the commissioner of the Human Rights Commissions of Saskatchewan that got up and said something very similar that, well, I mean, we don't have and we've never had in Canada a right to free speech.
Now, this is, I think, very important because anytime someone tries to split hairs over freedom of speech versus freedom of expression, it's not because they're genuinely trying to find the constitutional answer to the question.
It's because they're trying to rationalize a desire for censorship that they already have.
And if anything, freedom of expression, which is how it's laid out in the charter, should be broader than free speech because speech is a form of expression.
I mean, if anything, if we go based on the wording alone, in Canada, that right includes the right to an interpretive dance, that includes the right to a solo, a poem, a speech, whatever.
But you have so many people that are hell-bent on this idea that everything has to be contextualized, that everything has to be limited, and they're far more concerned with how they can justify drawing those boundaries than they are with standing up for the fundamental principle of free speech.
And I include alongside that freedom of the press.
Focus On Facts00:04:00
Yeah.
You know, you mentioned you and us at the Rebel have been to interesting events together.
And by the way, I want to tell you, it's one of my favorite things to see you in another city at something we're doing because it makes me feel less alone.
I mean, I never feel truly alone.
I know our viewers are with us.
But when we saw you at that London Media Freedom event, it made me feel good that we weren't by ourselves.
And you came, I think, a few times, two or three times, to London for the trials of Tommy Robinson.
And our viewers know he's a colorful character who sometimes gets certain things wrong.
But on the core issue of free speech, he's a canary in the coal mine and he gets that dead right.
I use the phrase, Andrew, that going to the UK to see Tommy Robinson is my own personal dystopian time machine.
It's like I looked five years into the future of our own censorship.
Can you give our viewers your view?
Because everyone's heard me on Tommy probably 50 times.
But you were there in the court in the UK watching how the law was used to silence some of the things Tommy was saying, but also, and maybe you could speak to this, how the other media there handled the whole thing.
Give us your thoughts on that.
Well, the one thing I will say, and this is not, and I told you so by any stretch, I was a lot less optimistic than you seem to be throughout that hearing, the one in which he was ultimately found to have committed contempt.
And not because I thought that the prosecutor was making stellar cases, but just because I saw the way the institution had been applied against him.
And I think you were looking too much at the facts of the case, which is dangerous in British courts, I've learned.
You can't focus too much on the facts.
But I do think that the one big thing we saw there is that everyone had made up their mind before it began.
And the media is certainly not the exception to that.
They're the rule.
I mean, I don't want to go back and rehash the past, but I do have to remind people of that scoop that I literally just stumbled upon by sitting down and being innocuous looking at the very first appearance of Tommy's that I went to in London, which I think was going back to when would have been?
I think it would have been October of 2018.
And that was when the reporters sitting beside me and behind me were talking about, oh, we know he's guilty.
Let's change the crowd size number because I don't like the one that the police gave us.
And yeah, he did it.
I mean, and they're just terrible people.
And I can't remember if it was that visit or another one where they were saying that you need to be sent to jail for fomenting hate.
I mix it all up, but this is the type of stuff we were hearing from the media.
And then, of course, the media is getting its knickers in a knot because they're being called the enemy of the people.
Well, you're maligning someone who has a great deal of support.
You're maligning someone who's standing up for an issue that the mainstream media ignored.
You're indicting someone in print before the judge has actually even heard the case, let alone decided on it.
And then you dare to question why you don't have the complete and unfettered trust of the audience.
And the profound arrogance that I saw in that trial specifically, far beyond what I've seen in Canada or in America from the media, was baffling to me.
Well, I know exactly what you mean.
I was on the stage with you and it was just such a, and there were, I think there were like 3,000 people outside the courthouse.
And so you told this story.
I think this story is important for two ways.
Number one, it shows that the media in the UK were not doing their traditional job of holding the government to account.
They were holding a citizen to account on behalf of the government.
And second of all, they were actually making up a story.
Here, I'll let you say it in your own words as you said it that day in London.
Censorship Mandates and Heritage00:09:58
Take a look.
The mainstream media did not know who I was, being the undocumented foreigner in this land.
And they were speaking a little candidly.
Would you like to hear what they said?
So where's Ezra, my personal favorite?
And by the way, this will be quoted on my website later today with their publication name.
My personal favorite was about our friend Ezra Levant.
He needs to be arrested With what they said Before the proceeding even started, this is what they said about Tommy.
Quote, he is in contempt of court.
There's not really any doubt.
And there was one more.
You see, one of the great members of the law enforcement who have done a lot of great work today said to them, at the time there were about 1,500 people, they said, let's just say a few hundred, quote, because we don't want to give it credit.
That's why I'm here.
Thank you.
Well, I thought that was incredible, but let me bring it back to Canada because Justin Trudeau was re-elected and he's sent out new mandate letters, they're called, to his cabinet ministers.
So those are sort of, here's your job description.
And he updated the mandate letter for the Minister of Heritage.
And I'd like to read to you just one new point from the mandate letter for the Minister of Heritage, because this was not there until now.
I'm just going to read it off my phone, but you can find this online at the Prime Minister's own website.
One of the to-do lists for Stephen Gilbo, the new heritage minister, is, quote, create new regulations for social media platforms, starting with a requirement that all platforms remove illegal content, including hate speech, within 24 hours or face significant penalties.
So basically, it's internet censorship.
And I've never heard of a justice system that can hear a substantive case in 24 hours.
So if you're saying take down any hate speech, whatever that means, within 24 hours or face a huge fine, every single social media company is going to take down every single thing because they're not going to risk getting it wrong and you can't figure it out in 24 hours.
This basically says when the government tells you to delete something, you'd better delete it.
That's my interpretation of this.
Yeah, this is baffling to me in many ways that there isn't more media criticism of this.
And I was in the committee meetings in June specifically when the Justice and Human Rights Committee was weighing this.
And what really came about from those testimonies and also from the report that was tabled before Parliament is that the government wants to deputize big tech to do the work that government itself could never get away with doing.
Because now, if the government's prosecuting you for hate speech, as heavy-handed as it is, and as much as a kangaroo court as the Canadian Human Rights Commission is, there's at the very least some sunlight to that.
Now what's happening is Facebook is deciding we're going to get rid of this on its own, which as a private company, it can set whatever boundary it wants to.
But they're doing it now with the backing and with the threat of punishment from the state.
And if you're Facebook, especially Facebook and Twitter, which are American companies, Canada is just such an itty-bitty cog in their global operations.
They aren't going to want to deal with the hassle of litigating hate speech cases in Canada.
So it's easy for them to, as you say, just go along with the lie that this is hate speech.
And that is hate speech.
Nowhere in the Heritage Minister's mandate letter is there a definition of hate speech.
Nowhere in the report on online hate that was produced by the Justice Committee is there a definition of hate speech.
Nowhere in the mandate letter is there a commitment that the Heritage Minister must define hate speech.
They're just saying this is what you have to do.
And it's not just heritage, Ezra.
Four different ministers in their mandate letters had online hate mandates there, including the public safety minister, the justice minister, the diversity minister, and the heritage minister.
So this is going to be a priority that spans at the very least four ministries and not even working with a definition of what it is they're prosecuting.
You know, it's incredible.
And I've been the subject of complaints online.
Twitter, for example, they never tell you who the complainant is, except in one case, I was told that it was the government of Pakistan.
I've also seen some people say the government of Germany, because those are two countries that have extreme censorship laws.
By the way, it just made me remember when I was in that London Media Freedom Conference with you, I stumbled upon the foreign minister of Pakistan.
I didn't even know that's who he was.
And I was a little shouty.
But just for old time's sake, let me show you when I bumped into the foreign minister of Pakistan and I was very mad at him because he was trying to censor me using an American platform called Twitter in Canada.
He was trying to use his Pakistani law.
Here, take a look at this.
I'm really sorry, but we're kind of running out of time.
We've got a lot of panel session.
I wonder if there are any questions very briefly for Minister Prokofsky.
I see there are not.
There is one.
Yes, very quick one.
Thanks.
Actually, I'm not going to be directed by you.
I'm going to ask a question to the Pakistani gentleman.
No, you're not.
Yes, I am.
This is the Media Freedom Conference, and you're not going to shut down questions about a censor.
You censored me, sir.
I have a Twitter account in Canada, and because I wrote something that traduced some Pakistani blasphemy law, you complained to Twitter, which took down my tweet in Canada.
So can you explain why your Islamic supremacy in Pakistan is silencing my personal and journalistic freedom in Canada?
And I know it happens in the United States, too.
And frankly, you sure should be embarrassed to invite a censor like this.
But back to the thug.
Who the hell are you to censor me in Canada?
Answer.
Now, I don't like.
I know you don't because you don't like free speech.
You don't like free speech.
Okay, would you like to answer?
I just respond to you, sir.
First of all, you want your sentiments to be respected.
Just look at the journey and the dynamics you've adopted.
Is that the correct way?
You have a right to ask questions.
Well, then why did you censor me?
Did I censor you?
You shut down my Twitter talk.
I did not.
Don't lie.
How can I?
How am I responsible for that?
Because the government of Pakistan is the government of Pakistan.
I'm not respectful to you.
No, you were not.
You censored me.
I did not censor you.
Don't lie.
All right.
Why would I lie?
Because that's what you do.
I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
Shame on you and shame on you.
Shame on you and shame on you for inviting us.
Shame on you.
You forget it.
You censorious thug.
You censorious thug.
And what you call freedom with your face.
You are projecting certain sectors at your dog.
Now, Andrew, at least I knew that it was the government of Pakistan that was trying to censor me there.
I'm not sure if we will even know if it's the government of Canada or a politician or who that's telling these social media companies to censor us under the, I mean, we'll have to wait and see what the regulations are, but Justin Trudeau sure seems intent on censoring people he doesn't like and doing it before they have a chance for a meaningful process.
24 hours?
There's no legal process that works in 24 hours, not that I've heard of.
Well, and there will be no remedy or no appeal if they get it wrong.
And, you know, one of the things that I would hope to, I mean, I'd hope to see this not happen, but if it is going to happen, if you're Googling something, for example, like let's say you're Googling Game of Thrones, you'll see a notice at the bottom of the results page often that says, and you can probably throw up an example of this, you know, we've removed X number of results because of copyright complaints or complaints under the, I think it's the DCMA or the DMCA Act, whatever it is.
And I would love to see something like that on social media, where if you're removing the content, you better say because of a directive from the federal government.
We're removing this, not because you violated our terms of service, but because the government told us to.
And I would love to see a lot more transparency around that if this is the direction we're going to go.
Very interesting.
Well, I guess what I'm taking away from this conversation is that 2020 will even be tougher for free speech than 2019.
That's how I'm, I didn't know this was in four different ministries, this requirement to censor that makes it four times as bad and four times as likely that it'll happen.
Last word to you, Andrew.
Thanks for giving so much your time.
And by the way, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and keep up the fight.
Merry Christmas & Happy New Year00:01:26
We're big.
Oh, Facebook's going to take that down.
You can't say Merry Christmas now.
That's right.
That's hate speech that'll be taken down from Twitter.
We're real fans of True North because I feel like you guys are fighting for freedom, not just in your journalism, but you were there with us in court.
So I didn't feel alone that day.
And I know that I just am going to make a prediction right now.
Both you and us will be censored in some way in the year ahead.
And I hope that we can fight back and maybe even get a few more allies going.
It sure would be nice.
But even if we're fighting alone, we've got our viewers with us.
Last word to you, my friend.
You know, what I will say, I think, first off, thank you for dedicating so much time to this topic.
Censorship is the enemy of speech, but by the extension, speech is the enemy of censorship.
And I think that it's important that you never tow to this narrative and to this pressure.
I'm fighting it in my own way.
I'm going to be relaunching my old show, The Andrew Lawton Show, as a podcast in the new year.
The antidote to this is going to be speech.
So I'm happy to be in this fight, and I'm happy you're here in it as well.
Right on.
Well, I can hardly wait for that show to be launched.
And folks who aren't already supporters of Andrew can find his work at tnc.news.
Is that right?
That's correct.
TNC.news.
All right.
Take care, my friend.
Thanks so much.
You too.
Thanks.
Okay.
Well, there you have it, our good friend Andrew Lawton.
That's it for today.
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, see you at home.