Stephen Gilbeau, Canada’s new Heritage Minister under Justin Trudeau, proposed a February 3rd plan requiring all websites—including global outlets like Breitbart, The New York Times, and Mother Jones—to register and obtain government licensing via CRTC oversight, mirroring China and Iran. Critics, including Conservative MPs Michelle Rempel and Aaron O’Toole, warn of unconstitutional censorship, citing Gilbeau’s past as an environmental extremist who lobbied against pipelines and was arrested for scaling the CN Tower. Meanwhile, journalist David Menzies faces a $600M taxpayer-funded media crackdown after York Regional Police obstructed his questioning of Rogers exec Ron McClain, allegedly coordinating with corporate staff—a lawsuit may expose these ties. Gilbeau’s pushback against outlets like Rebel News, combined with politicized policing and Trudeau’s second-term hostility toward dissent, signals a dangerous expansion of state control over free speech. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I have incredible footage for you from Stephen Gilbeau, the former environmental extremist, foreign-funded lobbyist, who is now the Heritage Minister.
And the number two item on his mandate letter is to bring in internet censorship.
He's got 23 items that Trudeau told him to accomplish.
Number two is censor the internet.
And over the weekend, oh boy, did he let it rip.
I'll show you the footage and show you some of the reaction to it.
I guess I'll tell you about it because you're listening to the podcast, but may I invite you to see it with your own eyes, which I think is powerful.
In fact, I show a picture of him being arrested, Stephen Gilbeau, the new heritage minister.
I want you to see that.
To do this, so it's really easy.
Just go to premium.rebelnews.com, premium.rebelnews.com, and you get the video version of this podcast, plus a couple more shows by Sheila Gunn Reed and David Menzies.
It's eight bucks a month, which is half of Netflix.
Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, Justin Trudeau's heritage minister announces that every website in Canada must now get a government license.
I guess he really does, like China and Iran.
It's February 3rd, 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 publish it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Hey, did you see this on CTV over the weekend?
Yeah, but sir, to be fair, you've got an agency that wants to enhance its scope of powers to determine what's a trusted news source.
So the first question will be, who's to define that?
You've got a lot of these.
This is a recommendation event.
The CRTC hasn't decided.
Okay, but they're recommending that.
They're recommending that content providers have to register and get a license.
So how will this work?
How are you going to regulate websites?
How are you going to register all that?
Do you buy these recommendations?
Well, I mean, one of the recommendations, so you're talking about a couple of different things here.
But as far as the licensing is concerned, if you're a distributor of content in Canada, and obviously, you know, if you're a very small media organization, the requirement probably wouldn't be the same as if you're Facebook or Google.
So there would have to be some proportionality embedded into this.
But we would ask that they have a license.
Yes.
Just like right now, with the old system in Canada, distributors needed to go to the CRTC and to have a license.
24 Hours of Censorship00:06:25
That scruffy guy is named Stephen Gilbeau.
He's a new member of parliament and he's been appointed to cabinet as the heritage minister.
He's awful.
A lifelong environmental extremist from Montreal, where he ran the foreign-funded lobby group called Equitaire.
He was basically a full-time anti-oil, anti-pipeline activist.
I was worried he was going to be appointed environment minister, but I think there must have been someone in the government.
I don't know who that is, but I'd like to meet that person who said, whoa, whoa, whoa, that's just too extreme, even for the party of Gerald Budds and Catherine McKenna.
So they did something probably even worse, actually.
They put him in as heritage minister.
Now, that's normally a pretty junior ministry.
It's a fun ministry because you get all the cultural industry sucking up to you as minister 24-7 because they're all looking for grants and bailouts and other goodies.
So if you're fine with that morally, it's probably the most fun position in the whole of the government.
Non-stop invitations to gala events, red carpet events, movie premieres, C-list Canadian celebrities, all the goodie bags, all the little comped, you know, free stuff, everyone flattering you, everyone begging you.
You get to play being a billionaire.
You get to play being a casting director, but with someone else's money.
Harvey Weinstein would have loved it.
I don't know if Stephen Gilbo likes that kind of stuff.
I think he's more of a radical activist than just a gladhander.
And Trudeau has given him a very specific mission.
Censor the internet.
You know, every cabinet minister has a job description, a to-do list called a mandate letter.
Gilbo has 23 jobs in his mandate letter.
But on the list, the second item, the second priority out of 23, is to regulate the internet, to censor it.
And I don't know if you can see the fine print here, but the censorship that Gilbo has been ordered to do by Trudeau is very specific, incredibly specific, weirdly specific, to give the government the power to knock things off the internet within 24 hours of a complaint.
And I'm sorry, life doesn't work like that in a free country.
Imagine some member of parliament out at a bar on a Saturday night sees something on their smartphone they don't like, like maybe this video on YouTube, and drunk dials YouTube and says, take that down.
I imagine the drunk dialed call would sound a little bit like this.
And I got screened shit.
So it's really amazing.
But the funny thing is, so you think like it's amazing, you got screened shit, you hear all these facts about Newfoundland.
And what the hell are they doing now?
They're fighting about the facts about Newfoundland.
And did they really get them right?
So what's the discussion now, boys?
What we were talking about, is St. John's the oldest city in North America.
And there's some debate about that.
He was saying that it could be Missouri.
But we firmly believe it is because there's nobody from Missouri here.
But you know, I actually gave him some real advice.
I said that if you actually say it louder, we've learned in the House of Commons.
If you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that is your talking point, people will totally believe it.
Okay, so now YouTube has 24 hours to take down this video.
There's no time for a trial or even to let the person know anything's afoot.
It's really nuts.
It's un-Canadian.
We don't do anything immediately in the law unless there's an imminent harm to life or limb.
In real life, unless there's like a rampaging murderer, well, in a fair court, things take time, weeks, months, even years if they're fair.
Gilbo has specifically been told to be unfair.
You know, the whole judge, jury, executioner in 24 hours, it reminds me of what Trudeau said he likes best about China.
Not their history or their culture or their language or their art or their architecture or their food or anything like that.
The thing he likes best about China is their basic dictatorship, which he specifically says lets them do things without wasting time on things like being fair.
There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime.
Yeah.
So as you know, last week a panel of lobbyists and insiders handpicked by Trudeau wrote an enormous report demanding the total regulation of all media in Canada, from cell phones to streaming sites like Netflix, who they really seem to hate for some reason.
Even though Netflix spent a billion dollars in Canada last year, that's pretty great.
I think the reason the Liberals really, really hate Netflix is that it is a huge success with people voluntarily.
People pay, depending on your plan, up to $17 a month.
And they do it willingly.
And they do it en masse.
I see credible reports that 6.5 million Canadian homes have Netflix.
Remember, that's homes, households.
So, you know, there's what, two or three people per home.
That's pretty much half of Canadians choose to pay to watch Netflix.
Compare that to the number I showed you the other day from the CBC's own annual report, where barely 1% of Canadians watch CBC News flagship show, The National, and not many more watch their other stuff.
So yeah, I think it's jealousy and frustration on the part of the Liberals that people actually like or even love Netflix and voluntarily pay for it, whereas no one watches Trudeau State Broadcaster and the government has to force you to pay for it by extracting the money through your taxes.
So Liberals hate Netflix for reasons of rivalry and jealousy and inferiority complex, but they also hate Facebook, YouTube, Google, Twitter for a different reason.
They aren't just rivals for entertainment, which all those media are.
They're rivals for political information.
That's where people get their news these days.
Trudeau hates that if he can't control that.
And Gilbeau, a lifelong radical activist, he hates that with the heat of a thousand sons.
Rivals for Political Information00:14:10
He wants to ban websites that aren't trustworthy.
Well, I think the CBC is untrustworthy.
I know they are.
They lie all the time about Donald Trump, about global warming, about Russia, about oil and gas industries.
They definitely lie about Trudeau, but that's just my opinion.
Others would disagree.
They would say the CBC is full of truth.
And in a free country, we get to disagree.
Everyone gets their say.
The viewer decides at the end, I don't want to ban the CBC.
I don't want to have to pay for it anymore.
But Gilbo and Trudeau literally want to ban ideas they don't like.
That's their licensing system.
So they're at the point where they will literally send police after authors and tell them they have to register their books with the government.
The knowledge that you would have or not have of the Election Act, Canada Elections Act, when you are planning the book and the new third-party rules, because I believe there's some comments on your site as well about that, did you give any consideration of saying maybe I should register as a third party for this circumstance?
Or maybe I shouldn't because of my interpretation of what I'm going to do?
Or did you not make that determination?
Yeah, it's not a coincidence that my book is being investigated at the same time as this web censorship.
But let's look at that CTV clip again.
Gilbo doesn't say a lot, actually.
I don't know if he's simply not well briefed or if he's just practiced at being a fog generating machine, a BSer.
Evan Solomon is pretty much the best interviewer in Ottawa when it comes to cutting through the fog machines.
He always was the most effective at getting through the BS emanating from Catherine McKenna.
Here's Evan Solomon asking Stephen Gilbo what constitutes a trustworthy news source.
Okay, so here's another concern.
I'll just raise some of these red flags.
There is a concern that the panel wants to regulate international companies as well.
So let me take an example of a controversial site like Breitbart.
How would the government force a company like Breitbart, I don't know, the New York Times, Mother Jones, the Daily Mail, how would they force those companies to comply with rules of Canadian content, discoverability?
And if they don't comply, what happens?
Will Canadians be blocked from accessing international sites?
I don't think that's what's recommended in the report, that these sites be blocked in Canada.
Frankly, I'm not sure I see what the big deal is.
I mean, we have an incredible number of international corporations that are operating in Canada in all sorts of sectors, in financial sector, in the construction sector, in the energy sector.
And these companies comply with Canadian rules and laws.
We're a sovereign state, and what is true of Canada is true of the United States, and it's true of France and Great Britain and Japan.
So we're not asking these companies to do this extraordinary things that no other companies have been asked to do before.
We're asking them to simply abide by the rules and regulations that we have in our country.
I like that Solomon mentioned Breitbart.com.
You know, those guys we interviewed, Joel Pollack and Alan Bokari and others.
Breitbart's a huge website and it's conservative and Solomon knows it drives leftists like Gilbo crazy.
But he also makes the point about the New York Times and others too.
Who gets to decide?
That's a good question.
We did not get a good answer.
But the key passage was this one.
Or Gilbo, after dodging for a bit, admits, yeah, yes.
Every single website in the world needs to be licensed if it is to be watched or read or clicked in Canada.
Let me talk about the scope of this new regulatory body, the new regime.
In order to make Canadian content what they call discoverable, easy to access, there'll be the imposition of requirements on what you guys call sharers or aggregators, content creators.
I'm going to read you what it says in the report.
Links to the websites of Canadian sources of, quote, accurate, trusted, and reliable sources of news with a view to ensuring the diversity of voices.
Question, sir.
Who will determine what trusted news sources are?
The government?
Is it appropriate for the government to determine what's a trusted news source?
First thing I have to say is this is a panel that was created by our government in 2018.
They went across the country.
They've met hundreds of people, experts.
They've received close to 2,000 submissions as part of their work.
And these are recommendations for the government.
As you said initially, there's 97 of these recommendations.
So we will be, so it's not the government of Canada saying this is what we're going to do.
This panel is making recommendations to us, and we will be studying these recommendations very closely.
I've heard some people say that, oh my God, you know, the government is going to decide what we see on the web.
Hold on a second.
Canada is not about to take over the World Wide Web.
That's not what we're talking about here.
Not at all.
So he started off with a lie.
He implied this isn't a government commission.
And he said he'll study their report.
And he said he wouldn't take over the World Wide Web, which actually no one accused him of doing.
But Evan Solomon is smarter than your average journalist, so he simply asked the question again instead of accepting FBS.
Yeah, but sir, to be fair, you've got an agency that wants to enhance its scope of powers to determine what's a trusted news source.
So the first question will be, who's to define that?
You've got a lot of these.
This is a recommendation, Evan.
The CRTC hasn't decided.
Okay, but they're recommending that.
They're recommending that content providers have to register and get a license.
So how will this work?
How are you going to regulate websites?
How are you going to register all that?
Do you buy these recommendations?
Well, I mean, one of the recommendations, so you're talking about a couple of different things here, but as far as the licensing is concerned, if you're a distributor of content in Canada, and obviously, you know, if you're a very small media organization, the requirement probably wouldn't be the same as if you're Facebook or Google.
So there would have to be some proportionality embedded into this.
But we would ask that they have a license, yes.
Just like right now, but with the old system in Canada, distributors needed to go to the CRTC and to have a license.
Oh, so they will have to register with the government companies, big and small, just all of them.
So big companies like Facebook and little ones, I guess anyone on the internet, because you don't have to have a company to have a million followers on a social media platform or to set up your own website.
Listen to this.
I'll just raise some of these red flags.
There is a concern that the panel wants to regulate international companies as well.
So let me take an example of a controversial site like Breitbart.
How would the government force a company like Breitbart, I don't know, the New York Times, Mother Jones, the Daily Mail, how would they force those companies to comply with rules of Canadian content, discoverability?
And if they don't comply, what happens?
Will Canadians be blocked from accessing international sites?
I don't think that's what's recommended in the report that these sites be blocked in Canada.
Frankly, I'm not sure I see what the big deal is.
I mean, we have an incredible number of international corporations that are operating in Canada in all sorts of sectors, in the financial sector, in the construction sector, in the energy sector.
And these companies comply with Canadian rules and laws.
We're a sovereign state, and what is true of Canada is true of the United States, and it's true of France and Great Britain and Japan.
So we're not asking these companies to do this extraordinary things that no other companies have been asked to do before.
We're asking them to simply abide by the rules and regulations that we have in our country.
But Minister, digital world is different than shipping logs, and you know that.
So in a way, he does seek to take over the World Wide Web.
I mean, they mentioned Breitbart earlier.
They're based in Los Angeles.
Breitbart has reporters around the United States.
And all you have to do here in Canada is to click on it.
Do you think that Breitbart in Los Angeles, lovers of the First Amendment, by the way, do you think they're going to come up to Canada and fill out paperwork and register with Stephen Gilbo and get a license?
You think they're going to do that?
And when they don't, and when a billion other internet companies around the world laugh at Stephen Gilbo, well, they won't even laugh because they won't even be listening to them.
They won't even care.
They won't even hear about this.
What's he going to do about it?
He's going to sue them?
Where?
For what?
They're not here.
The only people who are here that Gilbo and Trudeau can punish are Canadians.
So what's he going to do to us?
Well, I think he might ban these websites like China does, building their great firewall of China.
That's what little tyrannies like China, it's a big tyranny in North Korea and Pakistan do.
They want to license the internet too.
The world sort of laughs at them.
So they ban the internet.
So yeah, Facebook's shut out of the lucrative ad market of Pakistan or whatever.
Twitter's heavily censored there.
So basically Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, China, places like that, they blindfold their own people because their people won't stop looking at things the government doesn't want them to look at.
So they block their own people from learning about the world.
In China, where it's most developed, it's called the Great Firewall of China.
You know, I started tweeting about this incredulously yesterday, and people who aren't Canadian were shocked by it.
People who are Canadian are now used to it, which is very sad.
We should stay shocked.
It goes without saying that not a single Canadian civil liberties or journalism group has any objection to this, just like they didn't have a word to say about me being grilled for writing a book.
But look at this, a senior executive at Facebook saw my tweet and replied to me.
This sounds odd, he says, and he put that confused, smiley face.
Here's his biography, director of product at Facebook, leading trust integrity for ads and business products, two-time startup founder, Trails and Mountains fan, CFA.
Now, I wrote back to him on Twitter saying, thanks for the retweet.
Trudeau and his cabinet don't care much about civil liberties, but they obsess about being seen as cool by Facebook executives like you.
Your tweet alone could stop this, and your lawyers could under the USMCA for sure.
I think that's how it's going to go.
I think Canada will accept this censorship.
What, you think the NDP and the Blockhead Bacquoir are going to oppose it and bring down the government over it?
All the media is for it.
They were bought off last year for $600 million, pretty cheap.
So what's a license to them?
They know they're already approved.
They also know who won't be approved, and they're fine with that too.
I scanned the media hard for feedback from the 121 Conservative MPs.
I saw very little.
So let me give the few who spoke out some credit.
This is Michelle Rempel in question period last week.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday a government-appointed panel enthusiastically recommended that the government should control what news coverage Canadians should be allowed to see.
Under this Liberal plan, the Liberals would be able to force all news sites to prominently link all of their coverage to liberal government-approved websites.
This would have an instant chill effect on free speech and diversity of thought in the Canadian media ecosystem.
Does the government think that Canadians are too dumb to think for themselves?
And here's Aaron O'Toole, the leadership candidate.
He says, I'm offended by the idea that media organizations must please Justin Trudeau or face government sanctions.
This has no place in a free country.
Help me fight Trudeau's agenda to control what news you see.
I think this is my favorite response.
It's not from a federal MP.
The other 119 Tories were silent.
I think Andrew Scheer was busy at some dairy meeting or something.
But this is from an Alberta cabinet minister who says the Trudeau Liberals have quickly gone from paying off journalists to regulating who is free to speak.
It's clear they have no tolerance for opposing views.
It's dangerous, unconstitutional, and the public needs to speak up while it's still free to do it.
Tough stuff.
That's great stuff.
That's Devin Drieshen.
I hope he's not pressured to take that down.
That's bold talk for a cabinet minister, even a provincial cabinet minister, but where's everybody else?
I mean, everyone else.
If you need help to imagine what the response should be like, what do you think would have happened if Stephen Harper had said he was going to force websites to get licenses?
What do you think would have happened if a liberal author, Margaret Atwood, Naomi Klein, had been interrogated on Harper's Watch?
Other than Rex Murphy and the National Post, I haven't seen any mainstream media reaction to my interrogation because they're sort of fine with it.
And they're sort of fine with being licensed.
They're sort of fine with censorship because they know that they please the masters enough to be on the right side of things.
They're cashing the checks.
As I mentioned, before Stephen Gilbo was an MP, he was an environmental extremist.
Here he is being arrested after illegally scaling the CN Tower in some weird stunt against fossil fuels or whatever, as if he doesn't ride a chauffeured limousine now, but he's an extremist willing to break the law.
And now he's in charge of making the law.
Do you doubt he'll abuse him?
Oh, I didn't tell you.
He hates rebel news and he hates me personally.
He even once implied that I, as a Jew, support Nazis or something.
Here's just a few of his bizarre attacks on me and rebel news over the years.
Anti-Cop Advocacy00:15:31
He's unhinged.
He's imbalanced.
And now he thinks he's my boss?
He wants to censor me.
He wants to license me.
How do you think that's going to end?
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
I tell you, half the time at the Rebel here, we spend fighting against censorship.
That's not our purpose.
We started The Rebel to tell the news.
Our motto is telling the other side of the story.
But I mean, just think about it.
Today we have news about licenses the government wants to put on news media.
You saw when I was interrogated by the Election Commissioner for writing a book.
And one of the most alarming trends that I see is when police become politicized and block our journalists.
I just want to be a journalist.
I just want to tell the stories.
But I find half our time and half our money is spent fighting the government.
Here is one of the most disconcerting moments of this censorship.
This was a few weeks back when our friend David Menzies went to ask a question to Ron McClain of Hockey Night in Canada.
Maybe you don't care about sports, maybe you don't care about Don Cherry, but this is how it looked.
Take a look.
Hey, Ron, how are you doing?
Great, how are you doing?
Good, sir.
I'm just wondering, how do you feel about the ratings for Hockey Night in Canada plummeting?
Excuse me.
No, Yeah, by the way.
Since Don Cherry was fired.
I wouldn't know, sir.
Excuse me.
I'm in a public place.
Ron, why did you throw Ron under the bus?
Please, please, stop.
Excuse me.
I'm in a public place.
Don't pay.
Do not hit me.
Do it.
You just hit me.
You just hit me.
I'm trying to get around you.
You're holding me back.
Hey, are we going to push it around that?
I'm trying to do my job.
You're not trying to do your job.
You're trying to get out of here.
I'm in a public place.
Yes, you're not allowed to hit me like this.
I didn't hit you.
I've got on camera.
Okay.
Perfect.
Listen, you can sit there and film me, but you can't shove the microphone in my face.
Okay, then I'll be on my way.
No, you won't.
Not in here.
Are you kidding me?
I note that Ron McClain himself, who I regard as a bit of a coward, but he never said, stop talking to me, stop harassing me.
In fact, Ron McClain went on to promise that he would do an interview with David Menzies.
He hasn't kept that promise, but he had no time to say he says to the police, help, help.
I'm being asked questions.
Note that this is on a public sidewalk at a public facility, and that David himself is polite.
I mean, is he annoying?
Well, if you don't want to be asked questions, I suppose any journalist is annoying.
And these police physically shove him around, knock him down.
And by the way, they changed their excuse about three times.
Well, but we're going to do something about it.
In fact, we have.
We have filed a lawsuit against the York Regional Police.
Now, those are words I never thought I would say in my life.
Suing the police.
What am I?
Some anti-fah hippie, some leftist activist?
No.
I'm someone who says you can't push our reporters.
can't knock our reporters down because you're protecting some CBC or some Rogers TV celebrity.
That's not how we roll in Canada.
And if you need a judge to tell it to you, so be it.
And joining us now is our friend David Menzies.
How you doing, David?
Very good.
I'm taking a real risk here.
You know, I live in Wood York Region, right?
Next time I get pulled over, I think they might throw the book at me now.
But anyways, it's important to stand up for that.
There's two ways it could go.
One is they say, oh, huh.
They're fighting back.
We might have to explain ourselves in front of a judge.
Huh, let's actually do our jobs and be cops now instead of weird enforcers.
The other is, yeah, maybe they're going to hit you with a vengeance and maybe us too.
Well, you know, time will tell, of course.
But Ezra, I think it's important to parlay on your point.
This is not about being anti-cop, certainly.
This is actually about being pro-rule of law.
Police officers are to uphold the law, but they can't break the law and upholding the law.
What they did to me, let's see, there was assault, there was forcible confinement.
You noted the trail of lies in changing their story three times as to why they were detaining me.
One was an allegation that I had assaulted them, which was me just trying to get around them.
The second one was trespassing.
Well, we were on public streets.
This was a Rogers hometown hockey event.
There were pavilions, which were open to the public.
I didn't even go to the pavilions.
I was on the streets of Vaughan, Ontario.
And then, of course, there was them saying it was almost like the Minority Report Thought Crimes Unit, where we're trying to prevent you from harassing Ron McClain as though that's somehow a crime in itself.
Yeah, and the one guy saying, you're not a journalist, the implication there.
You know, no one is allowed to do an assault.
And just because they're wearing a uniform and a badge and a gun doesn't let them make an assault.
If you had started swimming, it's unthinkable.
But if you had gone up to them and started swinging punches, oh, you bet they'd have every right, as any private citizen would, to physically defend themselves and their cops, so they're packing heat.
But you were packing nothing other than a microphone.
And it's almost like they were instructed in advance by Rogers and Ron McClain's staff, watch out for David Menzies.
He's a really bad man and silence him.
Now, I'm just guessing because when we actually saw Ron McClain, he never once asked for you to be silenced.
Those cops did his dirty work for him.
Oh, you know, Ezra, you don't have to guess because Rogers did indeed have a discussion with the police.
Once they got Ron to the area where he was doing autographs and selfies, I was outside waiting patiently because I knew he'd have to go back to the portable broadcast booth.
And there was a fellow from Rogers, first name is Kevin, and it was almost like a huddle in football.
There was about eight or nine York Region cops, and I was filming through the window, and Kevin is sort of ordering them around.
And then what happens?
The nice cop comes out to me, and he's saying, oh, by the way, we're going to organize an interview with some Rogers employee.
And meanwhile, I see them sneaking them out.
So he was doing, that was their big master plan.
He was causing a diversion so that they could sneak him out.
But I was looking over his shoulder all the time and I didn't fall for it.
How bizarre that taxpayer paid police, and I don't know what a cop makes these days.
It wouldn't surprise me if they're around the $100,000.
Sure.
So you got $100,000 a year cops, and they're probably making overtime for working at night like that, or who knows what this shift is like.
And you see, and I saw there was a lot of them.
Yes.
Wow, it must be nice to be a media company that can have $100,000 a year cops with guns doing your PR for you and taking out critical competitive journalists.
That's so weird.
It's so inappropriate.
I was so upset when I saw them knock you down and then say, oh, be careful, buddy.
Be careful, buddy.
It almost reminded me of a scene of a group of young thugs taking on.
It reminded me of the opening scene of the movie The Joker a little bit.
And I'm bothered when anyone hits a rebel reporter.
We sued the guy who hit Sheila Gunread a couple years back.
We sued him for years and we got him.
When a cop hits your people unprovoked, unprovoked.
You got to take your foot down, put your foot down.
And we are.
And we have filed a lawsuit and it is on a website now.
What's the website?
StanWithDavid.ca.
And there's a promo going up very shortly, might already be up, Ezra, where, as you rightly pointed out, this is going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars to pursue.
The York Regional Police, of course, have the endless taxpayer trough to get their legal fees from.
And yeah, you're right.
I mean, this is not, and I don't want to say to anybody that is pro-law enforcement, this is not an anti-cop thing.
This is anti-bad cop, or at least anti-cops behaving badly.
And, you know, I want to add another thing.
You mentioned all these police that were there.
Who was putting the bill?
Were they there on duty, meaning the taxpayer was indeed paying their salaries?
Or were they paid duty cops?
So they're off duty, but they're in uniform, and Rogers is paying the $87 an hour, whatever that fee is.
Because there was tons of cops, and when they escorted Ron back, it was quite an amazing visual.
It's like a donut where the outside are the police officers, about eight or nine of them, and Ron is the jelly in the donut.
And me walking alongside of them.
It was surreal.
And another important point, as you mentioned too, Ron at no time said, no interviews.
I don't want to talk to you.
I feel like you're harassing me.
Because the very next week, Ezra, I went back down to Ancaster, suburb of Hamilton.
There was another Rogers hometown hockey there.
And to my incredible surprise and delight, Ron on camera, and you can watch this video, folks, says on my word of honor, I will give you an interview, but not right now.
Fair enough.
He's busy.
He's doing a broadcast.
It's been exactly two weeks to the day since I last spoke to a Rogers communications person.
I'm wondering, surely they're not going to just play out the clock on this and wait for hockey season to end.
He said my word of honor.
So here, let's show that clip right now.
Take a look at this.
I really appreciate you coming out.
I would love to do an interview with you.
We're in the midst of a live broadcast.
So if you're an interview wrong with our publicity, anytime.
Well, whether or not he actually does an interview with you goes to what his word of honor means.
But for the purposes of our lawsuit against the York Regional Police, it shows that you were not doing anything bad because he not only, Ronald Clay not only doesn't think you were harassing him, he positively invited you to meet with him.
So any pretext, any excuse there is gone.
I'm hoping that this lawsuit, because it's a civil lawsuit, will smoke out the communications they had between Rogers and the cops.
What did Rogers tell the cops?
What did the cops promise Rogers?
Yes.
Rogers, that's very interesting to me.
When we sued, when Sheila got hit by that thug, Deion Bewes, I don't remember the exact amount, but it was over 30 grand.
These cops, as you point out, it's York Regional Police.
I don't know, they're probably a billion-dollar organization.
I'd have to check.
They're full of lawyers.
Taxpayers' money.
I think if it goes all the way, there's just no chance this is going to be less than $50,000.
And I mean, listen, we have a lot of legal bills around here, but I know what it costs us to take on Sheila's assaulter.
Every one of these cops will get a lawyer.
All their lawyers will be paid by the taxpayer.
They'll probably try and rag the puck.
They'll probably try and drag it out.
I don't know what's going to happen here, but I think this is the right thing to do.
I want them to recognize what they did to you was wrong.
If they don't recognize it, I want a judge to tell them what they did was wrong.
I mean, you weren't grievously wounded, but you don't knock a man down.
There's some damages there, and I want to know their communications with Rogers and in reverse, because I think that Rogers probably, as you suggest, has some, well, we know that you saw Rogers coordinating the cops with your own eyes.
I'd like to see that part of the iceberg under the water that is not visible right now.
I think, look, you're not grievously wounded.
Yeah.
But that's not the point.
These are cops, and they can't shove reporters down because some fake celebrity like Ron McLean says so.
StandwithDavid.ca is going to cost us a lot of money, but I think we have to do it.
And you know what, Ezra?
This is not a cash grab.
I know that's a cliche.
Everybody suing somebody for some amount of money.
He says it's not about the money, and of course it's about the money.
Well, if we win, we're not going to, we surely won't recoup our costs of it.
Yeah, but it is the principle, and it is setting a standard, a benchmark moving forward, allowers to practice journalism.
And just last month, too, of course, you know, I went down to the candlelight vigil for Iran's ex-terrorist in chief, Soleimani.
And I mean, it was hard to believe I was in Toronto as opposed to Tehran.
But we had a Toronto police officer telling me that if I dare utter the word terrorist one more time, he is going to sue me for breach of peace.
And I said to Montcameron, I mean, I can't call Osama bin Laden a peace.
I think he said he was going to arrest you.
Here, let's take a look at that clip.
So I can't call a terrorist a terrorist?
Not in this sort of environment.
No, you can't, okay?
Because that's going to incite a breach of the peace.
And that is Canadian law.
Am I clear?
If I was to call Osama bin Laden a terrorist, that would be against you, please.
Am I clear?
I know you're not clear, sir.
I can't call Osama bin Laden.
And it incites a breach of the peace.
You would be placed under arrest.
Do you understand?
Terrorists?
Or what am I going to be arrested for?
What am I going to be arrested for?
It's a peace.
All right.
Well, we can't sue the entire world.
I didn't like what that Toronto cop did, but at least he didn't shove you to the ground like in York Regional Police.
That Toronto cop is awful.
And I think we have unfinished business with him.
David, thanks for doing the journalism you do.
You have been attacked by Jonathan Yeneve.
We'll talk about that lawsuit later.
You've been attacked by a manager at the Radisson Toronto East.
You take a lick and you keep on ticking, but it's my duty as publisher and boss of Rebel News to push back.
And so I want our viewers, really I want you to read the lawsuit.
So go to standwithdavid.ca.
And I know you're already a supporter of Rebel if you're watching this because it's a premium channel.
But if you want to help me push back against the cops with this lawsuit, we could sure use your help.
So go to standwithdavid.ca.
Thanks, David.
Thank you, Ezra.
And I just want to thank our viewers.
They've always come through for us in the past.
And without you, we are nothing.
So my thanks in advance.
There you go.
Hey folks, what do you think about all this censorship happening at around the same time?
You've got my interrogation as an author.
You've got this plan to license websites.
I think that's basically going to be Justin Trudeau's second term.
He hates what little objections remain in the media to him.
He is offended that Canadians took away his majority, and so he wants to silence the few of us who still criticize him.