Ezra Levant details Rebel News’ dual legal victories: an emergency injunction for Progress Alberta to cover Edmonton’s NDP budget lockup and a challenge against Trudeau’s exclusion of Kian Bexti and David Menzies from Toronto debates, contrasting mainstream media’s inaction. Conservative leadership hopeful Derek Sloan rejects "red Tory" labels, dismisses supply management as a priority, and frames politics as war—vowing to enforce laws against railway blockades while criticizing online media registration as a threat to free press. His bold stance, inspired by military figures like Patton, signals a shift toward unapologetic conservatism, prioritizing free speech and legal enforcement over economic incrementalism. [Automatically generated summary]
I recorded part of it on the streets of Edmonton where I am right now.
You can probably hear the traffic in the background and the other part was recorded by my colleague Kian Bexti in our studio in Toronto.
In Edmonton, I'm talking about an interesting free speech story that I'm sort of proud of.
And in Toronto, Kian interviews one of the Conservative Party leadership candidates.
Before you get to those two very different, but I think very interesting things, let me invite you to become a Rebel Premium subscriber to our Rebel News Plus.
Just go to RebelNews.com and it's eight bucks a month.
You get the video version of these shows.
Plus, you help keep us strong.
All right, here's the podcast.
Tonight, we're fighting for freedom of speech, even for our opponents.
It's February 27th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
As Levant here, I'm standing literally on the street in Edmonton, Alberta.
I had a different plan for today's show.
I was going to come into Edmonton, go to the budget lockup, talk to our friend Sheila Gunread about the budget, other taxpayers' advocates, probably talk about some of the railway blockades too.
But unfortunately, things happen and my flight out of Toronto was delayed for two hours while they did some special de-icing.
I'm glad they did, of course.
Safety first.
But I want to tell you about something else that happened today at that budget lockup where I was not.
Now, Sheila Gunnreid was there, and I'm very pleased she was.
And you'll know that that's a different outcome than what happened about four years ago when Rachel Notley blocked Sheila Gunreed and Holly Nicholas, another Rebel staffer at the time, from attending the NDP budget lockup.
Do you remember that?
It was either 2015 or 2016.
I'm going by memory.
And Sheila and Holly applied like everyone else, put their name on the list like everyone else.
And the NDP said, no, you are not allowed to cover this public event, this government event.
And when we attempted to go to another government event, public event, Rachel Notley instructed a Justice Department lawyer to send us a formal letter on stationary of Justice Alberta saying you are banned.
You and anyone connected with you is banned.
It was a bizarre letter that I don't think the Justice Department lawyer even wanted to write.
And then if that wasn't enough, well, you remember this part.
Sheila attended at the legislature and was literally hustled out by an armed sheriff.
Remember that?
Do you have a reputation for today's event?
We already spoke to Darcy Hinton.
He said there should be no problem.
What?
Sorry, why is that?
Sorry, why?
All right, so that was the bad old days under Rachel Notley.
And Sheila Gunnread now is a welcome journalist amongst other journalists at that same lockup.
Well, interestingly enough, a group called Progress Alberta, which is not by any, I guess, traditional measurements, a media group, they wanted to send someone into the budget lockup too.
Now, Progress Alberta, like a group called Press Progress, is a partisan group.
Press Progress is owned by the Broadband Institute.
Tells you where they're coming from.
And Progress Alberta was a similar Alberta entity that's closely connected with the NDP.
In fact, sometimes the NDP would literally refer questions about government policy to Progress Alberta.
It's really weird.
Anyways, Progress Alberta is obviously not independent journalists, but listen, I'm the kind of guy who says you're a journalist if you say you're a journalist.
I don't believe in putting up barriers and moats and drawbridges and only allowing the official people to fancy people in.
That's exactly the kind of arguing that got us shut out.
The people who were fancier than us said, oh, Rebel News, that's not real journalism.
So who am I to say to Progress Alberta, well, you're just a partisan hack?
They'd probably say the same thing to me.
So a reporter from Progress Alberta, and again, they're partisan.
They're really a lobby group, but, you know, what do I care?
Why should they be banned?
They were banned from the budget lockup today.
And so they took a page out of our book here at The Rebel.
They went to court yesterday seeking an emergency injunction to let them go and cover the news.
And I received a phone call about this a couple days ago from the law firm that was representing Progress Alberta, or at least wanted to represent them, because they're my law firm.
And I'm actually suing a member of Progress Alberta named Jim Story because he deplatformed us in Edmonton a few months back.
If you'll recall, I had a book launch here in Edmonton at the Princess Theater, signed contract, paid in advance, and a mob on Twitter and Facebook and email and some phone calls, a mob terrified the owner of the Princess Theater into ripping up that contract and breaching it.
So we're suing all the deplatformers for breach of contact and inducing breach of contract.
We're not just suing the poor theater owner, we're suing the people who bullied the theater owner, scared him into ripping up the contract.
So here's my point on that.
Jim Story was one of the people who de-platformed me.
Jim Story is with Progress Alberta, who was squawking about being de-platformed from Jason Kenney.
Jim Story's group, Progress Alberta, wanted to hire my free speech lawyers to go to bat for him to get him into the budget.
Now, I could have said, no, I'm in a conflict with him.
Our law firm is suing him.
It would be weird.
It would be ethically wrong.
It would be unprofessional.
You can't do it.
But I didn't say that.
I specifically gave permission.
I released my outstanding free speech law firm to help Jim Story's Progress Alberta and to sue a government I like, the Jason Kenney UCP government of Alberta, to make them let in my political opponents.
Not just my political opponents, people who thuggishly banned me from having my book launch.
And I went one step further, if you can believe it.
I wrote to the lawyers who successfully got me into the election debates federally in October when Justin Trudeau kept us out.
And I said to my successful election debates lawyers, I said, send these guys any legal research that you've done for me.
Save them the hassle and the time and frankly the cost.
Send them the free speech legal research that you already put together at my expense.
So not only did I not say, keep Progress Alberta out of the Alberta legislature budget lockup, not only did I not say to my lawyers, no, no, don't help my enemy, my opponent, the people who deplatformed me, I said the opposite.
I said, give them legal representation and give them for free, I said to my other lawyers, my arguments for getting in.
And wouldn't you know it?
I don't know if they actually made use of the free legal work we did.
I don't know if they actually had the time to do it.
But I know that yesterday, they were granted emergency authorization, an emergency court order, to be given the right to report on the budget, just like we won that emergency injunction in Toronto at the Federal Court of Canada, forcing Trudeau's leadership debate commission, or sorry, election debate commission to let us in.
So that's why I'm standing on a street in Edmonton instead of at the legislature, instead of talking to Sheila.
I think actually at the moment I'm recording this, the budget lockup is still happening.
My flight was screwed up because of Toronto weather.
What are you going to do?
But I still believe I have stories for you that are relevant to today and stories relevant to the city of Edmonton.
Obviously, I couldn't get off the plane once we were delayed on the Time Act.
Now, one of my teammates said, why are you showing solidarity with not just a bunch of hard left-wing activists, but people who actually censored us?
Like, not just tried to censor us.
Jim's story induced a breach of contract that got me banned.
Why would I help him?
Well, the answer is I'm not helping him.
I'm helping the jurisprudence.
I'm helping the law.
One of the bases of our system of law, in Latin, it's stare decisis, which in English means stand by the precedent, stand by the decisions, which means, let me say one more way, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
So just like my legal victory against Justin Trudeau helped Progress Alberta get access to the Alberta legislature, Progress Alberta's access to the Alberta legislature will help me and other people and will build on this free speech jurisprudence.
There'll be a body of case law where case after case after case, judge after judge in different jurisdictions say journalists have the right to report even if the government doesn't like them.
And I'm absolutely certain that the government of Jason Kenney does not like Progress Alberta.
I told you why.
But Justin Trudeau didn't like me and he was forced to let me in and report or not me but Kian Bexti and David Menzies.
Same thing with Jason Kenney and Progress Alberta.
And who knows where the next case will be?
The first was in the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto.
The next was here at a court in Edmonton.
Good.
Because we need to rebuild the case law for freedom that's been neglected in this country.
What's so interesting is that we were involved and our law firm was involved.
Where were the Edmonton Journal and other media?
Maybe they were there.
I don't know.
It all happened so quickly.
Maybe the CBC was there.
Maybe the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star were all there trying to help.
Could be.
I actually haven't had a chance to check.
But I know that when we fought in the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto, there was no one there to help us other than our friends at True North.
There was no Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
There was no Amnesty International, no Reporters Without Borders, no Canadian Association of Journalists, no Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, none of them.
So isn't it something that we at Rebel News and you, our supporters, are helping through our efforts and our lawsuits and the financing for our lawsuits, which is crowdfunded by you?
Isn't it interesting that we have become a sort of Canadian Civil Liberties Association by necessity to protect ourselves, but also in yesterday's lawsuit and today's access, in reality, we are actually helping people across the political spectrum get their freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
And I got to tell you, it makes me proud.
And I'm proud to say I helped hard left-wing people get their free speech.
Because if you want free speech for yourself, it's something you've got to give to your opponents too.
Folks, that's it for my monologue today.
I explained to you why I won't quite have the show I had hoped.
Economic Challenges in Alberta00:11:22
But I'm going to give the second half of today's show to my colleague Kian Bechty, who's in Toronto, ironically, and he interviewed a candidate for the Conservative Party leadership.
So you'll see that next.
Here's Keith.
And joining us now, we have Derek Sloan in studio.
Derek Sloan is a first-term MP, and he's running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada in the field of candidates that have already announced and been accepted.
Derek Sloan is now officially one of them.
I think you were just accepted yesterday, was it?
Two days ago.
Two days ago.
So how's the race going so far?
Good.
Yep, we're getting around.
We're getting signatures, raising money.
And I was officially green lit.
The days were all mixing together for me, but I believe it was two evenings ago, to my recollection.
Now, we want to introduce you to our viewers.
So we're doing this with every leadership candidate, at least the ones that have accepted.
Of course, there's one that hasn't accepted so far.
Peter McKay says he won't do an interview with us.
But we want to introduce you and all the leadership candidates to our viewers so that you can sort of say who you are.
I think a lot of our viewers are conservative voters, and I think they're really interested to know what kind of conservative you are.
So what would you say describes you best?
Sure.
So I'm a true conservative.
I'm a full conservative.
I am a social conservative, but more than that, I am a conservative in all areas of life.
I believe the party needs to be bigger and bolder than it's been before.
I believe it needs to be unashamedly conservative.
And we need leadership that's willing to put Canada first, no matter what, and be unafraid to stand up for what's best for the country and best for Canadians.
How has the Conservative Party in the past not lived up to what you're saying here?
The party needs to be bigger and bolder and more conservative.
Where has the party failed in that regard?
Right, so I think that they follow the sort of common wisdom or the conventional wisdom which says focus only on the economy, avoid controversy as much as you can, and stick to the economy and liberal corruption.
And, you know, those are important things, but there's more to politics than just those issues.
And I think that we need to be willing to, you know, broach controversy if need be and be willing to stand up on all issues that affect Canadians.
Was Andrew Scheer in his time as leadership, in his time as leader, I guess that was only just a few months after you were elected.
Where was he missing the step there?
Where was he not breaching those conversations that you want to have?
So I don't think it was any one thing.
I think, and you have to keep in mind that prior to being elected, obviously, for nine months or so, I was involved in sort of the election and running up to it, and we had internal dialogues with all the candidates and so on.
I feel that their strategy in the past election was, again, avoid controversy, stick to the economy and sort of boutique tax credits and other sort of gimmies and goodies.
You know, that's a reasonable strategy to take, but I think that the last election shows us that that's not enough.
And frankly, it won't be enough in this upcoming election either.
Now, you spoke about strategy, and a large part of the Conservative Party's strategy in the last election was to win Quebec.
And Andrew Scheer bent over backwards to get those votes, particularly when it came to supply management, which was a huge issue in the leadership election of 20 just a few years ago.
When Maxine Bernier was running against Andrew Scheer, that was kind of what defined Maxime Bernier against Andrew Scheer.
Do you see supply management being an important topic of this leadership race, or do you think Conservatives want to just ignore it?
I don't know if it's going to get brought up.
I mean, I'm not privy to the inner workings of other teams, but I don't know now of anyone who's planning on bringing it up.
I think, as I've said before, all issues need to be on the table in a parliamentary democracy.
I'll just tell you right now, I don't have anything specifically on supply management in my policy framework.
But again, I'm not afraid to have discussions on any issue.
But I will assure people in my riding, I have a lot of dairy in my riding.
And as far as the farmers of my riding, they're satisfied with the system and they like it.
And that's sort of what I'm going on right now.
But again, I'm not afraid to have conversations, and I hope that people bring up any issue that's important to them.
Sure.
So in the stream of getting our viewers to know you better, who would you say is your political inspiration?
Well, that's a good question.
You know, I actually, it's funny to say that because I take inspiration more sometimes from generals than I do politicians.
So General Sherman, General Patton, these types of people who consistently bucked conventional wisdom, defied conventional wisdom, and were immensely successful.
That's right now where I think we need to focus as politicians because really we're in a war right now.
This is a war for the type of country that Canada is, the type of country that Canada will be.
And we have to be unconventional and willing to take risks.
And those two generals I mentioned epitomize that.
And in many ways, they were thought at times to be crazy.
But history looks back on them fondly.
And that's the type of leadership that we need.
So in terms of this civil war that is unfolding in Canada, we're seeing these blockades stretch across the country, limiting our ability to transport goods, to import goods, to export goods from Vancouver all the way to your own riding.
And Tayendanega is the blockade where blockaders were trying to light trains on fire.
How would you approach this issue that is gripping this nation differently than Trudeau is approaching it?
You know, there's two sides to this.
So, you know, the first, I'll stick to the easy side.
The law needs to be kept.
So if injunctions are issued or if protests are occurring in places where they shouldn't be, the law enforcement needs to enforce that.
They need to clear the tracks.
They need to make sure that our economy can function.
You know, on the other hand, it is absolutely safe and fair to say that conditions on many reserves are abysmal and that we need to address and deal with some of the health and other issues that we're seeing.
So there's certainly issues that need to be addressed.
The life expectancy on some of these reserves is equivalent to a third world country.
So I mean, there are issues that need to be addressed, but it has to be done according to the law and in a law-abiding manner.
So the law must be kept.
And it's not to say that things shouldn't happen or solutions shouldn't be discussed, but the law needs to be upheld.
And our economy can't be held hostage by, you know, and some of these people, many of these people are legitimate, sort of, you know, Indigenous people with legitimate concerns.
Other people are tag-along protesters that are against any and all resource development.
So this has turned into any free-for-all.
And we can't let our economy be held hostage by a small group of radicals in some cases.
A question that Justin Trudeau tried to avoid in the House of Commons just yesterday, and sorry, not in the House of Commons, but in the precinct, a reporter asked him if trying to light a train on fire, as what happened just yesterday at the blockade, is that an act of terrorism?
And I'll put that question to you.
Is it an act of terrorism to try and light a train on fire?
Yeah, it certainly could be.
I mean, my initial reaction would be to say yes.
I haven't examined the, you know, it's certainly illegal.
Depending on, I suppose, the context, it certainly could be an act of terrorism.
But the point is, is we need to take these situations very seriously, and the law needs to be enforced.
We should do it reasonably and realistically, and obviously try to avoid violence, but it must be enforced.
Now, to move a little bit farther west, Michelle Rempel and a cohort, a cohort of Albertan MPs before the Buffalo Declaration just last week.
In it, there was a list of demands saying that if these things don't change in Confederation, Alberta might not see itself as a part of Confederation.
Why do you think that that Buffalo Declaration, first off, only had four MPs signing it?
Do you think it perhaps doesn't represent Alberta caucus?
Were you consulted on it as an MP from Ontario?
Can you give us any insight on what happened there?
So I was not personally consulted on that.
I don't know the inner workings, particularly, of the Alberta caucus.
We all meet differently provincially.
And furthermore, I've been very busy with this leadership race, so I'm not as tuned into those recent conversations.
I would only be speculating.
I would say, though, that the issues in Alberta right now are very important and largely, in my view, come from just the hammering that the economy is taking out there with respect to resource development.
There are obviously other issues that simmer, but I think that they simmer louder and at a much higher temperature when we see things like the tech pullout.
So that's my take on it as an outsider as not part of the Alberta caucus.
Now, back out to Ottawa, Stephen Gilbo today just said that his ministry is going to be following up with the recommendations of making sure that online media companies will have to register with the government.
Have you been up to date on that?
What are your thoughts on media organizations registering with the government?
Do you think that this represents a collapse of the fifth estate in Canada?
Yeah, so I'm not super up to date with it, but I get the gist of it.
Basically, it seems like they are going to be in some way potentially limiting the ability of online news organizations to exist, or maybe they have to follow certain parameters.
I think that's a big mistake.
I think that secondary media sources or online media sources can be very valuable sources of information.
Obviously, not all of them, but that's what a free society is about.
We examine the information that we see and we make our conclusions.
The idea that the government would somehow be regulating how that works, to me, is frightening.
What can we expect from your leadership campaign in the months ahead as we move towards the vote and the debates?
What does your campaign want to be talking about?
What are the issues that you think Canadians are facing right now?
Yeah, so you're going to be seeing a bunch of policy announcements coming from me.
We're going to have some very big announcements coming in the space of free speech and things related to that.
So I encourage people to follow me on Twitter and on Facebook to keep ahead of those announcements.
We hope to come out with a variety of big and bold ideas that represent, in our view, where the party should be headed.
And I hope to influence the party in terms of the policies they adopt by coming out with some of these big and bold ideas.
So I encourage people to follow me.
Big Bold Policy Announcements00:02:06
Where can they do that?
On Twitter?
What's your hand?
Yeah, so Twitter is just MP Derek Sloan.
And then Facebook is, I believe, Derek Sloan leadership.
All right.
Now, one last question that I have.
You've positioned yourself here as a social conservative, which is a blue Tory.
And two of the leadership candidates, Aaron O'Toole and Peter McKay, are both trying to put themselves in a position, Aaron O'Toole more so than Peter McKay.
Peter McKay likes to sort of live in that PC limelight.
But Aaron O'Toole specifically has been trying to brand himself as a blue Tory.
Do you see him as a blue Tory?
Well, Aaron is known in the circles that I travel as essentially being a red Tory, and I think that's his traditional reputation.
He has been saying things that, in my view, are very good.
I'm not going to undercut him in that way.
I like the things that he's saying.
In all honesty, I feel sometimes he's borrowing from some of the messaging that I'm putting out there, and that's fine.
But I do believe, I hope to be a candidate that resonates with all conservatives and has the sort of bold ideas that conservatives might talk about over a beer or something, but wouldn't think that anyone would have the guts to do.
So those are the types of things that I hope to bring out in my policies over the next four to five weeks.
And we'll let the conservative membership be the judge of who they feel is the best brand for the party.
All right, Derek, thanks for coming in studio and joining us here today.
It was a pleasure meeting you, and I think that our viewers appreciate you taking the time to come and chat with us.
Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
Thank you very much.
And that was Derek Sloan in studio here today in Toronto.
We're going to try our best to have every single leadership candidate come in and introduce themselves to you.
Stay tuned for more.
Well, that's our show from today, recorded partly on the streets of Edmonton and partly in our studio back in Toronto for all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters.