Ezra Levant details Rebel News’ 25-minute video exposing Antifa mob violence at Toronto City Hall, where journalists—including David Menzies and cameraman Mocha—faced umbrella blockades, microphone punches, and threats like "touch my elder" despite seven private security guards. On June 26th, police ignored requests to stop an illegal squatters’ encampment, even as protesters occupied the plaza with city-provided porta potties. Levant calls Mayor John Tory’s inaction a free speech betrayal, comparing Canada’s protections to "Diet Coke or Free Speech Light," and warns of escalation while urging support for their legal defense fund at journalistdefensefund.com. The episode reveals how media freedom is weaponized under politically charged trespass claims, leaving journalists vulnerable to coordinated attacks. [Automatically generated summary]
It's an ongoing saga of us here at Rebel News fighting for the right to report.
It involves antifoot style rioters.
It involves politicized police.
And it involves us fighting back the best way we know how.
I'll have a short introduction and then I'll let you hear a 25-minute masterpiece of what has happened.
I really want you to see it with your own eyes, though.
So I want you to become a premium subscriber.
Go to RebelNews.com, become a premium subscriber.
We call it Rebel News Plus.
It's just $8 a month, that's $80 a year, and you will get the video.
You know, we have made about 14,000 videos here at Rebel News.
And I have to say, this is one of the finest.
Enjoy the audio of it, but my God, you got to see it.
You really got to see it.
Go to RebelNews.com, sign up for $8, buy a year for $80, and enjoy one of the most interesting videos I think you'll see in a long time.
All right, here's the podcast.
Tonight, all week, rebel reporters have been attacked by violent mobs and then turned away by security guards and police.
Well, tonight, we turn the tables and push back.
It's June 26th, 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 is government publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.
For a couple of days now, we've been telling you about an ongoing battle we've had against the world, really.
All we want to do is report the news.
That's what we do for a living.
Occasionally, we know things might get a little rough out there, so we don't mind hiring a security guard for a reporter.
But these days, that means anytime we step out into the public, because you see, in this mob mentality that has taken over the West, anything goes.
And antifootypes, well, they feel like they had the license to physically get violent.
And why not?
Wherever they look around the world, violence happens without impunity.
In fact, it happens with the approval of at least half the political spectrum.
And in Canada, well, the Rebel is the most identifiable, the most recognizable of conservative media.
It's almost like Antifoot stop whatever they're doing to attack us, especially our brave Ontario reporter, David Menzies.
Over the last week, we've seen a ramping up of this.
We sent one security guard with him to Kingston.
David still got attacked.
We sent two and then four, and each time they were overwhelmed by protesters, and the worst moment was when a Toronto police officer said, if you try and report from City Hall, we will say you are trespassing, that you are causing a disturbance for merely upsetting the illegal squatting protesters.
Well, that was too much for me.
We hired seven bodyguards and a lawyer.
We went back down to City Hall.
There were 15 of us all told.
Seven lawyers, seven bodyguards, a lawyer, five cameramen, myself and David.
That's 15.
And what we are going to show you tonight is the result of that visit.
It's quite theatrical.
It's quite dramatic.
Highs and lows, ups and downs.
But in the end, I think it's one of the finest videos we've ever made here at Rebel News.
I wanted to have this for you yesterday, but it was so complicated with the five different camera angles and then blurring out the faces of security so they won't be later attacked by Antifa.
It was a painstaking edit that took us until now, and I didn't want to rush it.
This video will only be available to you behind the paywall for now.
We don't want to put it on YouTube on a Friday night.
That's when things get lost in the news because people aren't paying attention.
So you will have exclusive access to the video all weekend behind the paywall as a subscriber.
On Monday morning, we'll release the video in a public way on YouTube for the world to see.
And I hope you'll agree with me that it is a combination of reporting, commentary, activism, and plain old standing up for what's right.
As I said to our team, it's one of the finest moments we've had at Rebel News, in my opinion.
Elders Demand Departure00:15:23
And I hope that's your opinion too.
So instead of our usual show with a monologue and a guest, I present to you our story of fighting for freedom and how we did it in Toronto.
I'll say goodbye to you now.
Enjoy the video.
I'll see you on Monday.
Until then, on behalf of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.
Keep fighting for freedom.
Now watch this masterpiece.
We're going to go there.
David's going to try and do journalism.
Ideally, we're done in half an hour because nothing happened.
Hey, Ben Mohammed!
What would you like us to do?
Touch my fing elder.
Your elder?
What you're doing is causing a disturbance with everybody here.
I need to ask you to leave, okay?
What have I done to you?
that in Toronto, the town square is a place where a journalist can go peacefully.
So if that is not true, we need to know it.
Don't run away from love.
Uh-oh.
Don't run away from love.
Yeah.
What are you?
What's your purpose here?
I'm a cameraman.
Can I stop?
Are you going to stop me instead of them trying to stop you?
I'm asking you.
I don't have to provide you anything.
Just like they don't have to provide anything to you.
I'm not harassing them.
They're bothering me.
You are in their state.
Can you please stop?
No.
Just came here to see what's going on.
You guys are getting violent right away.
We evolve through love and diversity.
That's what we do.
We evolve through love and diversity.
That's what we do.
This is you the chance.
Folks, welcome to John Torrey Strano.
Hey, get off me.
Don't stop my hand away.
Don't stop my hand away because I'm taking it.
What do you mean?
Huh?
Is that right?
I will trespass you for non-compliance.
I need you to stay back.
This isn't probably the best time to be coming here and doing this.
I understand what you're trying to do.
So for today, City Hall of Security and their staff, they're trespassing you.
Okay, so we're going to have to escort you off the property.
Our purpose, as I mentioned earlier today, is to do journalism.
We're not there to protest, but we're just going to be so compliant with the law that we're going to force the government to reveal itself.
Are they really just trying to get rid of us because they don't like the cut of our chip?
So that's illegal, that's unconstitutional.
All right, let's go downtown.
Aaron is coming with all sorts of legal precedents in hand, just in case, not if the protesters attack us, but if City Hall attacks us in real time.
We're going to meet our security detail at Old City Hall and we'll walk across the street.
And hopefully we'll be done in half an hour.
Hopefully it'll be uneventful.
But if the city and the police have other plans, we're as ready as we can be.
Hey, you know what?
I'm here to assert not only our right as citizens, but we have a specific law called Section 2B of the Charter.
We're going to go there.
David's going to try and do journalism.
Ideally, we're done in half an hour because nothing happened.
It's not even that interesting a story.
It's a bunch of tents.
Well, you may recall, folks, that yesterday I went to Nathan Phelps Square.
It has been commandeered by a group that's primarily composed of Indigenous and black people.
And evidently, we're not allowed to be on the square.
It is like the Antifa autonomous city in Seattle, but it's even amped up a little more because it's right where the seat of government is here in the municipality of Toronto, Toronto City Hall.
We were told that by police that if we didn't exit the square, we would be arrested and charged with trespass.
And yet they're turning a blind eye to the squatters.
Not only that, folks, the city is aiding and enabling them by putting up porta potties for their comfort.
But we don't take no for an answer here at Rebel News.
We fight for freedom and I'm right now with the commander himself, Ezra Levant.
What did you make of our experience yesterday, Ezra?
It was completely unacceptable, David.
You know me, I have my own show, but I let you do most of the fieldwork in Ontario.
But I saw you went to Kingston, Ontario on the weekend, and we had one security guard with you.
The police were not there, and you were swarmed by Antifa.
Our security guard did a good job and pulled you out of there, but it was outrageous that the police were not there.
It is unacceptable that the police who dismissed our private security yesterday did not protect our journalists.
In particular, they swarmed one of our cameramen, Mocha.
And it's doubly unacceptable to me that the same City Hall police and security that allows a unhygienic, unlawful, violence-prone squatters camp, literally on the plaza in front of City Hall, they abide that, but they tell peaceful law-abiding journalists to skedaddle?
No.
So we are back here today with seven security guards and our lawyer, Aaron Rosenberg.
It's absurd.
We have a team of seven, eight, nine, ten people plus five.
We got 15 people here today just to assist you doing a story.
So we're going to go into this camp now and you're going to do a normal story.
What I'm going to be looking for, and so will our lawyer, is will John Torrey's politicized police who have ignored this illegal encampment, will they try to crack down on you, on me, on our professional, licensed insured security?
If so, we have a serious problem.
Let's go to the front steps of the City Hall and let's let you do journalism.
We're going to be so compliant with the law.
We're going to be professional.
We're going to be lawful.
We're not going to cause a scene.
We're going to be so perfect in our conduct that the police will literally have no cause to eject us other than political bias.
We're controlling every other variable.
Any people here now?
Here they go.
Well, folks, we are at literally the scene of the crime.
This is the illegal encampment.
It's supposedly a circle.
It's not quite geometrically correct.
But this is where we were yesterday.
And evidently there's a phony baloney rule that I think people and even media are allowed to be outside the circle, but we can't venture inside the circle.
Now, here come the umbrellas.
You can tell there's not a raindrop in the air today.
It's a nice sunny day in Toronto.
So this is going to be to attempt to block our cameras so we can't capture their crimes on video.
It's a typical anti-file 101 tactic in massaging the narrative to their liking.
Also, as you can see, as I alluded to earlier, we got a couple of porta potties established by the city.
So not only are the police coming in and John Torrey saying you cannot be here, it is illegal, they are making these squatters have a comfortable place to be.
It should also be noted that despite this illegal occupation, there is 0.0 police presence.
And then we have one solitary security guard there.
Notably, he is behind a steel wall of sorts, a temporary steel fencing.
Very funny that, isn't it, folks?
The left is typically against building walls so that a country can maintain its sovereignty in terms of illegal aliens coming to the country.
But when they are threatened at City Hall, walls are very effective indeed.
Now, as you can see off camera too, this is where they start shoving umbrellas and whatnot into our faces and they start complaining, don't touch me, and that this is an assault on them.
Here's this guy, as you can see, I don't know what he's got.
They don't want free speech.
They don't want freedom of the press.
They don't want freedom of expression.
They want tyranny.
Oh, is that right?
What's the truth, ma'am?
See, again, you ask them a question and they can't answer it.
They respond with vulgarity.
People are against you.
They don't want anyone in here in your story.
Well, maybe, ma'am, if you put your umbrella down.
By the way, why is it that you people don't want your encampment filmed?
You people in the encampment, ma'am.
This is an occupation.
Oh, it's an occupation.
Okay, well, we're dealing with semantics right now.
Can I see a deed, please?
Pardon me?
Can I see the deed?
You need to see my f ⁇ ing deed?
Do you know what the history is?
Are you able to respond to a question without profanity?
Are these your lens?
Were you your original person of these lens?
Are these your lands well?
I believe this is a public square, ma'am.
Do you know that these are not your land?
Does somebody come up into your home and take up your space?
Does somebody come into your home and they can dictate how you run your household?
So what would you like?
What would you like us to do?
Off my land.
That's what I like.
What about all these other people on your land?
Why don't they...
They're protesting against you.
This is not public space.
This is Anishinaabe territory.
I don't want to get into history.
I want to get into current events.
Want to abolish the police, ma'am?
Who do we call when the bad guys harass people out?
The bad guys can get the f out of here.
It's your people that did this, had this mindset in here.
Our people were peaceful people before they came here.
You know, I think you're probably a nice lady.
If someone were to criminally harass you, harm you, who would you call if you abolished the police, ma'am?
Well, I'm interviewing an umbrella again.
So, like I said, folks, as you can see, that is their main goal.
They have a big red and white sign that says abolish the police, not defund the police.
Well, why are you getting in our way, sir?
By the way, this is another tactic, folks.
They walk an inch away from us and then they play the victim card.
You know, oh, here's silent sound again.
Don't touch me.
Don't touch me.
So, anyways, don't touch.
It's getting testy, as you can see.
Now, where, where, and you'd think, now you'd think with an illegal occupation like this, there would be a police presence.
But Mayor Tory has called off the cops, it would seem.
We are probably a four-minute drive from police headquarters.
You know, sir, what's your purpose here?
My purpose here is to do some journalism.
All right, so right now, what you're doing is causing a disturbance with everybody here.
I need to ask you to leave, okay?
What have I done to cause you to do it?
You're causing disturbance.
I need you to leave the property.
And what have I done to cause you?
Causing disturbance, sir.
I need you to leave the property.
You have been cautioned, and I've said it.
It is loud and clear.
You have been cautioned.
I need you to leave the property.
I've been trespassing you, okay?
For causing disturbance.
Touch the property out.
You have been cautioned.
Which section of the acts?
I don't have to tell you, but you have to tell me what grounds I violated, ma'am.
Causing disturbance, sir.
Look it up.
I have to look it up, ma'am.
Hey, is that that wacky tobacco that's legal now?
Listen to your heart decolonize your mind.
What does that mean, ma'am?
Smells like a dead skunk in the middle of the road, actually.
But now, is that right?
Is that your idea, freedom?
Shutting down the media, sir?
I thought we weren't allowed inside your sacred circle, sir.
We're outside of your sacred circle.
Because you're disruptors.
I'm just standing here talking.
You're the one disrupting.
No, I'm not.
You're disrupting by coming and going against what we believe, which is to abolish the police.
How does that help anyone?
How does that help any so?
As you can see.
Hey, hey, don't touch the equipment.
You punched the microphone.
You punched the microphone.
I didn't do nothing wrong.
No, if you put my hand in front of your camera.
Sir, if you didn't do nothing wrong, that means you did something wrong.
You used the double negative.
I'm sorry, you're not educated.
Take your hands.
So you can see the it's open season.
Don't touch me.
And you're the one that punched my microphone, sir.
What?
That's vandalism.
So anyways, so I'm not sure how much we're capturing, folks, but this is par for the course with these anti-fah wannabes.
You know, I think this is the definition of harassment.
You can't, oh, hi, we've got another gender.
Touch my elder.
elder so again I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish aside from making themselves look like infants How are you?
You tell me, my friend.
I don't know.
It sounds like we're all pretty sick, aren't we?
Get out of here.
We're all sick, my friend.
Get out of here, man.
Give us space.
I'm in a public square, Microsoft.
Let's go.
I'm worried about it.
Dare to Protest00:12:07
I didn't even know. I didn't know. I didn't know.
I want to call it.
I swear to God, too.
Don't touch my guy.
Come on!
Touch me again buddy.
I'm gonna touch women!
I'm gonna touch women!
Touch me!
We won't stoop to your level!
How dare you!
How dare you!
We will not stoop to your violence!
You fing demons!
We've been separated from some members of our team.
It is completely lawless here.
Oh, there's some police right there.
Let's see if I flag them over.
They do anything.
Hey, police!
Please!
Look at this!
Look at this!
I guess they have to enforce the Bay Street clear lane or something.
The cops are running away from the crime.
Hi, officers.
We came here today with seven private professional insured security so we could do journalism.
We briefed ourselves on various laws and we were compliant throughout.
We went through the law.
No swearing, no troublemaking.
And we simply stood in there to report.
And our security did their best, but they were overwhelmed and there was a fisticuff.
I'd like to go back and calmly stand in the town square and do a five-minute news report, but I was driven out despite spending thousands of dollars on private security.
Now that you guys are here, I wonder if I can walk back into the town square of my city peacefully in compliance with all laws and exercise my right as a journalist.
You don't have to put that in my face.
So we were talking to the security over there, right?
They were saying that some of the words you guys were saying and using were antagonizing the crowd there.
That's not true.
What word?
I didn't even talk to them.
I didn't even, I didn't even talk about it.
Did you say anything to them?
I didn't say, not a word.
The security weren't even there, so the security didn't hear anything.
The security never came to help.
They were always at least 100 feet away.
So they physically could not have heard things.
I proactively went to the security to ask for assistance.
I was told I had to leave under the trespass.
And I said, what have I done?
And she couldn't say it.
So what I'm saying here is, and I'm happy to go alone or send David alone.
The reason we brought seven people with us is because our journalists were threatened yesterday and I thought I can't have our journalists being beat up.
So will you either allow me or hopefully walk with me so I stand in front of my city hall as a journalist and do a five-minute news report in front of my city hall, completely compliant with the law and separated by a band of blue steel from the protesters.
So right now I got to talk to the city hall security again.
They advised me that they had trespassed you guys from their property.
Do you guys want to do your journalism?
We don't take offense to that.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
I think you could fix this by letting us go out.
Those guys won't.
I want to stand.
Why would you guys like stand here?
No, no, no.
I'm going to go on the other side of the ramp.
I'll keep 20 feet away from the bad guys.
And I'm going to use my Section 2B charter right to report the news in my city.
You're free to report the news.
That's not the problem at all.
And I'm also free to stand on the town square.
I'm not going to explode.
David's not going to explode.
My cameramen aren't going to explode.
And my professional licensed security certainly aren't going to explode.
There are some explosive people in here, but the law touches explosive people, not explosive incidents.
And I'm not leaving because some guy explodes at me.
The law also touches about breaching of the peace.
I haven't breached the peace at all.
If you want to take the position, officer, and I know you don't, that a peaceful, quiet news report on the town square is breaching the peace, that's a law that needs to be tested.
Let's just go and do some journalism, officer.
Let me speak to the security.
Give me a quick second.
Sure, and if you also want to call Colonel Sanders, he has about as much authority as these mall cops.
But you do what you got to do.
We're all going to work together.
We're all living here together.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
You're the best.
I like that guy.
I like him too.
I'm going to do a news report on my town square where I pay taxes every day.
That's just happening.
whether I do it with the cops, with the security, or by my lonesome, it's happening.
All right, we spoke through the security there.
They said at 1234, they trespassed.
They trespassed all of you guys.
So here's what I'm going to do.
I'm going to walk there now.
And that'll go one of three ways, I think.
One is, I'll go by myself and I'll probably get attacked.
That won't be good.
The other is, you come with me, and I don't think they're going to lay a glove on you.
But I know how tough it is to be a cop these days.
They're filming everything.
They're going to try and get you.
It's tough.
The third is, you arrest me.
Oh, I don't want that to happen.
But I am ready for that to happen.
Because the only reason I'm here with 15 of my friends is because we were shoot away from the town square yesterday and thought the president of the company himself is going to come down and prove that in Toronto, the town square is a place where a journalist can go peacefully.
So if that is not true, we need to know it.
And if I get personally attacked, we need to know it.
If I get arrested, we need to know it.
So I'm going to do that now.
I'm explaining to you what security told me.
If you're not happy with their...
I'm not interested in playing legal games with mall cops, officer.
So I'm...
So unless you have any last-minute things to say, I am now going to walk with my bravest cameraman and David.
I'm going to walk to the stairs.
I hope I don't get beat up.
I hope I don't get arrested.
Those are two possibilities.
I hope you guys will just walk with me to the stairs.
I'll do five minutes of journalism and then I'll call it a day.
Just to be clear, if I get a trespass.
So Mocha, are you coming?
Just to be clear.
I thought that was a magnificent performance of, I guess, outdoor lawyering.
We're asserting ourselves.
You can already hear the moans from the sacred circle of the autonomous city.
And we're being met with the mall cops, for lack of a better term.
Ezra Levant here for RebelNews.com.
I'm standing in the town square of Toronto.
Corporate security, we're trespassing you from the property for causing disturbance.
I haven't caused a disturbance.
Stop lying, please.
Please stop lying.
Please don't lie on TV.
You're interfering with this peaceful demonstration.
Please don't lie on TV.
You gotta go.
Please don't lie.
You've got to go.
You have to go.
No, I don't.
You're going to leave the property.
Well, here's my lawyer.
You can talk to him, okay?
Okay.
I'm going to keep doing my work.
If you guys want to interfere, what's your name?
What's your name?
Show me your ID.
I don't believe you.
Show me your ID.
Well, right here.
This is mine.
Right here.
I can't see your name.
Stop hiding your name.
Yusuf Kassam.
And what grounds are you ejecting?
I'm asking you to leave.
You've already seen my ID.
Asking me to leave is in the grounds.
All right.
Talk to my lawyer or talk to one of the kids.
Okay, sir.
They just trust you in the ass.
I'm not there.
Let me just do my report and then I'll get out of here.
If you want to arrest me, go ahead.
I'm not.
Ezra Levant here for RebelNews.com.
I'm standing in a very strange place.
Normally, it's the town square of my own city.
But today, it's an encampment, a rather gross, urine-soaked encampment of protesters, rather incoherent.
We sent reporters here yesterday to try and have a conversation with them, but it was not useful.
Then mall security, I'm calling them mall security because that's what they are, told our people to leave.
Now, that's not what the law says.
What disappointed me the most is that a Toronto City policeman said if we didn't leave, we would be charged under the trespass laws.
Now, I contacted Aaron Rosenberg, our lawyer, and we went through the trespass laws very carefully.
And he confirmed that there are certain grounds you have to violate before being trespassed.
And we didn't violate those.
So today, this morning, we had a staff meeting going through those laws, and we came back.
Well, you saw the footage of the mini riot that happened, and our seven private security guards were actually attacked.
And I don't blame them for saying we got to get out of here.
The cops weren't around.
Luckily, four of Toronto's finest did finally come.
And after some attempts at negotiation, I told them one of three things is going to happen.
I'm going to come back down here myself alone and get beat up.
I'm going to come back down here with their protection.
Thank God that's what we're doing.
Or the third option is they'd arrest me.
I'm very glad it's ending without arrest, although the day's not done.
That's about it for me.
This isn't an interesting story.
I mean, these protesters are a rental mob.
They're not interesting in any way.
What is an interesting story is how John Torrey's Toronto has rolled out the red carpet for lawlessness and is cracking down on journalists peacefully doing their profession.
What have we learned today, folks?
Do we have free speech in Canada?
I think we do.
But it's kind of like Diet Coke or Free Speech Light, if you will.
It's not the full meal deal.
It's not the First Amendment like our American cousins have.
We got our little five minutes and then we get the bums rush.
I'm not blaming the individual police officers.
This is the bailiwick of John Torrey and his spineless leadership in the city of Toronto.
I regret that our private security took some punches.
I have to say Toronto's police did the right thing in the end.
I understand Toronto police wanting to negotiate, wanting to have a diplomatic solution, but that's not how it is between a bank robber and a bank teller.
That's not how it is between a fireman and a fire.
There's right and wrong, and there's lawful and unlawful.
And committing acts of journalism in the public town square, that's lawful.
All right.
What a great day.
Thanks, everybody, for your support.
If you want to help cover the costs of our seven private security, it's a big bill.
Go to journalistdefensefund.com.
Thanks, officers.
Have a good day, guys.
Thank you very much.
You make contact.
You're going to go to jail.
You're going to go away.
I know.
Can I get out of my fucking face and I will bring you to the home?