Cancel culture’s media-driven madness exposes contradictions: the Washington Post’s Philip Bump misleads with headlines claiming Trump’s "dangerous" cities are Democratic-run, despite data showing none in per-capita violence lists. In St. Louis, a couple falsely labeled as threatening protesters was actually defending their property from an arson-wielding mob, while Indigenous lawyer Leighton Gray—accused of racism and anti-Semitism by CBC and NDP-linked groups over "All Lives Matter" posts—lost his judicial role after Alberta’s Law Society caved to pressure. Gray, facing threats from reporter Rachel Ward, vows legal action and cites The Baddest of Crowd to argue cancel culture fractures society by prioritizing ideology over merit. The episode underscores how media bias weaponizes outrage, eroding fairness and free speech in the process. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I take you through some of the madness that's going on in our cancel culture, including the case of a St. Louis family who defended their house with firearms and how the media reported it, but what really happened.
I hope you enjoy it.
And you know what?
This is one of those podcasts where you really need to see it, to see the family, to see the house, to see the mob.
I encourage you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's $8 a month or $80 for a year.
And you get the video version of this podcast.
I want you to see this home.
I want you to see the gate that was broken, the sign on the gate.
That's all at Rebel News Plus.
right.
Here's today's podcast.
Tonight, we're through the looking glass now, folks.
The world has gone mad, and no one is crazier than the media party.
It's June 29th, and this is the Azure 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 is government house is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Hey, did you see this headline the other day?
Maybe you saw it on social media.
It's from the Washington Post.
Trump keeps claiming that the most dangerous cities in America are all run by Democrats.
They aren't.
Oh, okay.
It's written by the fabulously named Philip Bump.
We've talked about him before.
But it's the Washington Post, so you know it's true, right?
Except look at the chart in their own newspaper and their own article.
Same chart.
The headline, which is all 90% of people will read, certainly on social media, is that Trump was lying when he said the most dangerous cities are Democrat-run.
They're not.
But yeah, they are actually.
Here's the chart from the Washington Post.
The same story.
Only one Republican city is in the top 20 most violent cities in America by raw numbers of crimes.
And there are no Republican cities in the top 20 violent cities per capita, as in per population.
It's just a fact.
They admit the fact, but that headline, why?
Why the lies?
And from a fact checker from Philip Bump, no less.
Hey, also from the Washington Post, look at this.
Did you see this?
St. Louis couple point guns at peaceful crowd of protesters calling for mayor to resign.
Wow, that couple sounds awful, sounds really mean.
And that peaceful crowd sounds so peaceful.
I know whose side I'm on after reading the Washington Post until I read these facts buried in a news story.
This is from the Chicago Tribune.
Mark McCloskey told KMOV TV that a mob rushed toward the home as the family was having dinner and put us in fear of our lives.
This is all private property.
There are no public sidewalks or public streets.
We were told that we would be killed, our home burned, and our dog killed.
We were all alone facing an angry mob, McCloskey said.
Oh, I thought it was peaceful protesters.
And hang on, was it a public sidewalk or private?
Was it in fact a private community that they all broke into?
Why, yes, you can see the mob pouring through a gate here and seeing that magnificent house and accosting the homeowners, the McCloskeys.
Is that a public road?
Systemic Media Fiascos00:15:15
Actually, no.
The whole area was private property.
A sign on the gate door said so that they all passed through.
Can you believe a word people say anymore?
And by people, I mean the media.
The fact-checker, Mr. Bump, and every other media, of course, you cannot believe a word they say.
It's part of cancel culture out there.
It's part of the madness out there.
If you're not perfect your entire life, you will be denounced as an evil enemy and thrown out by the mob, a mob that is literally using a guillotine as its symbol these days.
You know, there's this funny gal on YouTube, Jenna Marbles is his name, silly, goofy, made famous by her self-deprecating humor.
Her big video was a mockery of herself.
That's the funniest source of humor, isn't it?
Making fun of yourself all the time.
She called it how to trick people into thinking you're good looking.
That's so funny.
A silly gal making silly gags, billions of views, all of them jokes, really.
Not really being too mean to anybody, but just jabbing everything a little bit.
But now she's just quitting.
After first denouncing herself for making some videos that are problematic.
What?
That's every video about everything or anything.
But no, she knows she has to accuse herself before somebody else does.
Maybe they'll go easier on her that way.
All right, so I get it.
I feel like we're at a time where we are purging ourselves of anything and everything toxic.
And I'm being requested that I address things that I've done in my past.
I also get a lot of tweets from people that are saying like, we love you, you unproblematic queen, which always makes me uncomfortable because I'm a person.
Those of you that are familiar with how long I've been on the internet know that that's not true, that I've definitely done things in the past that weren't great, and I'm not completely unproblematic.
Is there any work of art that can withstand the perfectly woke mob?
If a work of art isn't itself problematic, then an artist surely is.
Real or imagine, nothing from the Renaissance could possibly survive this test.
No sculpture, no painting.
It's all patriarchal and violent and misogynistic.
And don't get me started on trans rights.
I mean, Leonardo da Vinci, where was he on trans rights?
Everything, anything must be denounced, except it seems that the denouncers have the dirtiest hands.
Gerald Butts, Trudeau's denouncer-in-chief, well, he tweeted a bizarre infographic mocking blacks and Aboriginals the other day, saying Alaska is rape central, calling parts of America white Congo.
What does he mean by that part?
Is he using Congo as an insult?
In what way is he saying that part of America is white people acting like black people?
Is that what he meant?
He lied when he was asked about it, claiming he never even looked at it, what he tweeted, and he's just as mortified as you are, but he's lying about that too.
He looked at it and he laughed at it and he went through it with his boss and they all laughed at it together.
So he's the accuser?
He's the judge of whether you're racist.
He's Trudeau's blackface right-hand man excusologist.
How many people did Wendy Mensley denounce as racist, us included?
She was the one dropping end bombs at work.
Here's a great tweet by James Woods, the Hollywood actor, one of the few conservatives.
The wokest liberals all seem to have done blackface.
How does that happen?
I don't know anyone who's done blackface and I travel around.
I don't know anyone.
Is that why they all accuse others first to distract from their own misconduct?
It's like Trudeau the groper saying he's a feminist.
You know, Harvey Weinstein said he was a feminist too.
He's a serial rapist.
So who's going to stand up to this madness?
It is a madness.
It's hard to stand up to madness when it's the madness of crowds.
Peer pressure is so incredibly powerful.
Here's one young girl trying to be herself, not part of the mob.
I pity what they will do to her.
We live in an age of terror, not just violent terrorism, of which there is still plenty, but the terror of the mob, the terror of cancel culture, the terror of being accused of something, anything, and having no defense because the charges are indefensible.
There are no defenses.
That is the age we're in.
We're doing our best here at Rebel News to stand up to it.
Our next guest, well, he's a victim of it.
Listen to this.
I want to show you a video clip from the United States that I think sums up some of the absurdity of the recent mania in regards to cancel culture, accusations of racism.
It's a white girl shouting that a black cop is racist.
You've got to see it to believe it.
Take a look at this.
You gotta have to be able to go for the ball.
Everyone moves over.
I'm prepping for me together.
I want to talk to you, sir.
I'm talking to white people.
Oh, because I can't be racist, right?
No, sir.
I'm talking to her.
Yeah, exactly.
Systemically, no, sir.
Systemically, racism can only be white.
Systemically, sir.
Individually, it can be a different color, but systemically, it can only be white.
She goes on to criticize a white officer who's married to a black woman, saying, despite that, he is racist.
It was quite an exchange, and it reminded me of a recent fiasco in Alberta where the disgraced NDP leader Rachel Notley, who is so white she's pink.
And by the way, I got nothing against white people myself.
I am white.
She denounced as racist, and I think she even implied he was anti-Semitic, an Aboriginal man, a status Indian, who is on various high-ranking judicial committees in the province.
He's a Queen's Counsel, which is a very senior rank for a lawyer.
He himself is a status Indian who works out of Cold Lake, Alberta.
Not only is he ethnically First Nations, but he does charitable works in the First Nations community.
He founded the Lakeland Sports and Learning Academy, a nonprofit for Aboriginal kids in that area.
He is a champion of Aboriginals within the law.
And Rachel Notley accused him of bias and had him drummed out of legal offices because of some conservative Facebook posts.
Unacceptable, incredible.
My friend Sheila Gunread had an excellent video on the subject, but we reached out to the lawyer in question, Leighton Gray is his name.
He joins us now via Skype from Cold Lake, Alberta.
Mr. Gray, what a pleasure to meet you.
Thanks for taking the time to come on our show.
It's my pleasure.
It's at least I could do after what Sheila Gonrid did for me and coming out and supporting me and pointing out really the hypocrisy of the BBC piece that was done about me.
Well, about me, but really more about conservatives everywhere, I think.
Well, I've seen this before.
I mean, anytime someone doesn't fit the mold of a conservative, and you don't even have to be very conservative.
If you are black, if you are aboriginal, if you are gay, if you're anyone who is not supposed to be conservative, you get defamed brutally.
And we saw that bizarre street incident where the liberal white girl was shouting at black cops that they were racist.
That's what this felt like.
In this case, it wasn't just Rachel Nawley, it felt like the CBC itself was leading the mob against you.
Tell us a little bit about what happened from your point of view.
Well, I think the genesis of what happened to me actually started with a group of lawyers group called the Canadian Trial Lawyers Association, Alberta, and a gentleman, a lawyer who was mentioned in the CDC piece named Tom Engel.
Towards the end of May, CBC ran a piece.
It was written by a lady Rachel Ward that had nothing to do with my appointment to the Provincial Court Nomination Committee.
But she strung it together and she contacted my office.
And she wanted to ask me about the connection between this other story, which was about a native man named Clayton Boucher, and my appointment to the board.
And I didn't respond.
She ran the piece anyway.
And even though the Clayton Boucher story had nothing to do with me, it was all connected to me and the Provincial Court nomination group.
I thought and hoped that was the end of it.
But it turns out, based upon some lists here, emails that I've seen that were originated out of the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association, that there was something in the works that grew in successive weeks where there was coordination between the CTLA, or at least Mr. Engel, the NDP, and the CDC.
And so about 10 days ago, Rachel Ward contacted my office.
She contacted me by email.
I didn't respond.
She contacted me again, this time in a very threatening way, indicating that if I didn't respond, she was going to publish all kinds of unsavory things about me, that I was a racist, that I was anti-Semitic, and so on.
I sought legal advice, and the advice was that I probably should not respond until I saw the piece.
She emailed my office at least three times.
The most concerning thing, however, was when she couldn't get hold of me, or when I wouldn't respond by email, she actually called my reception or my office, spoke to my receptionist, and indicated to me that, or to her, that I was a racist.
And that lady was very distraught.
She's worked for me for many years.
She's a wonderful lady, a great employee.
And she was very upset.
I found out subsequently that I'm not a defamation expert, but I received some advice that the reason for that is that CBC can avoid liability for defamation if they show that they've given notice to the person they're about to throw under the bus.
So what happened at that point was the story was published on the Friday, going back about 10 days.
And it was a salacious piece.
Those who saw it, I mean, I'm fortunate in a sense, I guess, because based on a recent survey, only about 3% of Canadians pay any attention to the CBC, even though we fund it 100%.
But there certainly was sufficient notoriety that I was contacted by The ministry, and they indicated to me that they were going to be making a change based on the publicity.
And this is all based upon some social media posts that Sheila John Reed really elaborated upon quite well.
But the crux of it was based on a skewed interpretation of some social media posts, they presented this picture of me as someone who was unsuitable or unfit.
That was the way Mr. Engel described.
So let me pause there because you've raised so many interesting things.
I want to get in them a little bit before we move on to other subjects.
So the first thing is you believe, and you have some evidence based on the emails and who was talking to whom, that Tom Engel, who's an anti-police lawyer, sort of a radical leftist lawyer in Edmonton, the CBC, that they had, that they were coordinating with each other to basically whip up a campaign against you.
Is that what you're saying?
That the CBC was working with this left-wing advocacy group, the Criminal Trial Lawyers Association, to get you kicked off of this judicial appointment committee.
Am I accurately stating what you've observed?
Right.
I saw the, I'm not a member of the TTLA, but my partner in our office, Mr. Hart Spencer, is.
And so he saw these emails.
And of course, at one point, Mr. Engel realizes in the listserv that I'm probably seeing emails.
But when you go back through the emails, it's very clear that Mr. Engel was coordinating with, talking to the CBC.
And of course, throughout this time, the NDP was attacking the minister, Mr. Spicer, and the House and using my name specifically and saying that this person is unfit and shouldn't be on the board because of fine.
So what were the actual tweets or Facebook comments, I think they were, that got the NDP so incensed here?
So, I mean, you've got the NDP, the CBC, a Trial Lawyers Association, all working hand in glove.
What was it that got under their skin?
Was there a particular phrase, or did you like something you weren't supposed to like?
Were you too conservative for them?
Yeah, well, I think one of them was a Black Lives Matter post that depicted two black men.
And the crux of it was all lives matter.
And that's what they were saying.
And I simply reposted that because I thought it was a very positive message.
But that was interpreted as, you know, sort of if I was some sort of heretical advocate against black lives.
So literally saying all lives matter.
And by the way, you're a status ending, you're an Aboriginal man.
You could, you know, I think Aboriginal lives matter, Indigenous lives matter.
You yourself have a deep stake in that.
We could talk about this a little bit later.
You're a lawyer for plaintiffs seeking compensation for treatment, that they mistreatment under residential schools.
So you show in your daily life that all lives matter to you, but saying that was somehow disqualifying in the eyes of the NDP, the CBC, and this activist lawyer, Tom Engel.
Cancel Culture's Impact00:03:46
Right.
And it's a great example, really, of how the left and whole cancel culture works.
It doesn't really matter who you are or what your background is if you're saying the wrong things.
For example, in 2019, I received a very prestigious award from the Alberta Hall Trial Association, Gary J.B. Humanitarian Justice Award.
I received that award for my work over the past 20 years on behalf of Indigenous litigants.
But in the cancel culture, that doesn't seem to matter.
The only people who get a free pass seem to be the ones who are clearly on the left, useful to the left.
The most obvious example is our prime minister seems to be capable of saying anything to anyone at any time, and he's given a pass.
Whereas people who say things or express views that might be considered conservative, they will expose themselves to this type of cancel culture.
And I can tell you, as someone who's lived it, it is quite horrifying.
In my line of work, your reputation is your life.
It is your business.
And I've spent more than 30 years developing it, growing it, nurturing it, serving my clients to the best of my ability.
And then in a moment, some people who want to use you in order to serve a certain purpose that's useful to the left, in this case, the NDP, they're able to destroy that reputation or attempt to destroy it.
In hindsight, I don't believe that's true.
However, it has impacted me professionally.
I have received a tremendous outpouring of support from Rebel News and other people in the profession in the community.
I'm grateful for that.
But there are also a few hate speakers.
There was a lady who contacted my office and left a message describing me as a horrible racist.
And, you know, for example, the anti-Semite claim, that one's really interesting because only in April, I published regularly on a blog.
And in April, I wrote a paper about a wonderful man named Martin Huber, who is a Jewish theologian at the 20th century.
I described him in my paper as one of the most brilliant, one of the most brilliant religious people of the 20th century.
So that's really odd speech from someone who is supposedly anti-Semitic.
But it's a good example of how in this sort of lack of discourse, how the left will ignore the parts of your reputation who you are that don't serve a particular narrative.
And they'll focus on and twist certain things that are said that will focus, that will heighten and exacerbate a certain narrative that is useful to them.
And I myself is a bond in this particular game.
So you're a status Indian, Indigenous man yourself.
You're a follower and I guess I would say a student of the Jewish thinker Martin Buber.
I understand that you've recently hired various minority lawyers, Muslim lawyers included.
I mean, frankly, the left, if you were a man of the left, would call you the greatest hero and they would be nominating you for the Supreme Court of Canada because you tick all of their identity boxes, you know, pro-Jewish, pro-Muslim, status Indian, lawyer, charitable, you know, you're in cold lake.
Like, seriously, fast track to the Supreme Court for you.
Six Terms for Inclusion00:08:08
But because you're a concern.
And by the way, saying all lives matter isn't even a conservative point of view.
It's just saying, I'm going to treat everyone equally.
Because of that, you were canceled.
But you said that, I think I heard you say that as a reaction to this media manufactured storm, I think I heard you say that the minister, the Department of Justice, called you up to kick you off the Judicial Advisory Committee.
Just for our viewers who don't know, that's the group that helps vet and suggest people who should become lawyers.
So it's like a consultation with experts.
And your role, I would imagine, is not just to provide legal scrutiny, but to say, hey, well, there's this, maybe there's this bright Aboriginal lawyer over here that we should put on the provincial court.
So frankly, not only are you there for your legal smarts, but you know Aboriginal law.
So you're on this Judicial Appointment Committee, Advisory Committee.
Did you say that you got a call from the department asking you to step down?
Well, they didn't put it in those terms.
They made it clear to me that because of the pressure, because of the pressure that was coming, and because of some of the content of the CBC piece, that they were going to be going into another direction.
And they gave me the choice of whether or not to resign or to be removed.
And I thought it would be more appropriate.
I mean, it's important to remember that I was given the appointment by the provincial government.
And so I felt some degree of responsibility to them.
I didn't want to do anything else that might cause them to be embarrassed.
And so that was why I did that.
Well, the reason I ask you that, Mr. Gray, is because Doug Schweitzer, the justice minister, he publicly said, no, no, no, we didn't fire him.
He resigned.
But what I'm learning from you here is you got a phone call that said, yeah, we're going in a different direction.
Basically, would you please resign to save us from the additional insults and injury of us firing you?
That they called you up.
You didn't go to them and voluntarily resign.
They called you and let you know, told you the writing was on the wall.
And then later, Doug Schweitzer said, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we didn't do that.
He resigned.
I think he's telling a porky because he let it be known that it was you who decided.
But in fact, it sounds like they stimulated your resignation with that call that obviously had that in mind.
Am I wrong in that?
I think I want to say a couple of things about Mr. Schweitzer.
First of all, he did defend me in the House quite vigorously and I'm grateful for that.
I didn't see his comment after the fact.
I think the best way to put it is I was presented with a dilemma.
And for me, the least worst option was to resign.
But it was made pretty clear to me that I was going to be removed, whether I resigned or not.
You know, I'm very disappointed in that because the thing is, when you give in to the mob, it strengthens the mob.
The appetite grows, its appetite grows the more it eats.
And if it can take you out, a status Indian Indigenous man on a judicial advisory committee, well, then maybe it can even take out a judge.
Maybe it can take out a cabinet minister.
And all for slurs and exaggerations.
And I mean, seriously, saying all lives matter is grounds to take out a Queen's Counsel.
I think that this is a very bad turn of events.
And I'm not here to give you legal advice.
You're the lawyer, not me.
You're the QC.
But I got to tell you, they smeared you as a racist.
And Rachel Notley did so outside the House.
And she just went on a real tear against you.
I got to tell you, I mean, you have your own responsibilities and your own priorities.
But if it were me, I mean, maybe I'm more conflict-oriented than you, but I would take her to court.
And I would say, you prove all those things.
You prove I'm a racist.
You prove I'm an anti-Semite.
And look at the damage you've done.
You pushed me off the Judicial Advisory Committee.
You blackened my name in the community 30 years, and you did it all for partisan gang and flush out her secret collusion with the CBC and Tom Engle and his group.
I don't know.
I don't mean to, it's not my place to give you advice, but if I didn't say this to you, I would have wished I would.
And I don't even know if you're time limited, because I think her statements are still out on the internet.
I think the CBC smeared you, but I know for a fact that Rachel Notley went even further than what the CBC said.
And I don't think you should sit at the side of the road as Roadkill.
I think you should fight back.
Well, I'm not your equal in terms of being conflict-oriented, as I'm the champion, but I am a litigation lawyer.
And I will tell you that this is something that is being seriously considered in my camp.
I think where I stepped in it, in terms of the political correctness, and that's almost an archaic term now.
We're well beyond political correctness.
But I posted on social media that, and Sheila General brought this out in her piece, that I was not going to be governed by biases, things like inclusion and diversity, which to the left are words that do not mean what they should mean in the Oxford English Dictionary.
And so what I said and what got me in trouble was that in terms of selecting judicial candidates, I was going to support people who were the best, most qualified candidates for the job.
And when you're talking about selecting judges, these are people who have enormous power, great discretion, can seriously impact not only individual lives, corporate lives, but the scope and the movement of our society.
When you're talking about such an important position, in my view, and I said this publicly, and again, I realize this is a conservative view, not an alt-right view, that we have to have the very best people for the job.
So that if, for example, we were looking at six candidates and they were all the best, we were picking six people, and the six best were all women.
I would vote for those six women.
If they were all black, I would vote for all the black.
If they were Jews, I'd vote for all the Jews.
I wouldn't care.
That was a mistake I made, because I said I was going to be oblivious to those things.
Not that I wouldn't consider them in the total mix, but I just indicated very strongly that we have to have, when we're picking something that important, you have to have the best people for the job.
And I saw that as my responsibility.
That's what got me into trouble.
And again, it's very ironic.
We're talking about inclusion and diversity.
And if I'm being added to a board like this on the basis of checking boxes like inclusion and diversity, I think it's very ironic that I'm being excluded because I would be there in order to add a diversity of views.
And this is why I say the left doesn't, when it talks about inclusion and diversity, it's not really talking about those things.
There's no diversity of views if you disagree with the left.
That's what I found out.
Well, I am deeply saddened by this entire situation.
It does not surprise me.
I've seen it 20 times.
And these days I see it every day.
Stand And Rise00:04:55
I hope this isn't the end of it.
You yourself will have to weigh whether you want to take legal action.
I mean, obviously you've been thinking about that.
And I am probably more conflict-oriented than most.
But I think you ought to have another chapter.
Because just talking to you for these last 15 minutes, the things you're saying are things that the country needs, not just for a strong judicial system, but in terms of uniting people of different backgrounds.
And whether you're Jewish or Muslim or Indigenous or white or whatever, to have that common ideal of unity and meritocracy, I feel that by casting you aside, We've set back.
Racial harmony and unity, and we've added poison to the system.
And that may suit Tom Engel or Rachel Notley or the CBC.
But I think Alberta has been disserved by your ouster and I hope that in the in the course of events, you will not only return to the kind of public service that you had on the Judicial Advisory Committee, and I understand the LAW Society OF Alberta also summarily fired you without even any notice.
I think you should sue them too.
By the way, it is my hope that you return and you know what.
I think you should be appointed to the provincial court yourself, and I think that that would be a letter, a level of moral restitution.
It would bring things into balance, because what I've heard from you about your experience, your service I didn't go through your legal and scholarly biography in your introduction but if anything, you need to come back bigger and stronger, and I think the way to reset the equilibrium is to put you on the court.
That's my own view, not that the justice minister listens to me.
Layton Gray, last word to you.
I tell me something positive.
Tell me, tell me what you're working on.
Tell me about the community organization, the hockey.
Give me something hopeful to leave on here.
Well uh, I remain uh, a conservative.
Uh, I still believe that you know, quoting Jon Stewart Mill, that the right of someone else's fist ends where my nose begins.
The left has tried to take off my head and and my nose at the same time but uh, you know, to quote the Marvel movie uh, they don't.
They should have gone for the head because uh, i'm still going to fight uh, for what I believe is is right.
I'm still working on behalf of our clients.
We have class action involving indigenous peoples here in Alberta and uh, i'm very grateful, as I said, support that.
I'm very grateful for my views to you and Sheila Gun Reach, and I just want to encourage everyone out there uh, who believes same things that I believe and that I believe many conservatives stand for um, that this is the essence of our country and we all need to stand up, we have to rise.
The leftists are bullies, but that is that is.
That is their weakness.
No one is immune from the treatment that I received, but that is not a good reason to stand in the shadow and be overrun by these people, Now more than ever, we have to stand, we have to rise, and we have to say, no, this is wrong.
This is what we believe in.
And we're not going to be governed by people who want to induce chaos on the basis of these sectarian views based upon category.
Douglas Murray talks about this in a wonderful book called The Baddest of Crowd, which I would anybody to read, based on things like race or transgender or being homosexual or anything of that nature.
Those things really shouldn't divide us.
This is Canada.
There's room for everybody.
But there has to be a society where everyone's integrity, everyone's values, everyone's individual value is important and respected.
And the people who support the left need to understand that's not where they're coming from.
When they talk about equality, that's not really what they're talking about.
When they talk about equity, they're not talking about fairness.
They're talking about using these words in order to gather power, to gather storm that's really designed to oppress people.
And I think the key thing here, the thing that I would say is that I got in trouble because I thought I was living in a country where freedom of expression is valued.
That's still protected in our contribution.
Appreciation and Inspiration00:02:57
I would encourage everyone to look at what happened to me.
Rather than be discouraged from coming forward, be encouraged and be brave and not be afraid to stand up and express your views.
Being conservative is not all right.
It's not hatred.
It's expressing, in my respectful view, a love of our country, a love of Canada.
Well, that's very well said.
And right there, I think you prove my case that you belong on the court.
And if my old friend Jason Canning is watching, I think he should make a special inquiry, not a formal judicial inquiry.
I'm not talking, he should just make personal inquiries into how this went down and how this was a stitch-up with the NDP, the CBC, and a left-wing trial lawyers association to derail a good man who was obviously on a good track.
And I think the way that the balance can be brought back is with a judicial appointment.
Layton, great pleasure to talk with you.
We wish you all good things, and it's nice to finally meet you.
Thank you very much, Ezra.
I appreciate it very much.
It's our pleasure.
All right, stay with us.
More ahead.
Welcome back on my show Friday on our encounter at Nathan Phillips Square outside the Toronto City Hall.
Sarah writes, Wow, just wow, nice to see some truth revealed.
Thank you, Ezra and team.
Well, I appreciate you saying that.
It was a real team effort.
Besides the seven bodyguards, our lawyer Aaron was there.
You probably recognized him from our free speech battles.
And we brought five cameramen there to get at all the different angles.
And we have the folks back here at headquarters.
It really was a team effort.
I was very proud of our team.
And I think they really, I think that day we lived up to our ideals, don't you think?
I was very proud of everybody.
And no one on our team got scared and ran away.
Some of the security said, oh, we don't want to go back in, but every one of our people went back in.
Lauren writes, thank you.
I am so sorry that you are risking your safety right in the center of the capital city of Ontario.
This is exceptional journalism.
Hey, thanks for saying that.
I didn't feel at risk when I had the security around me.
I felt momentarily, I thought, yikes, when I'm walking back in, I sure hope the cops come because they would have roughed me up pretty bad, the protesters, but the cops did come.
Steven writes, I've subscribed for the year for this episode.
Thank you for all your work, Rebel.
Hey, thanks for saying that.
You know, we uploaded, we tweaked the version.
The version we gave you on Friday night was excellent, but we tweaked it, added a few improvements, and put that up on YouTube this morning.
And in just a few hours, it hit 100,000 views.
So it's certainly catching the imagination of a lot of Canadians and even people in other countries who said, hey, maybe we can stand up to the mob.
I hope it's a template, a precedent, an inspiration for others.