Ezra Levant’s Fight the Fines episode compiles 2020 cases where police exploited COVID lockdowns to impose draconian penalties—Anthony Claypole faced £980 for playing football in Wales, Bridget Carlson was handcuffed in Ontario over a park swing, Pat McHenry received $1,255 for walking his dog, and Walter Matheson was ticketed $292.50 (escalating to $10K) for sitting alone in a Tim Hortons parking lot. Rebel News’ crowdfunding campaign backed over 300 individuals, with legal victories like Matheson’s dropped ticket exposing systemic overreach and police embarrassment when challenged. These incidents reveal how emergency powers eroded rights, disproportionately crushing small businesses and citizens while normalizing arbitrary enforcement. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello my rebels and I hope you're having a good Christmas time.
Hopefully you're having a chance to take a break from a busy year or maybe you're still on staycation and have been for many months.
Either way, it's a pleasure to have you listen to the podcast.
Over the days ahead, we have the best of The Rebel compilations of some of our favorite videos this past year.
I hope you enjoyed them.
We'll be back with original programming very early in the new year, but I think a lot of these videos you're about to hear today in the next few days may well be new to you because they were on our YouTube channel, but they were not on my show, The Ezra Levant Show.
So I hope you enjoy these because I think most of them may be new for you and they're really some of our best work.
So without further ado, here are the best of the Rebels shows from 2020.
And just in closing, let me invite you to become a Rebel News Plus subscriber.
You get the video version of these shows, which the podcast is great, but seeing the visuals, especially in some of our most dramatic coverage, really makes a difference.
Just go to RebelNews.com, click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
As you know, we don't take a dime from Trudeau.
So this is how we rely on you, frankly.
Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, the best of our series called Fight the Fines.
It's Christmas Eve 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 is government.
But why I publish them?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
Well, we know who the Grinch is this Christmas.
It's the politicians and their lockdowns.
Don't blame it on the virus.
The virus did its damage and it's a shame, but it's the politicians who seize the opportunity for power and authoritarianism to take away our civil liberties.
And one of the worst things they did was to attack people who couldn't fight back.
Small businesses, ordinary people who couldn't pay the fines and couldn't hire a lawyer to fight the fines.
So about six months ago, we came up with the idea that we would crowdfund to fight the fines.
We love crowdfunding.
People say we do it too much.
No, I disagree because we've been able to help literally dozens.
In fact, well over 100.
If you add it all up in the different jurisdictions, the number of people we've taken a case for or are currently in taking, you're not even going to believe me when I say it's more than 300 people.
A lot of them are in Australia.
We've handled that in one big bundle.
But in other jurisdictions, especially here in Canada, we are fighting the fines for people that the politicians and the police have chosen to pick on.
So that's the Grinch.
Well, our lawyers are looking to fight back.
And that's what our show today is.
Here's the best of Fight the Fines.
I'm here in Sunny Barry in Wales to speak to Anthony Claypole on another case I'm investigating for Fight the Fines UK.
This is yet another case of corrupt fines being issued totally unfairly to people simply trying to go about their ordinary lives.
Anthony Claypole earlier on this year was playing football in the park with a friend and with his kids.
Now this sort of exercise is totally mandated by the government, totally allowed, and yet the police still hounded him and harassed him and hit him with a £60 fine which has since gone up for no good reason to almost £1,000.
This is what Anthony Claypole had to say about his case.
So I'm here with Anthony Claypole who earlier on in the year got fined in this very field which is by no means a small field.
There's probably no better place in Wales to be socially distanced.
What exactly did you get fined for?
Fined for a Picnic00:02:58
Well, apparently I'd broken the coronavirus laws and they had accused us of having a picnic.
I was in a field with apparently more than two people.
So in this massive field with more than two people and that's apparently a huge threat to sort of public health as it were.
But they fined you for having a picnic.
Well they said we were having a picnic.
We actually wasn't.
Right so you didn't have any food?
No.
But you were sitting down on a blanket?
No, my partner was on a blanket because our younger son Archie is autistic and he wouldn't venture far from her so she set the blanket down and myself and my friend were lashing a football back and forth and we were at least probably 50 feet apart at the time doing this.
And as I say meanwhile the kids are riding around on their bikes.
My partner was on a blanket with Archie and my friend Darren's wife was on a blanket probably about three meters apart because the girls had that in mind because their youngest is a baby and he couldn't even crawl at the time.
So he was having tummy time.
And yeah that's basically what happened.
They came from that direction over there and walked straight towards us, made a beeline for us.
What exactly did they say to you?
They came over to break up the party and told us that we were breaking the coronavirus laws and that we had to move on.
Right and then they threatened you apparently didn't they to well she wanted my details the guy was actually quite approachable but the female PCSO was yeah she had an attitude from the get-go.
And then they told you that they were going to arrest you in front of your children?
They did yeah.
So they're sort of intimidating you instead of threatening you.
So I believe they said verbatim you don't want your children to see that.
Yeah they tried to use my children against me as if I was creating the situation when in fact they were the ones that were causing the lamb distress I would argue to not only myself but my young kids as well.
So they came from that direction and then you moved over into that direction where the other police turned up and yeah, they confronted us around sort of this area and I said to my partner, come on, let's just go home, I've got work in two hours and we packed up and we went across that direction and these two PCSOs, they followed us a close proximity all the while.
My two of my kids were turning around.
But daddy, they're following us, but dad, they're following us.
Like relax, it's okay, just ignore them, they're not there.
And when we exited the field onto a street down there, a riot van came bombing around the corner, mounted the pavement in front of us and out jumped two proper coppers, if you like.
So you were actually going home, we were leaving the field yeah, so you were.
Basically they wouldn't leave us alone.
They took, they were the ones following you.
They were yeah, and almost like a pincer movement.
You know look, I mean she phone for the back up here right, and obviously where we were in that direction, she's on obviously, on the radio saying we're coming out on the pastures as though they're chasing someone who's just committed some kind of burglary or something.
Charge Conundrum00:06:41
You know that's.
It seems like an overreaction, doesn't it?
It does yeah, but obviously for you.
You've got five children.
You've got four at home yeah uh, two of them are sort of vulnerable.
One's got autism, one's got Spurgers, you can't have them cooped up in a house all day.
No, it's not good for them.
Not good for them, it's not good for their business.
It's not good for children in general, in my opinion.
Children are not supposed to be cooped up in a house.
And considering this field is on my doorstep, it's less than 10 minutes' walk from my house.
I felt like this was probably the best location to come if they could ride around on their bikes.
And they were happy, they were laughing, they were having fun like kids should be.
And that mood changed when the PCSOs come from that direction.
And they literally, there were other people in the field, but they made the beeline for us.
And that's when the mood changed.
Why do you think that was that they went for you?
Well, I don't know.
Maybe they just walked through the sneak it by chance and saw us or whether I was tagged because of my posts on Facebook.
I don't know.
Right, so you've been quite vocal about this stuff in the past, and you think it's been, yeah.
Maybe there are people out there who are, you know, they've got a grudge, as it were.
Well, I think that they don't generally like people who speak out, especially against the state and things like that.
But for sure, they made a beeline straight for us.
There were other people in the field, but they came for us.
And since then, you've received a lot of correspondence, obviously, from Accro and all sorts of other organisations.
They sent you notices and fines.
And what's the fine originally?
So originally, it was what they call a fixed penalty notice, and it was from a company called Accro.
I was told to ignore that, so I was told to not pay that because I hadn't done anything wrong.
It says here the charge is that you contravene the requirement to not participate in a gathering in public of more than two people.
Quite a charge, huh?
So basically, the charge is not being alone.
And the amount of this was £60.
At the time, yeah, initially it was £60.
Right.
it's since gone up to 816 plus charges plus fees plus all the rest and then you got the other one i think from and then i received this which is a what they call a single justice procedure from softwares police Again, this on the second page goes into the charge, as it were.
Well, this one, the charge has changed to participating in public gathering.
Yeah.
That sounds a lot more like you're at a protest or a party.
Not in a group of a few people.
Small protests.
Yeah.
A lot of young members.
Yeah, a lot of young kids protesting against not being able to cycle around a field.
But yeah, no, that's phrased in a lot more of a serious kind of term.
Yeah, slightly more threatening.
It seemed that they had the ante with that one.
And they gave me the chance, though, to enter my plea, attend court or plead guilty, which I was never going to do.
Yeah.
Because I'm not guilty of anything.
So again, I was advised not to create joins with them, not to accept that, because as soon as I sent that off, I was creating a contract with them and accepting the fine, accepting the charge.
I can see here there's a section called your plea.
Yes.
You've pled not guilty.
Indeed.
Seems a bit serious, doesn't it?
That you have to have a guilty or not guilty plea for being in a field with your children.
And was it at this point that the fine went up on this?
No, I ignored.
Again, I ignored that on the basis that I was not to accept, create contract with them and accept the fine and the charge.
And then the next thing you knew, just a couple of weeks ago, I woke up to a message from a friend saying I was apparently famous on the Bayon District website where they had posted a big header saying that Barry Mann charged with breaching coronavirus laws or regulations, whatever it was.
And then they had my full blurb, my name, my address, charged with the price.
It's very much like a criminal at large.
On the website of the Bayon District News.
So that's like publicly humiliating, I must be.
I mean, it's a small community, isn't it?
Yeah, kind of.
It's not that big a town.
But at that point, I still hadn't had any correspondence from the courts.
They hadn't informed me I'd been fined.
It seems that the buying district got all of this information and they were allowed to just post that on the website.
They've scared people, I guess.
So you've put here under your information for the court, I'm pleading not guilty because I had not broken any laws.
I was acting lawfully, committing no loss, harm or injury to anybody.
If I'm good enough to travel the country on my job, then I'm good enough to take my children to a field to ride their bikes.
Also, the police statement contains zero context and is not a factual document.
According to what happened, I have video footage.
Yes.
So it sounds like you're fighting this.
You're not giving up.
No, I'm not going to give up.
I'm not going to say it.
The initial fine was, what, £60.
Initially, it was £60.
What has it gone up to?
£816 plus cost plus surcharge.
So with all the costs, you're looking at about a grand.
Near enough, I'd say, yeah, because they didn't tell me when I contacted Cardiff Magistrates to confirm that this actually was a case.
I asked who's the victim surcharge for, because in my opinion, I'm the victim.
But they reckon they add that to every case, every time someone's charged with something, they add a surcharge.
So it's not a surcharge then.
It's added every time, isn't it?
Well, that's what they call it.
Surcharge, yeah.
So they're just bolting things on, you know, sort of arbitrarily.
At the time, though, wasn't the maximum fine that they could offer you £100, £120?
I believe so, yeah, because if you bear in mind, this happened in me.
So we were in lockdown one, and at that time, to my knowledge, anyway, we were in like what they call a tiered fine system, fine structure, where if you were caught for the first offence, use that term loosely, it was sort of 60 or 100 pounds.
And every time you got caught after that, if you did so.
Using the term offence very loosely, and you're talking about kicking a football around in a field and letting your children cycle around and exercise and get out of the house.
I mean, that's not exactly a hardened criminal.
Not really, no.
No.
But no, I mean, so they've since brought in this higher fine.
And they're kind of retroactively imposing that upon what you did back in May.
And then all of the fees and all the rest of it that go into that.
You're looking at almost a thousand pounds.
Nearly, yeah, pretty much.
Which isn't a small sum.
That's quite a worrying amount, especially when you've got young children and all the rest of it.
And so close to Christmas.
You know, that's the kind of thing that could ruin Christmas for you.
Well, I can't afford it, to be quite honest with you, because I'm the only one that works in my household because our children are young still, so my partner can't go to work yet.
And obviously, as you see, just before Christmas, to be lumped with this is it would be impossible for me.
And it's one of those situations kind of catch 22.
You pay the fine, can't afford that, but also you've got to fight the fine, can't afford that either.
Bridget's Thousand-Pound Fine00:14:43
So what do you do?
You're stuck in a position where they are expecting you to shell out money that you don't have before Christmas.
And that's one of the reasons why we're doing this.
We're fighting the fines and we're providing you with a legal team who will fight it on your behalf.
I appreciate that.
And Rebel News, of course, are funding that through the donations of our supporters.
And if you at home sympathise with Anthony's case or other cases like it, you can go to fightthefines.co.uk and you can chip in and donate there.
Or if you also have a similar case like this and you want our help, you can submit a report at the same URL.
Today I'm excited to introduce you to Bridget Carlson, not because of the terrible things she says happened to her, but because, well, she needs our help to fight back.
She's a young mum from North Bay, Ontario, and she's got a genuinely harrowing tale that will outrage and anger you.
I know it angers me a lot.
I spoke to Bridget last week over Skype and I was livid, mum to mom, to hear what happened to her.
It was so upsetting that we just had to find a way to help her out.
So we sent one of our really great Toronto-based videographers up to North Bay to talk to Bridget to get her side of the story on camera so that we could show all of you.
Just watch.
We were on this swing for about 15 or 20.
We were here for about 15 or 20 minutes.
She was just on the swing.
We weren't hurting anyone.
We were here by ourselves.
The police showed up.
Two officers approached us and told us that we were breaking and they put handcuffs on my mom.
I told them that we weren't harming anyone, but that we needed to get outside and get some normality and just get some fresh air.
We were talking for a little while, just like on human to human level, explaining like where I was coming from and all of this mental health.
The lockdown, two months being inside with my daughter with no support.
They proceeded to call backup.
The sergeant showed up here.
Same thing.
I tried to discuss it with him.
He didn't want to hear it.
He grabbed my arm, took my backpack off, proceeded to put me in handcuffs, separated me from my daughter.
I was taken up to the police vehicle where the cop did a body search on me and it was very thorough and invasive.
From there, they put me into the back of the cop car and I didn't even know where my daughter was at that time.
They went through all my things against my will.
We were separated for about 20 minutes.
He called me an idiot and yelled in my face.
They finally came back and released me from the coffer, took my handcuffs off, and gave me an $880 ticket from their office.
They didn't say anything.
They just gave me the ticket and told me if I didn't pay it, that they would take my license away from me.
And so we left the car hand in hand and my daughter.
That's how it happened.
Excuse me, terrible.
My heart, my heartbeat has been like racing since this happened.
I'm up till midnight until one o'clock in the morning.
I'm having night sweats.
I've lost weight.
I can't believe that we're living a country that's capable of doing this to the citizens.
I'm a student at Nipissing University.
I'll be going into fourth year.
I'm a single mom.
The only income I receive is service app.
I don't have the money to pay $880 and I'm doing everything I can to support my daughter.
I don't know what I'm going to do.
Bridget's story made me so mad for her and her whole family.
I'm sure you feel that way too.
And how awful for her five-year-old to witness it all.
I know my kids would be absolutely distraught.
Who was Bridget hurting in an empty park alone with her five-year-old?
Who was in danger?
Whose health was she putting at risk?
What made her so dangerous that day that she needed to be cuffed, stuffed in a cop car, and searched, her body and her belongings in front of her child, treated like a street thug or a violent offender, like an actual criminal, instead of a mom just taking her daughter out for some fresh air.
And all of this happened to Bridget before she was issued an insane $800 fine.
It's crazy.
It hardly feels like Canada.
How can Bridget fight this alone?
The good news is she's not alone.
Bridget has accepted our offer to help her fight this fine.
That would be wonderful.
Thank you so much.
We put Bridget in touch with the top Toronto criminal lawyer we've been working with, Sam Goldstein.
He's a venture with the Law Society of Ontario.
Now, I spoke to Sam earlier about what Bridget says happened to her that day and why he agreed to take on her case.
Just watch.
What I understand is that there may very well be an infringement of Ms. Carlson's rights.
And mostly what I'm concerned about is whether the police had the lawful authority to arrest her and then to proceed to search her.
With respect to Ms. Carlson, I understand the allegation is that she was alone in the park with her child and she was using the swing.
And the police officer approached her.
As a result of the conversation that took place between the police officer and herself, she then was arrested, meaning that she was handcuffed, escorted to a police cruiser.
Her coat was searched and her backpack was searched.
Now, I think it's important for your viewers to understand that if there was a lawful arrest, and let's assume that for a moment, that the police do have the right to search people incident to arrest.
And they have a very limited common law authority to be able to do that.
The issue becomes is the provincial legislation certainly gave the police the right, the authority, statutory authority to be able to ask her what her date of birth is, what her name is, and her address.
But I'm not so sure the provincial government also enacted companion legislation to give the police the ability to actually arrest her.
That is to say, to handcuff her, right?
Because it was a ticket.
And in tickets, there was nothing that says all they could have simply done was to issue the ticket by simply giving it to her and leaving her alone.
In this case, they went further to that.
And I think that's the central issue about what happened to her.
Well, Sam, I want to thank you so much for taking on Bridget's case.
And I want to make it clear once again to our viewers at home that you don't work for us.
You work for Bridget and we're simply crowdfunding your legal fees to help Bridget.
Bridget told me that, you know, her family doesn't have a lot of money and she, you know, this fine in itself is a lot of money for her family, let alone fighting the fine.
Sam, I'm sure we'll talk to you again down the road as Bridget's case progresses.
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
No mom should be cuffed, stuffed in a cop car, berated, fined, and searched in front of their child for the crime of pushing their child on a swing.
Pandemic or not, it's outrageous.
It's infuriating and traumatic for Bridget, her whole family, and especially her little one.
We have to do something to get these municipal governments back in check.
They aren't balancing rights versus safety whatsoever.
In fact, they are completely out of control.
Rebel News is crowdfunding to pay for Bridget's legal bills.
You can help us help Bridget at fightthefines.com.
And if you have received a fine, reach out to us at that same website, fightethefines.com.
Maybe we can help you because the Civil Liberty Associations definitely aren't doing anything right now.
It's just us, you and Rebel News on the front lines fighting for freedom.
For Rebel News, I'm Sheila Gunry.
David Menzies for Rebel News here in Sarnia, Ontario.
Well, folks, we continue to fight the fines via our fightthefines.com campaign.
And today I'm going to bring you the story of Pat McHenry.
This might just be the most egregious and baffling story that we have brought to you so far about a citizen getting an $880 ticket for, well, I don't know what for.
Let's talk to Mr. McHenry and find out what happened earlier this month when law enforcement here in Sarnia gave him that big ticket.
I brought her out to do her business and I was out here maybe five minutes, six minutes.
I came back to the back door.
I don't use the elevator because I don't want to run into any people to the third floor.
And I got to the third door.
There were two policemen standing in front of my apartment with Mask's son, like yourself.
And they had the ticket already made out.
They whipped it out like Matt Dillon and handed it to me.
$880.
I was just outraged.
I didn't go downtown Walmart.
I didn't go downtown Sarnia.
I didn't go anywhere just out here to this parking lot to let my dog do her business.
As a matter of fact, if you and I were to go in the back door right now and we walk up to the third floor, I can guarantee you we won't run into anybody because they want to use the elevator and I don't use the elevator just for the specific purpose of not running into anybody.
So in other words, you're by yourself with the little dog.
You don't run into anybody here in the parking lot nor in the stairwells.
Nobody.
So, Pat, the question arises, what was the crime?
I just think that it's the heavy hand of especially our mayor here, our left-wing mayor here in Sarnia, who's a complete lunatic as far as I'm concerned, pushing this hysteria all over the place, all over our country.
You can go to Walmart here in Sarnia right now.
I've been there three times.
You go in there, there's lots of people in there.
They're trying to practice social distancing, but if they can do it there, they should be able to do it in every business in Canada.
I mean, what is that crap?
They got the whole damn place shut down.
And, Pat, it should be noted that you returned from a vacation in Mexico in March.
You went into quarantine.
When did the quarantine period end exactly?
I got back on the 25th of March, two days before the quarantine was up.
I got the ticket.
But even as I understand it, even under the rules of quarantining, you're allowed to go into your backyard.
This is essentially your backyard because you live in a high-rise apartment building.
Right there.
Yes, yes.
I consider this my backyard.
It's just for the tenants only.
And I'm not the only person here that has a little dog.
There are other people with dogs, but they usually use the front.
I haven't seen anybody at the back.
Oh, a couple times I've run into people out here at the back, but usually they don't come to the back.
They go to the front out there.
Well, Pat, we certainly don't want an honest, hardworking, taxpaying citizen like you to go to jail, which is why we've reached out.
I'm 72 years old.
If they want to throw me in jail, so be it.
Well, let's not go there.
We have reached out, of course, to our audience to crowdfund cases like yours through our fightthefines.com website.
I want to thank you for making time to speak with me.
Like I said, we're reaching out to our beloved viewers to crowdfund your case.
Sam Goldstein is a brilliant criminal lawyer based in Toronto.
I appreciate it.
I appreciate it just for the simple fact that I can't afford to have a lawyer, but if I had to go to court by myself, I'd still take them on.
I might end up in jail for contempt for the way I talk or something.
But I'll tell you what, I just think this is dead wrong.
And I would tell any judge, I don't care who the judge is, that this is just stupid.
David Mentis for Rebel News here in Sarnia, Ontario.
Well, I'm back here to update the story of Pat McHenry.
He is the retired carpenter that was given one of those $880 tickets for allegedly not following the coronavirus safety protocols.
Well, folks, riddle me this.
When is good news actually bad news?
Well, it's when good news is delivered by the people that occupy this building.
This is Sarnia Police Headquarters.
The day after I interviewed Mr. McHenry, they returned to his apartment.
And folks, you are not going to believe this story.
All right.
So, Pat, you and I met for the first time on Wednesday.
We had the interview of you getting that $880 ticket.
And our viewers can go to my original report and get all the details there.
But the nub of the matter was you walked your little dog, Molly, out to the parking lot, the deserted parking lot of your apartment building.
You even took the stairwells to avoid any contact whatsoever with people because they typically take the elevator at your apartment building.
And when you return to your unit, two Sarnia constables were there and they slapped you with an $880 fine.
Then the day after we talked, the police returned to your apartment.
This would be Thursday morning.
And do tell what happened.
I had a knock on my door.
It was a very loud knock.
And I knew intuitively that it was the police because nobody knocks on your door that loud.
So anyway, I opened the door and there are two policemen there.
And first, I got, I says, hold it.
I don't want to talk to you guys.
I want to talk to my lawyer.
He says, no, no, no.
He says, I've got good news for you.
He says, the original ticket that you got for, we're going to drop it.
So I'm thinking to myself, well, then that is good news.
Maybe they've come to their senses.
Then he hands me another ticket for the total sum of $1,255, more money than the original ticket, just because you showed up in Sarnia to interview me.
It's the most vindictiveness I have ever seen and very dishonest for the police to say, talk about good news.
There's no good news here.
Where's the good news?
And you know, Pat, those are the words he said.
We have good news for you.
And obviously it was facetious.
It was sarcastic because he was actually there to give you a ticket that was almost 50% more than the original ticket.
Walter's Vindictive Ticket00:15:18
Exactly, exactly.
I mean, this is just crazy.
I don't understand it.
I just don't.
And my friends don't understand it.
Nobody does.
This is just complete madness.
You see, Pat, I don't understand it either.
I've reached out on several occasions to the Sarnia police, even their media relations officer.
They won't return my emails.
That's because you're from Rebel News.
Now, if you were from the CBC or the Toronto Star, Bruce Jenner couldn't beat them out here.
Okay.
Yeah, but that's the catch-22.
I don't think any reporter at the Toronto Star or CBC is interested in your story, and certainly we are.
But here's the thing.
I'm not saying this is what happened, but my thinking, Pat, is that they took umbrage to this.
They said, oh, Mr. McHenry wants to play hardball, does he?
He wants to embarrass us in the media.
We'll show him.
That's the only theory I have for this.
And I don't think a judge is going to look kindly at this treatment of you.
I don't think they will neither.
No magistrate on any court could see the justification in this.
This is just crazy.
I'm not one of the Rockefellers.
Okay.
I'm just an ordinary guy.
I get my pension and that's it.
You know, I'm not poor.
I'm not rich, but I certainly don't have money for that kind of a thing.
Well, you know, Pat, hopefully after this video airs, you don't get a knock in the early hours of the morning with some more Sarnia police to give you an even bigger fight.
Seeing so this is Sarnia, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they're knocking at my door tomorrow morning.
The only thing is I will not answer it.
I want to introduce you to Walter Matheson from New Brunswick.
He received a nearly $300 ticket.
His crime?
Sitting alone in his car in a Tim Horton's parking lot while he finished his muffin and coffee before carrying on his day for failure to comply with the direction of emergency measures.
But Walter is obviously a quick thinker because he did something many journalists wouldn't think to do, let alone normal people just minding their own business, trying to wash down a muffin with a double double in a parking lot completely alone in one's own car.
Walter started recording the audio on his phone.
So while we don't have a video of what happened to Walter, we do have the audio of his interaction with the police officer.
There's a lot of dead air as Walter politely waits for the cop to ticket him, so we just cut that out for brevity.
But you can hear for yourself.
Walter isn't rude.
He actually jokes with the cop, and the cop goes from jovial to angry, nearly immediately with Walter, the moment Walter wanted just a little bit of clarity from him.
Just listen.
Not too bad.
Good, good.
Tim Hortons has asked me to move people from the parking lot here.
Really?
I know you're by yourself and all that, but what it does is it's letting the teens see what happens, and then they all start hanging out here later on.
And Tim Hortons, pardon me?
I don't believe that.
You don't believe the teens will do that?
That's their opinion.
No, that's true, but they have asked, and it is up to them to do it.
This country is still a free country.
Okay, if you don't move, I'm going to give you a $292 ticket.
Is that right?
Yes.
For doing what?
For not moving in compliance to what I'm saying.
I'm trying to be nice to you.
License, please.
License, please.
Oh, you.
Then leave now.
Okay.
I was nice to you.
I gave you a chance.
Get out.
If I catch you back here, it will be a $292 tonight.
What's your name, sir?
Constable John Thompson.
Okay, thank you, John.
Okay.
I'd still like to see your driver's license out.
Well, I'm okay.
No, I'd like to see it, sir.
Stop right there.
That's what you're trying to do.
Driver's license.
Doesn't matter.
You don't have to.
You stop right where you are.
How long is this going to go on?
I have no idea.
No idea.
I don't like it any more than you do, but I'm doing the job.
I'll be right back.
Hey, sir, I was nice to you.
I asked you to leave.
You gave me a hard time.
So now you're getting a ticket.
Under the failure to comply with the directions of the Emergency Measures Act.
Yes, you did, sir.
Okay.
You didn't want to leave.
Don't try arguing now.
If you want to take it up with someone, you take it up with the sergeant at the office.
I'm not dealing with you.
Or you can go to court and you can contest it.
Okay?
$292.50.
You can pay it at any service in New Brunswick.
Okay.
You can pay it online.
Okay.
Do you want it on court?
Do you want to go to court in English or in French?
I'm English.
Do you want it in English?
Of course I do.
Okay.
You have a driver's license back.
Thank you very much.
I'm going to get you to sign here.
It's not admitting guilt.
Just to explain it to you.
I'm not going to sign it.
Okay.
Refuse to sign.
It still stands, even if you don't sign it.
Okay?
If you come back here, you will now be trespassing.
Excuse me.
If you come back, you will now be trespassing.
Does that include every Tim Hortons in town?
No, that's just one here in Hampton.
That's this one.
Just this one.
So if you come back, you're trespassing.
There's your ticket.
Leave the parking lot, sir.
Let's find another one.
Next one goes up to $1,000.
Really?
Yes.
You can get up to $10,000.
How many of you given out today?
You're the first.
Well, I feel so good about it.
You're lucky.
You're the first.
You're the first ass for what happened.
Thank you very much.
Okay, let's sum up what we heard there.
The cop asked Walter to leave.
Walter wonders why.
So the cop gets mad really fast.
And so Walter tried to do what the cop asked him to do and leave.
And then the cop stops Walter from leaving and then tickets him for not leaving when the police ask him to.
And why?
What was the reason why?
Because an older man eating a muffin alone might attract teenagers to the Tim Hortons parking lot.
Has this cop ever met a teenager before?
Now, I talked to Walter a couple of days ago on Skype because his story is just so weird and crazy.
Just watch.
Well, I think I was there about maybe five to ten minutes.
And they never told me when I went through the drive-thru that I could only get my coffee and then leave.
So, of course, I always parked in that parking lot, drink my coffee, eat my muffin, and then leave.
That's what I always do.
So I didn't see anything unusual.
There was no sign saying no loitering or anything like that.
So I was quite surprised when this happened.
Do you know who called the cops on you?
I don't know if they called him on me, but the police themselves, the police officer there told me that Tim Hortons had called them.
And the reason was that myself and the other people that were in the parking lot parked there, there was probably five or six cars, would attract teenagers.
Now, I don't know if they have some kind of a problem with teenagers there.
I haven't heard that.
You started recording your interaction with the police officer, which I think is fascinating for me as a journalist because I know some journalists who wouldn't do that.
What made you start recording?
Well, I've had experiences in the past where police officers have actually lied about what happened or our interactions.
So I said, well, it isn't going to hurt to record this.
And then I have my side of it and his side of it.
I tried to be as calm as I could there with him.
And I didn't use any swear words or anything like that.
And so I just said, well, I'll turn it on there.
This should be interesting.
I show my wife when I get home there what happened.
The police officer shows up at your window, I suppose.
And you can tell he's not angry with you.
You're not disrespectful to him.
But once you question this $292 ticket that he's threatening you with unless you leave, things get pretty heated pretty fast.
And the cop goes from zero to 60.
He goes from happy to very angry and very aggressive with you.
Yes, it's almost like the excuse he gave me wasn't actually the truth.
And maybe he was upset about that, that really Tim Hortons didn't call him or something like that.
I don't know.
Even if he'd have come over and said, do you mind finishing your coffee and your muffin and leaving?
I would have said, that's what I always do.
So I would have left.
But I don't believe that I did anything wrong.
I don't think I deserved a $292 ticket.
No.
But I certainly still think it's a free country.
I should have been able to sit there and have a coffee in my donut.
You know, Walter, I think that you're right.
I think this is still a free country.
I don't think you deserve that ticket.
I think that our viewers at home will probably feel much the same way.
And that's why we are going to help you fight this ticket.
We've already put you in touch with our ace lawyer, Sam Goldstein.
You've already spoken to him.
He's your lawyer.
He works for you.
He doesn't work for us.
And we're excited to help you fight because, you know, it's very clear.
You were minding your own business, eating a muffin.
And for that, you got a $292 ticket, which we think is absolutely outrageous.
And I think Canadians are going to feel that way too, Walter.
Well, thanks again.
I appreciate everything you, Rebel News, is doing.
I think this is great.
I wish we had more channels like yourselves.
And thank you very much.
We immediately at Rebel News jumped in to help Walter.
With your help, we hired Walter, one of the best lawyers in the country, Sam Goldstein.
He's a bencher with the Law Society of Ontario.
Sam Goldstein was going to help Walter challenge that ticket.
Now, the story, it's already crazy, but it gets even crazier.
The cop who got vulgar with Walter and tried to bully him, then tried to bully me.
That cop hired a lawyer named Carly Parrish to send a letter to my boss at Rebel News telling us to take down our video, accusing me, I think she wasn't all that clear, of defaming the RCMP officer, who I didn't actually name in my video, not even once, by publishing the audio Walter recorded that she also strangely accused me of recording.
And finally, Carly Parrish demanded that I turn my recording over to the RCMP detachment, communist style.
It was insane.
And of course, I didn't comply because this is a free country and journalism isn't illegal.
I mean, seriously, you can't bully me.
I work for Rebel News.
Again, you can see the video that I did about that weird vignette in this whole weird saga and read the utterly bizarre letter Parrish sent me at fightthefines.com.
Now, I think in all the videos that we did about the tribulations of poor Walter Matheson, have close to a million views combined.
But friends, this thing gets even weirder.
Now we're on a side road here.
That inept lawyer, Carly Parrish, just ran for the liberals in New Brunswick in their provincial election and lost in an epic, epic way just a couple of days ago, barely wrangling up over a thousand votes.
I guess unconstitutional bullying isn't a great campaign strategy in small-town maritime Canada.
So that was a small bit of good news.
A not nice person getting exactly what they deserve.
But there is even better news.
We have a victory on our hands here, friends.
The prosecutor in Hampton has thrown out Walter's ticket.
They say on a technicality, even though that technicality is something that could have easily been amended, I say they turf the ticket because they all know that cop made a huge mistake and embarrassed himself and everyone else now forced to deal with the ticket after the fact.
They're dropping that ticket because Walter fought back and because we told the world about what happened to Walter.
Now, I caught up with Walter earlier this week to talk about the good news.
Take a listen.
Well, I went to the court and I waited outside because there was 30 people ahead of me and they were only allowing a few people in at a time, a couple, I think.
Anyway, I finally got in after the 30 people were done.
This was three hours later.
And I went in and sat on the bench and waited until they waited for them to call me up.
When the last person up speaking to the judge finished, it was a woman and she left.
And as she left, I just had to get up and walk out the door.
And I said, what on earth is going on here?
And the sheriff there was standing next to me.
He says, I don't know.
So anyway, this lady comes over to me and she says, Walter, I said, yes.
She said, I found your ticket this morning and it wasn't paid out properly.
So we tore it up.
Well, I don't know whether I believe that or not, but I kind of wonder why they didn't let me know when I was there, not three hours before that.
But anyway, they said it was torn out, thrown out.
What do you think?
Because I think that they tossed your ticket because they didn't think that you were going to fight back.
I think they thought you were going to roll over.
They didn't think you were going to go public.
They didn't think that you would ultimately end up embarrassing the police force with your very public story.
They didn't think you would end up with a lawyer.
And they didn't think you would show up in court to contest the ticket.
So I think that they were just didn't want to deal with Walter Matheson anymore.
That's what I think.
Now, Walter, I'm very happy to hear that your ticket has been dropped.
I know a lot of people were cheering for you and supportive of you fighting back.
And I know a lot of people donated to help cover the cost of your lawyer, Sam Goldstein.
Do you have any message for those people?
Oh, yes.
I'd like to thank everybody that stood behind me for this, especially Rebel News, of course, and you, Sheila.
You're my hero now.
There was a lot of people that commented on it, and I read most of them.
Yes, I'd like to thank you all that supported me.
And hopefully, if this ever happens again.
And congratulations on your conservative government out there.
And I'm happy to hear that Carly Parrish, the bully lawyer who tried to bully me to turn over the recording you took, she lost and she lost miserably.
So that's fantastic.
Yes, I agree, Sheila.
Maybe she won't try it again.
Oh, she's a perennial candidate.
Walter, I want to thank you so much for reporting back into us and keep fighting for freedom out there on the East Coast.
Well, thank you very much, Sheila.
Well, that's our show for today.
Thanks so much for watching.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, good night.