David Menzies’ Rebel Roundup exposes Alberta’s Whistle Stop Cafe—owned by Christopher Scott—reopening despite lockdowns, facing court threats by April 22nd amid 40 defiant restaurants, while Restaurants Canada pushes for reopening due to weak COVID-19 transmission evidence. Meanwhile, neonatal nurse Kristen Nagel, fired after months on unpaid leave, was falsely linked to D.C.’s January 6th chaos by media and "busybody Karens," sparking CSIS/RCMP scrutiny over her ethical dissent at a Global Frontline Nurses summit with speakers like Del Bigtree. Menzies condemns cancel culture’s hypocrisy, contrasting it with Toronto’s protest crackdown—police enforcing North Korea-like rules under Mayor John Tory and Premier Doug Ford—while a former officer calls enforcement politically inconsistent. The episode reveals systemic attacks on small businesses and free speech, questioning whether dissent is now a punishable offense in Canada. [Automatically generated summary]
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Welcome to Rebel Roundup, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you, in which we look back at some of the very best commentaries of the week by your favorite Rebels.
I'm your host, David Menzies.
Holy hamburger.
Christopher Scott, the owner of the Whistle Stop Cafe in Little Mirror, Alberta, decided to illegally open his doors, providing a fast food utopia for his hungry and appreciative customers.
But just like Toronto's Adamson Barbecue, the pressure is mounting to shut down the WhistleStop.
Scott has already been fined.
And I wonder, is there a visit from the mounted unit coming up next?
Sheila Gunnreid has the skinny.
So a Canadian nurse goes down to Washington, D.C. to take part in a form on the same day that the Capitol building was stormed by a bunch of idiotic hooligans.
But even though she was kilometers away from that fiasco, obviously she deserves to be blamed and even fired for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Just will you hear what Tamara Ugolini has to say about this egregious example of cancel culture.
And letters, we get your letters, we get them every minute of every day.
And you had plenty to say about my video regarding yet another very dark day in Toronto history.
I speak of last Saturday when police brutally shut down a peaceful anti-lockdown protest.
We saw citizens get harassed, ticketed, and even violently arrested for such crimes as standing alone on a corner, driving a van peppered with anti-lockdown messages, and I kid you not, folks, waving a Canadian flag.
Amazing.
Those are your rebels now.
Let's round them up.
Sheila Gunn Reed from Rebel News here in Mirror, Alberta, and it is day four of my great illegal burger sit-in at the Whistle Stop Cafe.
You see, the owner of the restaurant and gas station behind me, Chris Scott, decided late last week, six days ago now, that he would be defying the COVID lockdown and reopening his doors to eat in dining customers.
And I've been here for, well, I guess over half a week now, documenting the support for Chris from the customers and from the community at large for his act of civil disobedience and economic survival.
Chris has been threatened with escalating fines and even arrest for reopening.
Alberta Health Services has issued a closure notice already and threatened him with having his liquor license pulled.
And the police are patrolling constantly at the request of Alberta Health Services.
Police have also said that his customers could face fines and arrests too.
This is a step forward.
Yeah, them doing this, this is a step forward.
So I'm actually relieved that this has finally happened.
Why do they have to change?
Yeah.
You're coming every day.
They come to collect evidence every day.
But today is the first day that they put a peer-in-court paperwork on my desk.
So that's something that we needed.
Yeah, they should survive if he does it.
It's not right.
No, it isn't.
Hopefully, it's cleared out.
Speaking of surviving, have you guys been helped yet?
Oh, I know.
We started chatting.
So actually, we're waiting to come in.
You're going to come in anyways after the police and the health inspector were here?
I think so.
Why not?
Yeah, we'll do what we can.
And why do they pick and choose who survives in this province?
I saw the RCMP came over and talked to you guys at the table.
What did he tell you?
What did he say to you?
He said we're in contravention of the Alberta Health Act, and we could get a ticket for that.
So he's gave us both our, you know, our two warnings, and so the third time will probably be a ticket.
But you didn't get up and walk away?
No.
I mean, they can't stop us from sitting here, can they?
We're not eating.
If that's what the big deal is.
I heard you say to Chris that you are not interested in participating in any government overreach.
Correct.
I mean, this is ridiculous, right?
So you just popped into the whistle stop.
The cops just left.
They've given Chris a notice to appear.
But you came anyway.
I'll be recalling hometown.
I figure because of this opening up, we live in the best town out there.
So got comment support local.
I'm hungry.
Same reason everyone else is here.
So did you hear the one about the guy who went down to the diner to order a burger and a shake, only to get threatened with a summons and a fine for obstruction of justice?
Jeez, past the Eno already.
Alas, welcome to the new and not so improved normal biosphere of the bazaar in which the owner of a small town diner work in the grill to cook food for hundreds of appreciative customers can be deemed public enemy number one.
Incredible.
And with more on the ongoing saga of the Whistle Stop Cafe in Mirror, Alberta is Sheila Gunread.
How are you doing there, Sheila?
Hi, David.
I'm great.
I'm home just for a little bit, but the rest of the day and probably the rest of the weekend, I'll be out on the road eating my way to sweet, delicious liberty here in Alberta.
Unfortunately, you don't have any illegal restaurants in Toronto, at least ones that are loud and proud, like the ones we have here in Alberta.
And it started with the whistle stop.
And you know, as I've mentioned to you before, Sheila, that's my kind of hunger strike where we don't stop eating until we get our way.
But Sheila, I refuse to feel hungry.
That's the strike.
I'm striking on the emotion and the sensation of hunger.
I won't feel it.
100%.
But Sheila, going back to the whistle stop, the authorities didn't go all out Adam Skelly on Christopher Scott, but it looks like the RCMP are slowly ramping up to quash the Great Burger Rebellion, just as Toronto police put an end to the Great Barbecue Rebellion in these parts.
How do you think this is going to play out in the days ahead?
I think that this is moving very, very slowly for a reason.
I think the government, particularly Jason Kenney, does not want to be seen to be heavy-handed with these small entrepreneurs in rural Alberta.
Now, let's consider where Jason Kenney's base is.
It's outside of the cities, by and large.
It's rural Alberta.
And Jason Kenney campaigned as the free enterprise guy, the pro-small business guy, the leave you alone to run your business and dictate your own life guy.
And so for him to drop the hammer on these guys, it won't look great.
And that's why things have been so slow moving.
Now the police come by and the AHS inspectors come by and give more closure notices.
Well, those don't really mean anything to a business that was ordered closed back in December and is reopening in defiance.
They obviously don't care about closure orders.
And the cops, they are just coming by, doing surveillance, reminding everybody of the law.
But they really, they haven't issued any tickets, at least to the whistle stop in some of the other restaurants that opened up throughout the week, particularly on Wednesday night was the groundswell of 40 restaurants and businesses that opened up in defiance of the law.
So with the whistle stop, they did receive a notice to appear in Stettler Provincial Court, but that's like April 22nd.
That's way far down the road.
They didn't get a ticket.
They got a notice to appear.
And I think they're taking a light touch with these restaurant owners because I think the government is being dragged into a decision to re or at least allow the restaurants to reopen in the coming days, maybe in the next week.
The government did say that they would give the restaurants seven days' notice.
That was when they closed them back in December.
Now, I don't think these people are going to wait for seven days, and many of them have not, as you can see.
So I think they're taking that sort of light touch approach because within, I think within the next couple of days, things are going to change drastically here and restaurants will be open.
Well, that is indeed a nugget of good news.
And Sheila, they should be open.
They shouldn't have been closed in the first place.
We know from the Trade Association, Restaurants Canada, the food service industry is not some super spreader environment that is leading to ramped up case counts.
There's absolutely zero evidence of that.
And, you know, going back to Adam Skelly at Adams and Barbecue in Etobicoke here in Toronto, you know, Sheila, what I always found so perverse is here's a small restaurant that had literally the mounted unit dispatched to shut them down.
And 300 meters away was a Costco, not only a superstore jammed to the gills because it was late November, people are doing their Christmas shopping, but a big box store that had its own restaurant still operating.
You could buy food at this Costco.
Sheila, how do you make sense of this?
You can't.
You can't.
There's no reason why a place like the whistle stop in a town of 500 where everybody knows everybody, including when they're at home sick, there's no reason why they can't sell you some poutine.
But the Costco in Red Deer, a half an hour up the road, full of people, certainly can.
It doesn't make any sense.
And that's why places like the Whistle Stop and the Noble Fox up the road and the Hockey Central sports pub down the road in Sylvan Lake, they've all decided to reopen.
They just don't care anymore.
The government has really left these people with nothing left to lose.
So what's a fine?
What's a closure notice?
They don't care and none of it makes sense.
There's really when I'm talking to them, they're saying if they could show us that we are the problem, we would listen to their closure notices.
But they have been unable to prove why we need to be closed.
So we're not going to be closed anymore.
And that's the end of it.
And you know, Sheila, you and I, we're big freedom of choice people.
So if you're someone in Mir or any of these other communities where illegal restaurants, I can't believe I just said that are reopening.
And you're a scaredy cat, you're fearful of getting the Wuhan virus.
If you want to stay at home and order curbside pickup food service, hey, more power to you.
But if you'd like to come out with a friend and sit down, have a cup of coffee and a fantastic hamburger, more power to you too.
I'm just wondering, Sheila, we always hear in the abortion debate, the left saying, my body, my choice.
Why doesn't that extend to having a meal?
Well, that's the thing.
If you don't want to go to a restaurant to have a meal, stay home.
But your fear does not mean that the restaurant owner has to lose everything.
It does not mean that the waitress has to lose her job.
If you are too scared to leave your house and have a normal evening having a beer across the table, sharing some chicken wings with your friends, if you're too scared to do that, guess what?
The option exists for you to hide under the bed for the rest of your life.
But normal people, especially here in Alberta, we're over it.
We're not living that way anymore.
And I'm so happy to say that we are supporting some of these restaurants that choose to open.
If they do end up with fines, tickets, notices to appear, we're going to be there with lawyers through fightthefines.com and we're going to help them every step of the way because no burger is illegal.
That is fantastic.
And Sheila, very quickly, on the other side of the counter, what's wrong with somebody trying to eke out a livelihood?
What's wrong with that entrepreneur hiring people?
We know from the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses that thousands of businesses have folded in the past year because of this damn virus.
Last word goes to you.
These people have a right to make a living.
And in these small towns in particular, these businesses are as much a part of the community as the church sometimes.
They're the coffee shop where, you know, deals are made, marriages are announced, deaths are mourned.
That's the part of the social fabric where these small cafes are.
And they refuse to be divided from their community.
They refuse to be closed.
And really, shame on Alberta Health Services for putting these towns in opposition with their police officers that they tell me they love and appreciate and respect.
Excellent.
Positive Energy On Stage00:03:25
Sheila, thank you so much.
And once again, folks, My Canada includes a cheeseburger and fries.
Sheila, thank you again.
Have a great weekend.
I will, you too, David.
And that was Sheila Gunread, somewhere in the hinterland of northern Alberta, maintaining her anti-hunger strike.
Keep it here.
more of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
More dissenting voices come forward with concerns about the harm lockdowns are doing to society under the guise of saving lives.
The only way to help keep the house of cards from crumbling is to smear campaign those same voices.
I'm Tamara Ugolini for Rebel News, catching up with Kristen Nagel, a nurse with 14 years of experience, more recently in pediatrics and specifically at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Some of you may remember the interview I did with Kristen at the beginning of January.
You can find that at rebelnews.com.
At that time, she was getting ready to fly to Washington, D.C. to speak at an event called the Health Summit, which was organized by herself and several other nurses through the Global Frontline Nurses Initiative.
Since Kristen's return to Canada, she has been subject to a complete skewing of events and a witch hunt by people choosing to live their lives in constant fear, fueled by the endless mainstream media propaganda.
So I caught up with her today to get her side of the story and to clear a few things up.
Have a listen.
We went to DC January 6th.
We spoke by the Supreme Court on a health stage with other speakers like Del Bigtree, Nikki Willis, Kevin Jenkins.
It was really great.
And it was just the energy there from that crowd was amazing.
It was so positive.
We were, our message seemed to be received very well.
And yeah, I don't know.
It sounds like there's a stark contrast there between what we saw here in Canada from our mainstream media and what was reported, you know, on CNN and some of the more mainstream news sources in the United States.
So that wasn't your experience at all when you were in DC.
Can you confirm that?
Yeah, no, not at all.
Especially the area we were at, just energies were high, energy was positive.
People were just so engaged, wanting to hear us.
All the other speakers were amazing.
And, you know, some of the nurses even said like that we just came off that stage, like just feeling, you know, so united and proud and glad that we got our, you know, stories across.
And they, one of them, you know, they left right shortly after.
And it was just so sad to see how such a positive experience and something that we did and uniting to share our stories and coming together was tainted with all the news and all the media.
It kind of took away from what we were feeling from, you know, where we were on that stage and what we experienced.
So this is two very separate events.
Now, you didn't experience any violence, any aggression, no rioting, what was coined, I think, even as domestic terrorism.
Why Convicted Criminals Were Freed00:12:16
No, not at all.
It was actually kind of funny because we were heading back to the hotel room.
We were all wrapped up and my husband's messaging me, asking me if I was okay and what was happening.
And I was like, I'm fine.
What's going on?
So he had to fill me in, actually.
So there you have it, because Nurse Kristen was in the general proximity of the Trump rally in Washington, D.C., well, then the conclusion is obvious, isn't it?
Namely, this healthcare professional was up to no good and therefore must be canceled.
Well, that's how the mainstream media is reporting this story, helping to fuel a witch hunt against Kristen.
She's actually had busybody Karens report her to CSIS and the RCMP as a so-called domestic terrorist.
And worst of all, Kristen has now been fired from her job as a neonatal intensive care nurse after months of being put on leave for actively denouncing the harmful policies put into place in her ward, policies that completely disregard ethics and even humanity.
Yep, hell hath no fury than those malodorous minions behind cancel culture.
And joining me now to discuss Kristen's plight is Tamara Ugallini.
Hey, Tamara.
Hey, Tamara, thanks for joining me again.
Tamara, what a horrible story.
But was this a case of guilt by association or was this just a matter of Kristen providing her enemies with a convenient excuse to fire her?
Well, I think the situation compounded over time.
So Kristen has been put on an unpaid leave, I think sometime in the fall, November, around November, when she began to speak publicly about what she was seeing at the hospital that she works at in London.
And so it's just been like a snowball effect, I guess, since that time.
And then it seems like the DC rally was the icing on the cake for her employer to finally cut ties.
You know, it's so despicable.
I mean, thanks to a few dozen hooligans that stormed the Capitol building, that has been used by everyone from politicians to the Silicon Valley tech giants to completely clamp down on our freedoms.
You see, we've got this big problem.
We got these domestic terrorists.
And it seems like she's being lumped into that kettle of fish too.
But her crime, if you can call that, Tamara, is merely espousing a politically incorrect opinion.
Right.
Yeah.
It's going against what's the widely accepted mainstream narrative.
And as she said in our interview, you know, her husband was calling and texting her saying, hey, I'm seeing all these crazy reports on the news.
Are you okay?
And she had no idea what was going on just a few kilometers from where she was.
Tamara, what are her options going ahead?
We know, you know, the hospital, they want her gone and forgotten.
Nobody in the mainstream media would ever come to her defense.
What can she do?
Is there a legal remedy here?
I think she's exploring a few options.
It's still, you know, unfortunately the wheels of justice seem to be slow turning.
So it's really too early to say what kind of repercussions there might be available to Kristen.
But I know she's exploring a few options.
And so we'll just have to stay tuned.
Her biggest initiative is gathering more frontline workers under that, the Global Frontline Nurses, but also the Canadian Frontline Nurses Initiative.
So I think as that snowballs, maybe the wheels of justice won't be so slow turning anymore.
You know, let's leave it at this, Tamara.
What I find appalling about our cancel culture environment that is really catching fire thanks to opportunists using what happened in Washington, D.C. earlier this month as an excuse, it's the fact that, I mean, when we look at real crime, and I'm talking serial killers, rapists, pedophiles, they go to jail, they do their time, and eventually they get out.
And we're always told, especially by the left, oh, we should all be all about second chances.
And such and such is now reformed.
But if you commit a thought crime, Tamara, you go into a penalty box and you never come out again.
And not only does your voice get cut off in the case of this nurse, you are economically disciplined.
You lose your job.
I find this appalling and hypocritical.
Absolutely.
I mean, do you remember at the beginning of COVID when we were letting convicted criminals out of jail to protect them from COVID?
And I think it just cleared space for any dissenting voice now that they can be criminalized in their place.
Unbelievable.
You can commit a real crime, including the ultimate crime of taking someone's life.
There will be parole.
There will be a second chance.
Commit some kind of Orwellian thought crime and you are gone for good.
Absolutely despicable.
Tamara, great interview.
And thanks again for joining me.
Thanks, David.
Take care.
You got it.
And that was Tamara Ugallini in Coburg, Ontario.
Keep it here, folks.
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
Protesting is not an essential reason.
I don't want to do it.
I don't have the right to speak what's on my heart.
Mainstream media has decided to sit this one out.
Nothing to see here, folks.
No more Moscow!
No more Mario!
The people who own everything in this world are telling us we are not going to be happy!
You must be questioning this!
This is Toronto.
This is not North Korea.
Officer, why are these protesters not allowed to protest And people like you took the knee for Black Lives Matter in the summer.
I'm not going to leave a communist country to my kids or anyone else's kids.
I know the mainstream media is not here because they probably support censorious thugs like you.
I know people need to see this.
People need to see this.
If you don't give an idea, that'll be a fucking you can't be arrested for that.
That's fine.
I've always wanted to go to jail.
Are you saying the media is not exempt?
Can you say that on camera?
Media is not exempt.
It is exempt, but it's like 224 and stuff like that, right?
Step back.
Our ancestors fought and died so that we could be free, so we could have a charter.
These men are urinating and defecating on the cenotaphs of every dead soldier across Canada.
So would you like to leave or not?
Yeah, then please leave.
Officer, where do you want her to go?
I'm not talking to you.
Please leave.
story of my life well folks david mendes at young dundas square And I really can't believe my eyes.
There is the entire public square has been cordoned off by police officers.
It looks like the anti-lockdown protesters have been moved to the across the street.
And I'm getting a vibe.
This is less Toronto, perhaps more Tehran, perhaps more North Korea.
Well, Toronto police were out in full force yet again last Saturday to quash an anti-lockdown protest at Young Dundas Square.
And what did we observe?
Well, in 2021, there apparently seems to be a whole lot, new litany of things citizens can not do in the vicinity of Young and Dundas streets.
These include, and I'm not making this up folks, standing alone on a street corner, waving a Canadian flag, chanting anti-lockdown rhetoric, and even painting anti-lockdown messages on one's minivan.
Yet again, last Saturday marked another terrible day for civil liberties in downtown Hogtown.
And you had plenty to say about this egregious crackdown.
Canadian Drifter writes, this is sickening.
Our parents and grandparents are rolling over in their graves.
It's officially a police state now, right on to all who stood for freedom there.
You know, it is sickening to witness Canadian Drifter.
My grandfather spent more than five years of his life fighting in World War II.
In one respect, I'm kind of glad he's not around to see this.
Bill Andrews writes, Toronto cops have shown themselves to be jackboot fascists.
Glad to have rebel news calling this out.
CBC, CTV, Global, what a bunch of useless, see-no-evil non-journalists.
Well, thank you, Bill.
It was incredible to see the mainstream media sit this one out.
And how perversely ironic.
The mainstream media apparently doesn't care about our freedoms, including, I presume, freedom of the press.
As my boss Ezra Levant likes to say, the watchdogs have become lapdogs.
Bill Laurie writes, did I just witness the police disrespecting the Canadian flag?
Shame on them.
Oh, yes, apparently flying a Canadian flag in Canada is somehow seen as an act of lawlessness.
Life during the pandemic just gets weirder and more disturbing, doesn't it, folks?
Otto Claims writes, imagine spending your entire life dreaming to be a cop, hoping to catch bad guys and make a difference in our communities, only to be pushing old ladies off sidewalks.
Hey, great point, Otto claims.
I would like to think that most of the police officers hate being directed to arrest protesters who have shown since last April that they are 100% peaceful.
And I wonder who's giving the orders for police to act this way.
Is it Mayor John Torrey or Premier Doug Ford?
Whoever it is, they should feel deep shame.
And 101 Snapper writes, I was a police officer for 30 years, and it is a valid question.
Why they crack down on one group and not another?
I think we all know why they won't answer the question.
It's really quite disgraceful.
Personally, I would have refused as an officer to attend to enforce this protest when we as a police service did nothing at the other protests.
It's pick and choose and of course, it's political and doesn't fit the agenda.
Well, 101 Snapper, you are my kind of cop.
I hope most of your brothers and sisters in the Toronto Police Service feel exactly the same as you do, and I hope they modify their behavior in future protests.
Well, that wraps up another edition of Rebel Roundup.
Thanks so much for joining us.
See you next week.
And hey, folks, never forget, without risk, there can be no glory.