State of the Rebel Report dives into Rebel News’ $8 Rebelooze Plus subscription push, featuring Sheila Gunread and Andrew Chapatos, while expanding FightTheFines.com to Quebec—handling 1,000+ lockdown tickets via crowdfunding. Cases like Alberta’s Chris Scott and Toronto’s police attacks on journalists Efron, Mocha, and Lincoln underscore brutal enforcement, with lawsuits targeting Saskatchewan, Australia, and Alberta. Hiring a China affairs correspondent (to monitor Communist officials’ kids) and forming an End the Lockdown Caucus with Maxime Bernier, Randy Hillier, and Derek Sloan signals 2021’s fight against Trudeau-Gilbert censorship. Debt-free after repaying $380K, Rebel News pivots to decentralization, urging Alberta’s Wild Rose supporters to back the PPC for federal leverage despite risks. [Automatically generated summary]
You know, I've been away for a week writing a book, or at least trying to.
It's very hard not to procrastinate.
Literally everything in the world is more exciting than writing a book.
Just going to check if the fridge looks the same on the inside as it did 10 minutes ago.
That is more exciting than writing a book.
Alphabetizing things in your kitchen cabinet.
That is more exciting than writing a book.
So it's very hard to write a book, at least for an attention span shorty like me.
But I tried last week, but I'm back now.
And today, I got sort of a state of the rebel address for you.
I'm going to go over our activities and our plans.
Hopefully you'll find it interesting.
Well, you'll see because it's up next.
But before I get that, let me invite you to become a video subscriber.
We call it Rebelooze Plus.
It's all this podcast plus the visual elements.
And today I've got a couple of videos from Manchester, UK that you're just going to want to see.
You just absolutely don't want to see these.
It's going to make you mad.
Sorry, but you have to see it.
Just go to Rebeloos.com, click subscribe.
It's $8 a month.
You could buy a whole year in advance for $80.
That's a discount.
It's pretty good stuff, I think.
You get Sheila Gunread also, David Menzies, and shows from Andrew Chapatos now, too.
Okay, here's today's show.
Tonight, the State and the Rebel Report.
It's February 8th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Hi, everybody.
It's great to be back.
I'm sorry I wasn't here during the weekday.
Although last week, although you know, I jumped into shows every day just to say hi and talk about the news of the day.
I simply didn't have the time last week to do my full editorial work, plus a special project I'm on.
I'm trying to finish my new book.
And if you've ever tried to write a book, you know it's always the thing that you procrastinate on the first because it's always the easiest to say, well, I'll do that later.
There's something more urgent.
There's always something more urgent to do than to write a book.
So I tried to push everything aside last week with mixed success.
I did make some progress on the book, but things in the world kept dragging me back.
There was so much to do.
Something More Urgent00:06:51
I myself did two videos last week from what our journalist down in Florida found, John Torrey, the lockdown mayor of Toronto.
Apparently he's having big house parties at his North Palm Beach mansion.
He won't tell us who's down there.
He claims it's not him.
But we just saw day after day how cars coming and going to his $10 million waterfront house.
I have nothing against wealth.
I have nothing against waterfront houses.
Maybe one day I'll have one myself.
But you can't throw parties in Florida, the most unlocked down state of the union while you're presiding over one of the toughest lockdowns in North America, as John Torrey did.
He's a cheater.
He's a lockdown cheater.
I think that's the worst thing.
So that kept me a little bit busy.
I was working on my book.
And as you may know, we have expanded our civil liberties project called FightTheFines.com.
We do a bit of that in Australia and the UK too.
Well, we expanded that into Quebec.
And I don't think I shared with you my pitiful attempt at speaking en français.
My French is so bad.
It will surely start another separatist referendum.
Here's just a quick clip of that.
Don't worry, I won't play more than a minute.
Here's me rolling out our Conteste les Contravancians point Comm campaign.
What do you think of that?
Take a look.
Bonjour, my nomines, Esri Levant, and Je suis director de Rebel News, an entrepreneur depress access sur les libertés civile dans l'éscien sociale le citu à Toronto.
If je téné avous parlain directment, c'est pasque je d'important nouvelle pour tout les que bécois et je tê avous les parté je moi même.
Toddoui, jeannance le l'ançment de nouveau citweb conteste les contravention point.
Sur le citweb, tout person ayon récus un contravention liais au couvre feu on vertu des réglés quebécois sur le confimment pour rompli un formulaire pour nous raconte sonnis et nou faire parvenir un copied des contravention.
So not only was I trying my French, it was terrible, but we actually did negotiate an agreement with a Montreal law firm to serve Quebecers in English or French to take the first thousand cases of their lockdown because as you know, I mentioned that John Torrey has a brutal lockdown in Ontario.
Well in Quebec, they actually have curfews, like what parents say to kids, you be home by 8 p.m. or you're in trouble, young lady.
They really have an 8 p.m. curfew as if adults are children, as if innocent people are criminals, as if healthy people are sick.
So we have signed up a law firm that has agreed to help defend a thousand tickets and we're doing it through crowdfunding or as they say en français, financement participatif.
What do you think of that little français?
We've also signed similar agreements in Ontario and Alberta because we have so many cases and we were trying to handle them one at a time, try and handle them from here.
We have hired actually a full-time in-house lawyer to work on fight the fines, but when you have literally hundreds of cases, you've got to outsource them to law firms that are built for that.
I mean, we are not a law firm and we aren't built for taking hundreds of cases, but that's what it's become.
So we have a deal with Quebec to take a thousand cases, another deal in Ontario with a firm to take a thousand cases, and we have a deal with a firm in Calgary to take at least a hundred cases.
That's all in addition to the 498 cases we had before.
So if you add it up, we're coming up on 3,000 civil liberties cases.
I know those numbers are incredible, but if you actually go to our YouTube playlist, you'll see we've almost done 100 stories on them.
And obviously, we're not going to do a story on every single fight the fines case that comes forward.
I've told our friends in Montreal I'd like to do at least one story a week from someone there who can speak English about their situation.
I believe that civil liberties have never been in this grave danger in my lifetime.
And so I believe this is the time to fight, not later, not give it to someone else to do, because no one else is doing it other than the great work by the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
That's John Carpe's group.
And there's a couple of individual lawyers out there fighting, but the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, AWOL, absent without leave.
It's very sad to see.
One of our most exciting cases this past week, and I was involved a little bit with it, Sheila Gonried taking the lead, of course, was our case in the town of Mirror, Alberta, where a great entrepreneur named Chris Scott has defied the lockdown with the support of his town, the full support of his village, actually.
They just came to the restaurant every day and wouldn't blink, even after he was given an injunction and an order and a this and a that.
He wouldn't blink.
He was ready to go down the path of farmers for justice.
Here, here's a clip.
Chris, you're open again today, even though an emergency injunction came down yesterday ordering you to close.
We did have one pretty brief visit from the RCMP, local RCMP collecting evidence.
But you are still soldiering on.
Yeah, we're still open and customers are still enjoying our food sitting in a nice cozy cafe.
Now, you're on your way out.
It's one of the first times I think you're getting off the grill in all day, but in quite some time.
You're headed out for a haircut.
Is that so that you look great for your mug shot?
Yeah, something like that, yeah.
Now, I know that you reached out to the health minister, Tyler Chandrow, the other day before your court hearing.
He never got back to you.
No, he didn't.
So I tried phoning his office, and I assumed that I would get some sort of an office person or something, but it just was redirected right to email.
So I sent an email requesting a callback, and I also sent an email, or maybe I didn't.
I should.
I'm going to send an email asking for a meeting.
But so far I haven't heard anything back yet.
And you're still willing to be a political prisoner, I guess, is what you really would be if AHS takes their new evidence before a judge and asks the judge to issue a bench warrant for your arrest.
What's the difference?
We're all political prisoners right now.
Every one of us.
Every one of us is some, we're at the mercy of politicians right now.
Every Albertan in one way or another, whether they know it or not, they're being held against their will.
Political Prisoners Right Now00:03:54
Some aren't allowed to go to certain places.
Some aren't allowed to hang out with certain people.
Others aren't allowed to sing.
Other people aren't allowed to earn a living.
No matter what way you look at this, we're all political prisoners at this point.
I'm very proud of Sheila's work out there.
And of course, I'm tremendously proud of the citizenship and the courage shown by Chris.
And as I told him on the phone when I spoke to him, we'll give him all the legal backing he needs because we don't need him to bear the burden of this alone.
I believe he's fighting for all of us.
I love seeing the courage of restaurant owners because they have been so unfairly punished.
I should tell you that according to Teresa Tam's own science, if you can call it that, there have been thousands of outbreaks of the pandemic in Canada.
Obviously, 99.9% of them have not resulted in fatalities.
But of all those outbreaks, and there have been thousands, a grand total of three can be attributed to restaurants in the entire country since the beginning.
It simply doesn't happen in restaurants.
And when you think about it, it makes sense why.
Those are amongst the only people in Canada who have safe food handling training, cleanliness training.
I mean, of all the industries out there, restaurants are worried about infection and food handling to begin with.
They're the folks who have the hair nets and the gloves and who tidy up and don't let mice gather out or things like that.
So it's not surprising that one of the safest, healthiest industries in Canada is restaurants.
And so these restaurants, and it's often a working class person who poured their whole lives savings and all their heart into their business.
And to be shut down is so unfair.
It's across the West.
And I want to show you two clips.
And I'm stringing this all together.
And I'm going to get to my State of the Rebel report.
I'm sort of doing that now.
But here's a clip from Manchester, UK of a restaurateur.
His restaurant is packed with customers, just like Chris Scott's restaurant in the Whistle Stop Cafe in Mirror, Alberta, because no one is willing to be bullied anymore.
Take a look at this.
Take a look at this.
Take a look at.
Police Officer Punches Protester00:15:02
This.
Take a look at this.
He went outside because all of a sudden they were brave when there were the two or three cops versus two or three cops versus 30 restaurant goers.
Here's the terrifying video.
You heard that last video ended in a scream.
Take a look.
Here's the video it picks up right outside.
Look at what happened.
Excuse me, a police officer, a police officer punched him.
A police officer punched him.
This one in the high voice punched him.
This police officer punched him in the face.
Punched him in the face!
This police officer punched him in your face!
He punched him in your face!
Get us off!
You've been straight, you've been straight, look at yourself!
Or do what you're doing!
You're disgusting!
You've been straight, you've been over living!
He's trying to over living!
We'll come here!
Back up!
Yeah, the police, once they weren't surrounded by, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 happy patrons, were a little bit tougher, weren't they?
They punched him.
Now he punched back.
I would never recommend punching a cop.
That only ends one way.
I guess in the UK, they don't have guns, but you don't want to punch a cop no matter what.
But I think people are getting sick of police enforcement of laws that make no sense, that change all the time, that no customers understand, that few police understand, and that where's the health there?
Where's the public health there?
Punching a guy in the name of public health.
It simply doesn't make sense.
And I show you that clip not only to show you what's on my mind, but that we here in Canada have taken steps.
Just this weekend, we filed a lawsuit on behalf of three of our journalists against the Toronto Police Service for physical brutality.
Here's a little bit of the imagery of Toronto police attacking our people, Efron, Mocha, and Lincoln, not for protesting, not for doing anything wrong, not for breaking any laws, but rather for reporting on a lockdown protest.
Take a look at this.
What really bothers me is that the police specifically said to our people, journalism is not allowed.
It's prohibited.
And one cop said, well, journalism by the big guys, like CP24, this big station here in Toronto is allowed, but not from you rebel types.
Look at this.
It's not exempt as the King of State on the camera.
University is exempt, but it's like CP24 and stuff like that, right?
So what's the difference between me and CP24?
I'm not sure.
That's all you got to do.
What's the difference between me and CP24?
I'm not sure what your company is.
If you're not sure, why are you making assumptions?
You just got to move.
Everybody's got to move.
That's it.
Go ahead and tell CP24.
You just got to move, sir.
We're thought shotting you right now and we're thought shoting everybody.
Yeah, that's just not a thing.
That's not how it works.
The police doesn't get to, police don't get to decide who is or isn't a journalist.
And the police don't get to say, you can't film us beating the tar out of a lockdown protester in the public square in Toronto.
So we've been talking to the police verbally.
We've been sending them letters, demanding that they give us our freedom.
In the end, we just, if they don't take it from us, if they don't believe us, maybe they need to hear it from a judge.
If you want to see the entire lawsuit, it's only 10 pages long, about four pages of which is just sort of throat clearing formalities.
You can see that entire lawsuit at our website, journalistdefensefund.ca.
That's not the only lawsuit we're doing.
Of course, you know, we're challenging the constitutionality of the lockdown in Saskatchewan.
We're doing the same thing in Australia, and we may do the same thing in Alberta.
So I believe that over the last 10 months, Rebel News, I mean, we've done more news than ever.
We've got more videos a day than ever.
In fact, we've set up a second YouTube channel just for little clips because we were overloading the main channel.
You can find that on our YouTube page.
Here's a look at it here.
But we are doing more journalism than ever.
As you know, over the last 10 months, we've hired new reporters, Tamara Uglini, Drea Humphrey, Andrew Chapatos is now.
So we have more talent producing more content than ever.
Lincoln Jay did his first video.
But I think that in terms of the measurement of our efforts and our spending of our budget, we are actually a civil liberties group first.
In one terrifying month, we recently spent $189,000 on lawyers when you're literally representing 1,000 or more people.
That's what it's like.
Constitutional challenges, fighting police who are beating us up here in Canada, beating up our guy, Avi Yamini, in Australia.
We have become the civil liberties law firm that I always wish the Canadian Civil Liberties Association would be.
You know, I'm a dues paying member of them.
I don't even know why they haven't done a darn thing.
But there's so much work to do and so many things.
I think the Rebel, paradoxically, or maybe it's not a paradox at all, we have had our most important year yet.
That's not a paradox.
It's actually easy to understand.
And so we're hiring.
Can I draw your attention to this page?
I don't know if you've ever looked, but Rebel News has a careers page.
Look at that.
We have some administrative positions.
I need an assistant to help keep me organized.
I'm a little bit disorganized.
There's so much going on to help book the travel and the company and help take care of administrative things.
But in addition to that administrative position, can you see we're hiring video editors, web editors, and we're looking for three new journalistic positions.
I think I've told you that before, but I want to bring to your attention rebelnews.com slash careers, where you can see all the openings, including in terms of on-camera journalists.
We're looking for someone to cover Parliament in Ottawa.
Now, we've been looking for that for a couple months, but we haven't filled it yet.
We're looking for someone in Quebec who would know French and English.
They would do their reporting in English, but I would want them to know French so they can talk to the other half, you know, read the French papers, etc.
And you see there, we're looking for someone to be our China affairs correspondents.
So they don't have to be Chinese Canadian, but it would probably help if they know the Chinese community and can read Chinese.
Because I want this position to follow the Chinese language newspapers, follow what the Chinese embassy is doing in Canada, see what's going on on campuses with, you know, the rich kids, sons and daughters of high Communist Party officials, send their kids to university in Canada.
There's almost 100,000 children of Communist Party bosses in China going to school in Canada.
And they're not just learning in our schools.
They're having a political expression.
They are being abusive in some cases towards democracy protesters, Falun Gong, Uyghurs, Tibetans.
So we're looking to hire a Chinese affair correspondent.
They're probably going to wind up being in Chinese Canadian who's familiar with that culture and language.
It doesn't have to be, but you do have to know the Chinese language.
That's a very exciting position.
I hope we fill it soon.
And one of the reasons we're able to do this is because so many of our viewers helped us out when we were in a pickle over Christmas.
I think you remember our banker called in a $380,000 loan, which we had hoped we would just roll over, but he wanted his money out, and our rebel viewers paid down the bills.
And so we're debt-free, and we're able to make a go of it and spend our money on expanding our journalistic work and our civil liberties work.
I'm very excited about it.
And I mean, we're still sort of figuring out who we are.
It's going to be our sixth birthday.
next week.
And I think the rebel has transformed itself several times over the last six years.
I think right now we're an important anti-censorship civil liberties force as well as journalism.
We're putting together an advisory board.
I'm just giving you a bunch of updates here from my notepad because I want to tell you what we've been doing recently.
As you know, Rahil Raza is the chairperson of our advisory board, but I'm pleased to announce that Larry Solomon, the columnist, he writes for the Epoch Times.
He used to write for the Globe and Mail and the National Post.
He's the head of a free market environmental charity called Probe International.
He's joining our advisory board, and I should have two more announcements for our advisory board for you in the coming weeks.
So we're putting together a bit of an oversight committee to help make sure we're staying straight and steering straight.
People who come from different walks of life, different perspectives, people who love the Rebel and want to see us succeed.
And, you know, I think that I know it's already February, but I feel like 2021 is going to be the most important year for us yet.
In addition to my own book that we're working on, we're about to publish a book from a fairly well-known author.
So we're branching out.
This year, I think you're going to see more journalism from us than ever, more civil liberties from us than ever, more reporting in different places that we've ever been before.
We've never had a footprint in Montreal.
I think we're going to continue to improve our website.
I'm going to still focus on my daily show, The Ezra Levant Show, because it's really my main expressive outlet, and it's also an important source of revenue for us.
So thanks for watching.
And I just think that the real reason we have to fight so hard in 2021 is because we have to.
This is the year where they're going to go for it.
This is the year where Justin Trudeau and Stephen Gilbo are going to unveil their new censorship agency.
This is the year where we'll see Facebook, Twitter, YouTube crackdown on free speech for us, like they did to Donald Trump and many American Republicans.
This is the year where lockdowns will become more and more brutal as politicians try and gin up fear and tension to keep the emergency perpetuating.
This is the year that being a rebel counts more than ever.
And I got to tell you, I can't be prouder of our team that we've put together, and I can't be more grateful to you, our viewer, for helping us.
So forgive this rambling update.
I should probably type it out and put it on our website, but I want to tell you what we've done, what we're doing right now, and what we hope to do in the months ahead.
Thanks so much for your support.
Now, I did do some actual journalism today.
I've got an interview for you next, actually, about the lockdowns.
Won't surprise you.
So stay with us.
Well, I saw some good news out of the corner of my eye the other day.
For months, I've been asking, where's the opposition to the lockdowns?
You don't see it in any real political party.
When I mean real political party, I mean a party that's an official opposition or a party that claims to call itself conservative.
In fact, conservative parties are amongst the most brutal walker downers there are.
I point to Doug Ford's Ontario as an example.
And where is the opposition to the lockdown coming from the official opposition in the federal parliament, Aaron O'Toole?
I haven't heard a word about lockdowns or civil liberties, even from the more absurd ideas emanating from Justin Trudeau, like his $2,000 hotel quarantine detention project that's clearly unconstitutional.
I kept on saying, where is the opposition?
And so I was delighted to see news that a new end the lockdown caucus is forming.
So far, it has about a dozen people, but recognizable names on the list include Ontario's MPP Randy Hillier, independent former Conservative MP Derek Sloan, and our guest now, the leader of the People's Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, who joins us via Skype from Montreal.
Maxim, great to see you again.
Thanks for joining us today.
Thank you, Ezra.
I'm very pleased to be with you.
Well, I'm excited that there was a gathering of independent people together because I think part of being in opposition, part of being a skeptic, you're not really a joiner.
I mean, I think that there's something in the personality of skeptics and dissidents that they're sort of Lone Rangers sometime.
So to see Randy Hillier and you and Derek Sloan and some city councilors from Ontario pull together, I found that very encouraging because I think there's strength in numbers.
Tell us what the end the lockdown caucus is about.
End Lockdown Advocacy00:12:34
You had a meeting.
Are there any plans to do anything more?
Yes, thanks, Ezra.
We had a meeting actually last week, and that was under the initiative of Randy Hillier, as you know, a member of the provincial parliament in Ontario.
And Randy was very vocal against the lockdowns, like myself.
But also, when he called me to be part of that caucus, he said, Maxime, just like you said, Ezra, there's no opposition, official opposition against lockdowns.
The Conservatives are nowhere.
They don't speak about that.
They don't want to speak about that.
At the provincial levels, that's the same thing also.
The opposition in Quebec, in Ontario and in other provinces, there's nothing, there's nobody speaking against these authoritarian measures from the provincials and federal government.
So Randy had that idea to put together the elected representative or former elected representative from different levels of government, municipal, provincial, and federal.
And we had our meeting, Ezra, in Ontario last week, last Monday.
We launched the end the lockdowns caucus.
And I'm very pleased that right now we have more than 14,000 people who sign a petition supporting our initiative and that's great.
And also we have about 20 person members of the caucus.
So I'm doing the fight here in Quebec.
And this week I will be in touch with a lot of representatives elected at the municipal levels in Quebec.
So just to do the fight, the more people will be, the better it will be.
And we want people to know that there's people here in Canada that are elected or were elected in the past who believe that we must change what happened right now.
And it's against our freedoms and we must fight.
Our goal, Ezra, is to try to convince the population and changing the public opinion in this country.
Because as you know, usually politicians are doing pollings and survey and there's unofficial high support for lockdowns and we need to change that.
We need to explain to our citizens and to the population that there's other way to fight the virus and that's what we will do.
Well, I look forward to seeing the caucus grow.
You mentioned other people have signed on.
Are any of them at a provincial level or are they mainly local city councillors?
Because there's a couple of absences.
Roman Baber, the other Ontario MP who specifically challenged Doug Ford.
I don't see him there or Belinda Karahalios.
I don't see Gila Martow.
So there are some who aren't joining.
I think that, I mean, look, it's politics.
Everyone wants to be the boss, maybe.
Everyone wants to be the chief spokesman.
I just feel that getting more people and maybe even from different parties would be so useful.
Can you tell us other people who have joined?
I was just looking at the press clippings and other than the first five people, I don't have any names.
Is there anyone you can tell us that is ready to go public with their support?
Is anyone joining the team that would be interesting to our viewers?
Yeah, you just said Roman, as you know, was elected in Ontario at the provincial level and Billinda also.
I will be in touch with them.
I will reach them this afternoon, actually, and I hope they would be part of that caucus.
And, you know, there's not a lot of representatives elected at the provincial level that are ready to join the caucus because, as you know, Ezra, they can have a lot of pressure from their peers and their colleagues not to be part of the caucus.
So we think that they must fight for what they believe.
And if they said something against the lockdowns in the past, against these lockdowns in the past, they must be part of our caucus.
And we are just starting to reach them.
We have a couple of names that we will reach.
I are going to reach also some of them at the Legislative Assembly in Quebec.
And we'll see.
Our goal is to increase that, but it will be easier, I think, to have more elected representatives at the municipal level because there's no party line there.
So they can express their view easily.
So that will be our goal to have more elected representatives at the municipal level.
That makes a lot of sense because I can imagine the peer pressure would be enormous.
Basically, to join this caucus, you would probably be immediately ejected from any party because all the parties are the same on this.
Hey, let me ask you a question that's a little bit off topic, but I just can't help myself.
Derek Sloan is someone we follow with great interest.
Like you, he ran for the leadership of the party, and like you, he was pushed aside.
I like Derek.
I think he's thoughtful and he thinks about policies, and I think it was atrocious the way he was treated.
When I saw that he was in the lockdown and the lockdown caucus with you, I couldn't help but think, well, I wonder if you guys talked at all about collaborating because you're both, like I say, have this similar experience with the Conservative Party of Canada.
He is not a Conservative MP anymore, but he's still a sitting member of the House of Commons.
Did you have any conversation that you're able to share with our viewers about possibly teaming up?
You know, strength in numbers again.
He's an independent.
Perhaps you two can make common cause.
Actually, yes, we had a lunch together when we met last week to create the end the lockdowns national caucus.
And so I know him.
We had a couple of phone conversations in the past.
Actually, he called me when he was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada.
And I gave them, I gave him, sorry, some advice.
And so about, you know, he decided to quit, but not him, but the party decided to kick him out of the caucus.
But the conversation that I had with him last week, he is still a member, he still has his card a member of the Conservative Party of Canada.
And his goal, like he said to you after that happened, is to fight and is very focused on the next virtual convention that the Conservative will have this spring.
And for him, he wants to be sure that what he believes in, the real conservative values, will be a part of that discussion at that convention.
And so he's doing his fight.
And I told him, you know, I respect what you're doing.
And I know that you want to go as far as you can with the Conservative Party of Canada.
And I told him, you know, I don't think you'll be successful at the next convention, but that's my personal point of view.
Maybe I'll be wrong.
And I hope that they will be able, and your people, your delegates, will be able to push some resolution in favor of more freedom, in favor of ending the lockdowns, in favor of some social conservative values.
So that's his goal right now.
But we have a good line of communication.
And so now we are teaming together to fight against these illegal and unconstitutional lockdowns in this country.
So answering your question, Ezra, yes, I'm speaking with him.
I respect his decision.
And he will maybe we'll have another decision after that convention and we'll see what will happen.
But I told him also that our doors are open to everybody who share our values.
And I know that Derek shares a lot of our values at the PPC.
Well, that's very interesting.
We'll have to keep an eye peeled on how that convention goes.
I do recall him telling me that when he was ejected.
Well, Maximin, I hope you don't mind me calling you Maxim.
I should call you Mr. Bernier, but I feel like we've become quite friendly over the years and we're very interested in your views on things.
And you told me just before we turned on the cameras that you have a project.
You're going out to Alberta to speak at a conference or a panel there.
Tell us that and are there any other things you're working on that our viewers might be interested in following?
Yes, I'll be in Alberta in the beginning of March, a conference over there.
That will be people who want to believe in this country and other people who don't believe in Canada with the Trudeau government right now.
You know, there's a lot of people in Alberta that want to separate.
There's the new World Rose political party at the provincial level.
The World Rose is the independentist party over there.
And there's a conference.
The leader of the World Rose will be there.
I'll be there.
And, you know, I'll speech for the country, for the unity of our country.
And my speech will be on radical decentralization.
We need a radical decentralization in this country.
We need a smarter government in Ottawa.
And that will be good for Alberta.
That would be good for Quebec.
So I'll speak about that.
But I understand also the frustration in Alberta.
And they understand also that if they want to be independent, they need to do their fight at the provincial level.
And that's what they're doing right now with the creation of that new Wild Rose political party at the Provincial Law in Alberta.
But my message for them will be, you know, you won't be able to be independent tomorrow.
So you'll have to vote at the next federal election.
And the PPC with our values, that's the solution for you.
We need to have a voice there.
You need to have us in Ottawa.
Just, we won't be the official opposition.
But if we have one, two, or three or five candidates that will be elected at the next election, at least we'll be able to have a real debate about the future of our country.
So that would be part of my discussion with them in the beginning of March.
And people want to know a little bit more, they can follow me on Twitter and I'll tweet about it when the time will come when we'll have more details.
Because as you know, Ezra also, there are some authoritarian measures over there against meeting like that, political meeting.
But I said to them, you know, I'm ready to be there and I'm ready to take a chance if we have a police who is coming and people will receive tickets.
You know, it's too important.
We need to have these kind of meetings across the country and I'll be there.
I hope that the rules will change at the end.
But if not, I understand by these people who are doing the organization on that meeting that the meeting will take place.
So we'll see.
And that being said about the PPC, but as you know, we are starting, we will start next week to find our candidates for the next election.
Our goal is to have a full slate of candidates.
That can be a little bit difficult if we have an election this spring, but if we have an election election, federal election next fall, it would be easier.
So we will start the process of call for candidates next week.
And at the same time, you know, we are doing a reorganization with the party, an amalgamation of the writing associations, different writing associations to be more efficient.
And so I'm looking forward to be back on the road and to travel and to do some rally and speaking about the real conservative values, freedom values, and fighting for Canadians.
Rising from Sun News Ashes00:02:36
Great.
Well, that's a lot on the go.
It's nice to speak with you again.
Keep us posted, especially on the end the lockdowns caucus.
I think that's very important.
That's the most important crisis in Canada today.
Maxime Bernier, thanks for being with us today.
Thanks, Ezra.
Have a nice day.
All right, you too.
Well, there you have it.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Can you believe it?
When I said today that Rebel News is turning six years old, I couldn't even believe it.
I mean, that's much more than a toddler.
When a kid is six, he's not a baby anymore.
He's off to grade one.
He's going out the whole day to school.
It's true.
Sun News Network shut down in February of the year 2015.
And I miss it very much.
And I miss my friends from back there.
And I miss the luxury of working in a big company that had big budgets.
I even remember the fact that we had a full-time makeup room and makeup artists.
I mean, talk about being pampered.
Everything was so easy for us at least.
I mean, of course, Pierre Carl Pelado, who footed the bill, he poured a lot of dough into it.
But for the staff, it was the best of times.
It's what it's still like at places like CBC, CTV, Global, and all the bailout newspapers.
I mean, Trudeau just hoses them down with money.
So the last six years here have been a lot more grassroots and a lot more pull ourselves up by the bootstraps.
But you know what?
I think, I mean, with no disrespect to the great work that was done by our friends at Sun News, I was part of that team, I think Rebel News is larger and in many ways more effective because we're not bound by the handcuffs of the CRTC and even worse, the cable companies, because we can go directly to the people through the internet, we haven't been shut down completely yet, and because we've really become participative, just like our own journalistic style is citizen journalism,
we've invited thousands of our viewers to participate in the news by crowdfunding Civil Liberties work and other projects.
So I look back on the last six years with pride and gratitude to our supporters and also with hope that if we can rise out of the ashes of Sun News and build something that I think is quite important, after six years, we'll imagine what the next six years will be like.
Well, that's it from here.
Tomorrow I'll get right back to the news.
I just wanted to give you a sort of an update, what I was up to.
Until then, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, David Wood Home, good night.