Erin O’Toole hires Jake Enright, Huawei Canada’s ex-VP (2018–2019), who later orchestrated its propaganda war against Meng Wanzhou’s arrest and the detentions of Michaels Kovrig/Spavor, to lead Conservative research—despite allies distrusting Huawei over espionage ties. Meanwhile, Pastor James Coates faces secretive, full-capacity bail restrictions in Alberta, sparking outrage as his church operated safely since July. The episode frames O’Toole’s move as a betrayal of Canadian values and Coates’ case as a religious freedom assault, exposing contradictions between rhetoric and action. [Automatically generated summary]
Aaron O'Toole just hired the vice president of Huawei Canada to run the conservative issues management and research team.
I thought it was a joke.
I thought it was just gossip.
I thought, frankly, someone was trolling me.
No, Aaron O'Toole took Meng Wanzo's top guy in Canada and said, that's the guy for me.
I'll show you the proof in a minute.
Hey, before I do, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this.
I wish you would, because today I want to show you the LinkedIn page, the resume of this Huawei VP.
I want to show you some tweets that Aaron O'Toole was making about Huawei while he was secretly negotiating with this VP.
It's pretty gross.
To get the video version, just sign up at RebelNews.com and click subscribe.
It's $8 a month, $80 for the whole year.
You get my video show, plus one from Sheila Gunrid, David Menzies, Andrew Chapatos.
And frankly, you're going to get the only independent news left in this country, I'm afraid to say.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, Aaron O'Toole hires the vice president of Huawei Canada.
What on earth is he thinking?
It's March 4th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government publisher is because it's my bloody right to do so.
I thought it was a bad joke.
It's not.
Aaron O'Toole has just hired Huawei's former vice president in Canada to run the Conservative Party's most important department.
Jake Enright, who was the vice president at Huawei, is now in charge of Aaron O'Toole's research and issues management.
I can't even believe it.
I had heard the rumor and thought, no way.
But it's true.
They're even bragging about it.
Here's the Ottawa-focused news site, iPolitics.
It's in a story about Hill movers, as in movers and shakers.
Let me quote the story.
Another staffer heading back to the Hill after a brief hiatus in the private sector, Jake Enright, who started a new gig this week handling research and issues management for the Conservatives.
Since May 2019, he had worked for National Public Affairs, and he also served briefly as vice president of corporate affairs for Huawei Technologies.
But that's not quite true.
Here's Enright's LinkedIn page, his own resume.
You can see he was hired in June of 2018 as the director of corporate affairs for Huawei Canada.
I bet that paid pretty well.
He was in charge of corporate affairs in December of 2018, which is when his boss, the company's CFO and the daughter of the president, her name is Meng Wanzou, was arrested in Vancouver on charges of fraud.
And immediately after that, the Chinese dictatorship kidnapped two Canadian civilians, seizing them right off the streets of Beijing as retribution, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.
Enright was the director of corporate affairs for Huawei Canada during this crisis.
As you can see by his resume, he left the position the very next month, but not because he quit in disgust with Huawei and in solidarity with Canada.
He left his position as director because he accepted a promotion.
The very next month, he accepted a promotion to become the key architect of Huawei's propaganda war here in Canada against our country, against the two Michaels, and in defense of the dictatorship.
He got the promotion immediately after the two Michaels were kidnapped.
He was made VP.
For nearly a full year, he worked for that Chinese Communist Party front company, a company that got its start by hacking into Canada's great tech Hope, Nortel.
Remember them?
Huawei stole their intellectual property and helped bankrupt them.
That's who Jake Enright worked for.
Huawei is accused of crimes.
It's why Meng Wanzhou is under house arrest in Vancouver.
Huawei is untrustworthy.
They're an arm of the dictatorship.
They spy.
I'm not saying that Jake Enright is a criminal.
He didn't commit fraud and he didn't kidnap anyone.
And I don't think he's a communist.
Sort of the opposite.
He probably got paid a lot of money to be Huawei's point man on this.
None of that is illegal, but it is disgraceful.
Would you go to work for your country's enemy?
So gross.
But he made his choices.
What on earth is Aaron O'Toole doing, hiring him as the head of research and issues management right before a looming election campaign?
Aaron O'Toole just hired Meng Wanzo's right-hand man in Canada to be O'Toole's right-hand man in Canada.
Aaron O'Toole just hired the man who spent a year strategizing against Canadian interests to strategize for O'Toole.
What is going on?
Aaron O'Toole fired Derek Sloan from the caucus.
Aaron O'Toole fired Pierre Polyev as finance critic.
O'Toole's getting rid of strong conservatives.
And I note that both Sloan and Polyev were tough critics of China.
So O'Toole is clearing out Canadian patriots like that and hiring a lobbyist for the Communist Party's favorite tech company.
Here's Enright's official lobbyist registry in Canada.
I don't even understand how that's possible since it would be illegal under the Accountability Act for Enright to have actually lobbied then, given he had worked in the government within the previous five years.
I don't know, maybe he was just registering out of an abundance of caution.
But look, none of this is really about Enright.
There's a lot of people in Canadian society who would sell out to China for a few pieces of silver.
Our universities do.
Hollywood does.
A lot of businesses do.
It's pretty common.
China can buy the loyalty of a lot of people.
But what's Aaron O'Toole's excuse?
You know, there's more than 37 million people in Canada.
Millions of them are conservatives.
Was the vice president of Huawei Canada really the most qualified Canadian for the job?
There was no one else in our whole country who could do it.
Literally the VP in charge of the company during the kidnapping of the two Michaels.
O'Toole saw that on this guy's resume and decided, that's the guy I want handling our most sensitive political files.
So O'Toole sees Pierre Polyev and Derek Sloan and thinks, they're embarrassing.
They're a PRMS.
Get rid of them.
But he sees Meng Wanzou's servant and says, that's my man.
And they're bragging about it to a Parliament Hill News website.
Just two weeks ago, you know, the Conservatives were saying they don't trust Huawei.
Here's a tweet they made.
Our allies don't think it's safe to work with Huawei.
You see, that's what they tell party members when they're asking for your donations.
Look at the date of that, February 17th.
Today's March 4th.
There's no way they weren't already negotiating with Huawei's guy to come over to run the Conservative Party.
There's no way they weren't saying one thing in private to the Huawei guy and another in public to get Conservative Party donors.
Look at this tweet from three weeks ago.
A Conservative MP was outraged that a Liberal Party activist went to work for Huawei.
At that same time, Aaron O'Toole was surely whining and dining, Huawei's former VP to come work for him.
What, did they think you wouldn't find this out?
I'm shocked and grossed out, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised.
Aaron O'Toole is untrustworthy.
He said he was against cancel culture, but he's been a practitioner of it.
He said he's against the carbon tax, but now he says he's for a net zero carbon policy.
He says he's against Huawei in China, but now he just hired their top man in Canada to run the Conservative Party.
I'm starting to think we can't trust a word he says, except for when he says he wants your donations.
That I believe.
So fair enough.
If you want to go give Aaron O'Toole money, click on conservative.ca and there's a big donate button right there.
I think he needs your donations because I can't imagine this Huawei guy works cheap.
He must have been making around half a million bucks a year working for China.
So if you're excited by this new hire, if you're glad Huawei's VP is now Aaron O'Toole's VP, if you think this Huawei lobbyist is a better representation of conservative values than Pierre Pollyev or Derek Sloan, click on conservative.ca and give generously.
But if you're sort of sick of O'Toole and his lies, and you actually want to fight back against Huawei in China, I have a better idea for you.
Sign our petition at banhuawei.com.
We'll deliver it to the government of Canada.
It sounds like we need to deliver it to the opposition in Canada too.
We have to let them know that this is not okay.
We are not going to accept this.
They need to rescind this job offer.
Go to banhuawei.com and sign it if you know.
If you actually think Huawei and the Chinese Communist Party, if you actually think they're evil and we should fight against them, not hire their leftovers.
Seriously, go to banhuawei.com and we will deliver this petition to the government of Canada and to Aaron O'Toole, telling them to ban the Chinese spy company, just like many of our allies have done.
Or, you know, visit conservative.ca to help pay the salary of a former Chinese intelligence asset.
That's what Aaron O'Toole wants you to do.
Stay with us for more.
Church's Secret Prosecution00:15:13
Well, for a couple weeks, we've been telling you the story about the Grace Life Church just outside of Edmonton.
They have decided that they're going to be just like Walmart, just like Costco, those churches of commerce.
Grace Life Church is a real church, though.
Unlike Costco and Walmart, they're not allowed to have more than a handful of people within.
Well, they have decided to defy that discriminatory law.
And as a result, the government of Alberta arrested and jailed their pastor, James Coates, because he refused to say, I will not open.
He's been in a maximum security prison in West Edmonton for more than two weeks.
And today there was a bail hearing to see just how long he would stay in.
Joining us now via Skype from outside the courthouse is our friend Sheila Gonreed, chief reporter who was there today.
Sheila, how you doing?
Hey, Ezra, I'm great.
This is one of the weirdest bail hearings, or I guess bail appeals that I've ever had to tune into.
And I've done a lot of WebEx court lately and things were very strange.
It was very busy, very loud on the call because there were over, at one point, 400 regular citizens who were tuning into the call because there is so much public interest in what's happening to Pastor James Coates.
However, you wouldn't really know that if you got all your news from the mainstream media because they stopped caring about Pastor Coates once their, I suppose, their bloodlust for seeing Christians taken away in handcuffs was sort of satiated after Pastor Coates was arrested and they didn't then,
the RCMP, they didn't then subsequently arrest the replacement pastor, Jacob Spence, in the following weeks since the two following weeks since he started holding services at Grace Life.
When no more arrests were made, the mainstream media stopped paying attention when this is getting more outrageous than ever that this pastor has ticked over two weeks in a maximum security prison for the crime of holding services to his flock, which is his constitutionally protected right.
Yeah, and I note that not a single outbreak has been traced to this church for those who would try and pick nits.
I used to be a practicing lawyer, haven't practiced in over a decade, but I remember from law school and my brief experience in the courts that when someone has a bail hearing, when they're arrested and brought to a judge, the default is that they be set free until a hearing, but that bail can be denied for one of two reasons.
One is a flight risk, as in will someone run away from the jurisdiction and not be found.
Clearly, that doesn't apply to Pastor Coates.
He has a family.
He has a church.
He has shown no interest in fleeing.
His roots are in the community.
There's no chance he's a flight risk.
The second is, is he violent?
That's why when someone who is a killer or an accused killer is arrested, they don't let him out, even if he's not a flight risk because they're worried he'll commit violence.
Although I must tell you, there are some violent offenders and even accused terrorists who are still granted bail.
I don't know why, therefore, he remains in jail without bail because he is not a flight risk.
He is not a danger.
This is actually the dictionary definition of a political prisoner.
Well, I can tell you the Crown's arguments for why they are not lifting those bail conditions because it really does come down to the discretion of the Crown.
They could remove these bail conditions at any time.
And that's the thing.
Pastor Coates has been granted bail if he agrees to the bail conditions, but the bail conditions are the reason he's there in the first place.
And that's because he is not going to turn away 85% of his congregants to meet some government target.
Now, very interesting stuff today in a routine bail hearing.
The Crown prosecutor is not being identified because she says that she is receiving threats from peaceful Christians.
So we have a secret prosecution, is what you're saying.
Bingo.
So this Crown prosecutor is withholding her identity.
The judge is fine with it because the whole idea of having an open court system where you can see the judge, you can see the crown, and you can see the defense, and you can see the accused is so that you have confidence that there are no such things as secret trials in a free and liberal democracy.
Yet they withheld her identity today.
I've never heard of that before, by the way.
I mean, you have mafia gangs, you have hell's angel gangs prosecuted.
I have never before heard of a prosecutor being hidden.
And I have to tell you, I'm not saying it didn't happen.
I have no knowledge of this other than what you've just told me.
But I would like, but if it's true, did she report it to the police?
Have they given her security?
Because that's what you do.
I wonder if she even reported it to police or if this is some drama queen activity on her part to try and flip the moral emphasis of instead of, oh, poor pastor, two weeks in prison, poor me, government bully, I'm the real victim here, Your Honor.
I'm the victim because my political persecution of this pastor has been condemned by the public.
She's trying to flip the morality again.
You know, putting a pastor into prison sounds like upside-down justice.
And having a prosecutor say, I'm a victim is upside-down justice.
I can't believe this is happening in Alberta.
It's crazy.
And again, you make a great point.
I mean, there are prosecutors who are prosecuting organized crime, Hell's Angels, the mafia, and their identities aren't hidden.
So why is her identity being hidden?
Surely she has access to sheriffs and bailiffs and all kinds of security.
And if it is indeed happening to her that she is being threatened, I mean, that's outrageous.
But there are remedies for that that don't require secret bail hearing crown prosecutors.
Now, she also argues that there is a substantial likelihood of endangerment to the public if Pastor Coates is released because he will continue to hold maximum capacity services instead of meeting that 15% target.
Now, on the flip side, James Kitchen from the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom, so Pastor Coates' lawyer, he's saying they've held capacity services since July.
So there's historical evidence that there is not a problem with COVID at this church.
And if you needed to prove that he wasn't an endangerment, well, we've got six months of the height of the pandemic to demonstrate that it is not a problem.
And the crown prosecutor, the secret crown prosecutor, by the way, she said that if they don't make Pastor Coates abide by these conditions that violate his religious freedom, that it will undermine the justice system to release him without conditions.
And James Kitchen argues on the flip side again that for normal people, the imprisonment of a Christian pastor on a matter of conscience is truly what is drawing the justice system into disrepute.
It's actually something Kitchen called in his arguments an embarrassment to the courts.
So that's what happened today.
The judge is going to withhold his decision until 9 a.m.
I've been in communication with the church.
They're not sure if they're going to be down here rallying again.
But either way, we're going to be all over this covering it.
Well, Sheila, there's one more point.
And I don't know if James Kitchen, the lawyer for the church, mentioned it, or maybe it's so obvious.
Keeping Pastor Coates in jail so that the church will not be at full capacity doesn't make sense as an argument because the church is at full capacity, even though he's in jail.
So it's not like, oh, Your Honor, we got to keep this political prisoner in jail because if he gets out, the church will be full.
No, the church is full now.
You've been there the last few weeks.
They're staring down the government and the government is the one blinking.
That church is packed.
And if they arrest the next pastor, someone else will take his place and it'll be packed.
And they arrest him.
They'll have to arrest every single one.
They'll have to start building new prisons.
But the actual put aside morality, put aside public health just from its own logic, saying, Your Honor, if he's let out, then the church will be full, fails because the church is full now.
There is no correlation between him being a political prisoner and the church being full or empty.
It will be full no matter what.
I'm disgusted with this whole concept of a secret prosecution.
Frankly, that sounds unconstitutional to me.
And it also sounds like political games.
And it also sounds like a bit of BS because I simply don't believe that the most pacifist, peaceful people in the province, namely that Grayslave Church, are more scary than, as you mentioned, Hell's Angels, terrorist groups, gun gangs, drug gangs that are prosecuted all the time.
I think it's frankly a deep embarrassment, not just that Pastor James is in jail, but that the government of Alberta, including Jason Kenney, who I think is a good premier, and Casey Medea, who I think is a good justice minister.
But how long can I say that if this prosecutor tries the tricks that she's doing after a certain point in time, you say, where does the buck stop?
And you're sending a secret prosecutor to cry victim and to make illogical arguments like we got to keep a Christian man in prison, lest the church be full.
The church is full.
This is a deeply embarrassing moment for the province of Alberta.
And let the world know.
The fact you say that hundreds of people watch this via Zoom tells me that just because the media party and the political establishment hate Christians and love the lockdown, the rest of the world does not agree.
And I hope that this burns down the popularity of whatever politician stands with it.
And so I would say to all my friends in the Alberta government, and I have plenty of them, I would say own it or disown it.
And by the way, you own it until you disown it.
This could absolutely stop this afternoon if that crown prosecutor was told, drop these conditions.
This is outrageous.
You are opposing the release of this man more ferociously than the Crown normally opposes the release of sex offenders and child violators.
That's what they're doing here.
I mean, what Pastor Coates is behind bars for is telling the truth.
Because all day, sex offenders, recidivist criminals stand up in these law courts, look a judge in the face, lie.
The judge knows they're lying.
The crown knows they're lying.
And they say, oh, let me out.
I'm not going to commit another crime.
And what's the worst thing that those guys do?
Repeat the horrible crimes that got them put in jail in the first place.
What's the worst thing that Pastor Coates is going to do?
Say service on Sunday.
That's it.
That's it.
That's the worst he's going to do.
I see your point.
So because he wouldn't lie to the judge.
Yeah, the judge says, just tell me you're not going to go back to church and I'll let you go.
He says, sorry, I can't lie.
I know everyone else in this whole justice system lies to you, but I just can't.
So I got to tell you, I will go back to charge.
Oh, my God, we've got a criminal.
Keep him in prison.
Mr. Rapist, what do you have to say?
You're on there.
I swear I won't do it.
You know what?
This is bringing the justice system into disrepute.
And by the way, this secret prosecutor business cannot stand.
And I don't know who approved that, but it must become undone.
And that is a subject for an investigative journalist to work on because we do not.
And who, who, is it a lie?
Is it a fake?
Is it a Drama Queen moment?
Did she report it to security?
You know, you're at a courthouse.
There's plenty of cops around if you're feeling scared.
Was the threat by phone or email?
Or was it in person?
You know, you can track phone and email and in person pretty easily these days.
So I am skeptical.
I think it's a lie by a government that doesn't know what to do because they are face to face with their moral superior and they just can't make the pastor blink.
This is outrageous, and I will dedicate myself, and I know you will too, Sheila, to burning down, metaphorically speaking, sorry, don't call the fire department secret prosecutor, to burning down their edifice of lies by which they are imprisoning this pastor with a more brutal imprisonment than serious violent criminals get.
I think I told you this before.
My very first day I was ever in court as a baby lawyer when I was in law school, when I went to docket court, I saw a man convicted of sexual assault against a child, and I saw him get a sentence of 30 days, which meant under parole, he would be out in maybe 10 days.
This pastor has served more hard time than that convicted sex offender that I saw when I was in law school in my first visit to criminal court.
And that is what's bringing this court and this justice system into disrepute.
Last word to you, Sheila.
You know, Ezra, that's a really excellent point that I think is being missed in all of this.
What the pastor is in jail for is not a jailable offense.
If he is found guilty in May, two months from now, of violating the public health order that saw him arrested the first time around, it is not a jailable offense.
So why is it a jailable offense before?
This is absolutely without precedent.
They're holding him behind bars for something that if he were found guilty of it, they could not hold him behind bars.
What a great point.
You know what?
This is the kind of thing that when it happens in China or Iran or Russia or Venezuela, you and I and frankly, Jason Kenney and Casey Madue would rail about.
And yet it is happening in the capital city of a province whose motto is strong and free.
I think that's becoming false advertising.
You stay on this story, Sheila, and we will too out here.
Petition Go: Controlled Security00:01:40
All right.
Great to talk to you.
Thanks for being there today.
Thanks, Ezra.
All right, there you have it.
If you want to join our petition, go to freepastorjames.com.
I can assure you that we will be back at the church this weekend to document any more activity by the government.
Stay with us more.
Hey, welcome back.
Boy, there's a lot going on.
I'm so glad Sheila was there at that hearing today, that bail hearing in Edmonton.
There's two reasons someone doesn't get bail.
They're a danger, like they're violent, they're a murderer, a rapist, whatever, who might commit that crime again, or a flight risk.
Pastor Coates is neither of those things.
And yet he sits in jail longer than actually convicted violent people do.
The fact that it's a secret trial is super gross in my mind.
But speaking of gross, what do you think of Aaron O'Toole literally hiring the former vice president of Huawei Canada as his own VP?
I mean, I'm not saying that it should be a crime to work for Huawei Canada.
I'm not saying that, but it sure shows bad judgment and, frankly, a lack of loyalty to Canadian interests.
Huawei is an arm of the Chinese Communist Party.
It's controlled by them and it's a security asset of the Chinese state.
I mean, if you really want to work for Huawei, I'm not going to say go to jail, but what's Aaron O'Toole doing saying, yeah, that's the guy for me?
I can't believe it.
I can't believe it.
If you want to sign our petition, go to banhuawei.com.