Alberta’s Bill 52 Recall Act fails by demanding 40% of electors—not just voters—within 60 days, unlike California’s 12% over 160 days, making recalls nearly impossible. Pastor James Coates spent a month in Edmonton’s maximum-security remand center for violating health orders, while restaurants faced no such penalties, exposing enforcement disparities. His case, tied to Alberta’s UCP vs. NDP poll gap (51% to 30%), forces the government to justify lockdowns in court starting May 3rd. John Carpe’s legal fight highlights how blind compliance risks turning citizens into "government sheep," urging resistance against illiberal policies while warning of profit-driven motives behind vaccine boosters and media bias. [Automatically generated summary]
I compare the recall going on in California with the fake recall legislation being proposed in Alberta.
I take you through the Alberta recall legislation and show that it is scientifically impossible to get a recall under that law.
And I compare it to how it is very possible, maybe even probable, to get a recall in California.
I think you might find it interesting.
May I invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
Just go to RebelNews.com, click subscribe.
It's $8 a month or $80 for the whole year.
You get my show, David Menzie's show, Sheila Gunn Reed Show, Andrew Chapato's show.
But I think the big payoff is, frankly, keeping Rebel News strong because we don't get any of that government money.
So please consider subscribing at RebelNews.com.
All right, here's the podcast today.
Tonight, Alberta's new recall legislation is guaranteed never to work.
It's worse than nothing.
And I'll show you why.
It's March 17th, 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.
I like the idea of recalling politicians.
That's just a way of saying forcing them into an election without waiting for the next scheduled election.
It's happening right now for one of America's worst governors, Gavin Newsom of California.
He's a disaster in every way.
He's an environmental extremist.
He's an open borders illegal migration guy.
He's super woke.
Now, in California, that gets a guy elected.
It's hard to believe that Ronald Reagan was once the governor there.
But Newsom's atrocious handling of the pandemic and the lockdown is just too far, even for California liberals.
I can see it even on Twitter, ordinary people whose lives have been destroyed, people who surely voted Democrat in the past, lots of restaurant owners, moms and dads who can't send their kids to school anymore, and tons of people leaving California for less disastrous states like Texas.
So California's population, by the way, it's just a shade under 40 million people.
It is huge.
It's the largest state in the union.
It's actually more people than all of Canada.
And they are currently having a petition to recall Gavin Newsom.
They're not waiting until he's done his term.
They want him out now.
He's wrecked enough things.
He did what Andrew Cuomo did.
That's the New York governor who shipped sick seniors into long-term care homes, infecting thousands.
He did things that were really, really infuriating.
He locked down restaurants, but he went to dinner parties at closed restaurants with his fancy friends.
Just incredible.
And his excuses were just cringeworthy.
Recall Petitions and Signatures00:15:10
I don't know if you remember this.
A few weeks ago, I was asked to go to a friend's 50th birthday.
My wife and I, a friend that I've known for almost 20 years and a friend that had, well, put a lot of time and energy into his 50th birthday.
It was in Napa, which was in the orange status, relatively loose compared to some other counties.
It was to be an outdoor restaurant.
And we started the, well, the program started at 4 o'clock.
It was one of those early reservations.
I got there a little bit late at 4.30.
And as soon as I sat down at the larger table, I realized it was a little larger group than I had anticipated.
And I made a bad mistake.
Instead of sitting down, I should have stood up and walked back, got in my car, and drove back to my house.
Instead, I chose to sit there with my wife and a number of other couples that were outside the household.
You can quibble about the guidelines, et cetera, et cetera, but the spirit of what I'm preaching all the time was contradicted.
And I got to own that.
And so I want to apologize to you.
People hate the guy, and I don't just mean Republicans.
So what does the California Constitution have to say about recall?
What are the rules?
Well, Article 2 of their Constitution specifically permits recalling different kinds of politicians.
It's not just some law, it's their actual Constitution.
Here's what Article 14 of Section 2 of their Constitution says.
Recall of a state officer is initiated by delivering to the Secretary of State a petition alleging reason for recall.
Sufficiency of reason is not reviewable.
Proponents have 160 days to file signed petitions.
A petition to recall a statewide officer must be signed by electors equal in number to 12% of the last vote for the office, with signatures from each of five counties equal in number to 1% of the last vote for the office in the county.
Signatures to recall senators, member of the assembly, members of the Board of Equalization, and judges of courts of appeal and trial courts must equal in number 20% of the last vote for the office.
The Secretary of State shall maintain a continuous count of the signatures certified to that office.
So that's Section 14 of the California Constitution.
There's a few things in there.
First of all, it's tougher to get a judge out, and I think it should be.
For a statewide office like the governor, you've got to get enough signatures to match 12% of those who voted last time.
In this case, it works out to 1.495 million.
Just let's call it 1.5 million people.
And you saw it there.
They have 160 days to get those signatures.
Keep in mind those numbers.
12% of the number of people who voted, not 12% of the number of people who could vote, 12% of the number who actually did, and 160 days, more than five months, to get the names.
Organizers say they've already got more than 2 million signatures and they're still collecting them.
They want to make sure that any dodgy signatures that are thrown out don't cost them the recall opportunity.
It's interesting to watch Democrats who normally hate things like voter ID and vote fraud allegations.
They want normally everyone to vote, even illegal aliens.
This time they're very, very interested to watch voter ID these days because they don't want Gavin Newsom kicked out.
Anyways, I want to mention a few points.
I think Gavin Newsom will face a recall vote, as in I think they will clearly get the 12% they need.
But it's for sure not clear that he's going to lose that recall vote.
He won the general election with 62% of the vote last time.
And Democrats are very organized in California.
But even just forcing Newsom through this process is a humiliation.
It takes him down a peg.
I don't think he's going to go to that fancy restaurant for more birthday parties anymore.
But look, it is possible to kick him out.
In 2003, another Democratic governor in California was, in fact, recalled by voters.
And Arnold Schwarzenegger then ran and became the next governor.
I don't think there's a Schwarzenegger type character waiting in the wings this time, though I do see a Trump cabinet minister, Rick Grinnell, really pushing the recall campaign.
I was looking through the campaign website for recallgavin2020.com.
Looks like you have to organize in person, not just vote online.
So it is old school.
Got to get those signatures.
Getting 2 million plus signatures is pretty impressive.
But one last comment before I compare this all to Alberta's new recall legislation.
I'm going to tell you four numbers, and please stay with me.
This is actually important, okay?
The first number, I mentioned that California's population is just under 40 million.
So 25 million are eligible voters.
So adult citizens, okay, 25 million.
Of those, 19.6 million registered to vote.
So they had to positively say, hey, I'm going to vote.
And of those, 12.4 million people actually did vote.
That's a lot.
In the previous election, it was barely half that, by the way.
Anyways, of those 12.4 million people who voted, 7.7 million people voted for Gavin Newsome.
So did you get those numbers?
Just to emphasize, under the Constitution, to get a recall, you need 12% of the number who voted in the last election.
So 12% of 12.4 million, that's where you get the 1.5 million petition.
So it's not 12% of the total number of electors, which is 25 million, exactly double.
Okay.
Now let's compare that to the new Alberta recall bill just introduced in that province.
Bill 52, the Recall Act.
Now look at section 8.
It's called verification.
I'm going to read it.
A recall vote is authorized if the chief electoral officer verifies in accordance with this section that the recall petition, now get this, has been signed by at least 40% of the total number of electors.
So not 12%, 40%.
And not just 40% of the people who actually bothered to vote last time, 40% of the total number of electors who could.
That's the total voting list, total universe of possible electors.
So in the California case, if we were to apply the Alberta law, that would mean 40% of 25 million, or almost exactly 10 million signatures needed, not 1.5 million signatures needed.
Just a reminder, Gavin Newsom only got 7.7 million votes last time.
Imagine trying to get 10 million signatures to kick him out last time, to kick him out.
Just for comparison, the Republican in 2018, didn't even get half that.
One more thing.
I showed you that in California, they have 160 days to get the signatures, almost half a year, actually.
But look at section 7 of Alberta's law.
The chief electoral officer shall not accept a recall petition submitted after the expiry of 60 days.
So you've got to get 40% of all electors.
That's more than triple the California standard, because remember, California is just the number of voters.
And you have 60 days in Alberta, about a third of the time you get in California.
In other words, Alberta's recall legislation makes it absolutely impossible to do.
Let me show you a practical example of this.
There's an awful MLA in Alberta named Pat Rain, who's possibly the worst politician in the world, just got elected and then decided he was done, went on vacation, left the country.
He's not there.
He doesn't go to meetings.
It's just so weird and lazy.
I don't get it.
Jason Kenney finally just kicked him out of the party.
He's so bad.
He's from a district called Lesser Slave Lake.
In the last election, though, he got 57% of the vote or 5,873 votes.
So you think you could get 40% of the voters who were against him, right?
If he got 57%, so 43% of people voted against him.
You could say, okay, I'll just get those 43% by adding up the liberals and the NDP, let alone disappointed conservatives.
Oh, there's your signatures.
But no, no, no.
Remember, you have to get the total number of voters.
So there are 16,154 electors in this district.
You have to get 40% of that number, which is over 6,400 people to sign a petition in 60 days.
Is that really going to happen, that in 60 days you're going to get more signatures than he got in his general election?
It's not going to happen.
And even if you think there's a chance, the Alberta bill makes certain it won't happen.
Get this.
Even to collect signatures on a petition, the signature collectors have to meet strict standards.
Here's section 5.1.
You have to have lived in the district for three months.
You have to be a voter yourself.
So you have to be an adult, no teenagers helping, which is frankly a staple on a lot of campaigns.
And you can't pay anyone or compensate them in any way.
So just true volunteers who live in the riding for three months, no teenagers.
Hey guys, I'm starting to think that maybe the Alberta government doesn't actually want anyone to be recalled.
But in case you're still thinking, no, no, no, this could work.
It's not impossible.
There's still a chance.
Well, let me show you the absolute poison pill clause here, Section 25C.
It bans any recall petition that, quote, if, during the term of office to which the application relates, a recall petition has already been published by the chief electoral officer in respect of the member named in the notice of recall petition.
Let me explain in plain English.
If anyone has already tried to recall that politician and didn't reach those staggering goals, that's it.
No one else gets to take another shot at him.
No one else.
So if I were that loser, Pat Rain, I'd have a friend or a neighbor start a recall petition against me and then have him go on vacation, do absolutely nothing for two months, have it fail, and then I'd be home free because no more recall petitions would ever be allowed against me.
What do you think?
I think recalls are good.
In California, they're happening about once every 20 years.
I think that's pretty okay.
Frankly, I'd like to see it a bit more often.
All the rest of us live in some fear that we'll lose our jobs somehow.
Why shouldn't politicians?
And if they're really that great, they'll win the recall vote, won't they?
I think there will be a recall vote on Gavin Newsome.
I think they'll reach that threshold.
But I think he might win the election that's called because of it.
That's not a terrible outcome either, by the way.
Chasing him a bit.
Maybe he'll stop sneaking into chic restaurants while banning everyone else.
It'll be good.
But this Alberta legislation, it's not recall legislation.
It's anti-recall legislation.
It guarantees there will never be an MLA recalled ever.
In fact, you'd have to be stupid to try, unless you're Pat Rain, in which case you would try, but just not try very hard to recall yourself as a guarantee that no one else ever could recall you.
This is not recall legislation in Alberta.
This is fake recall legislation designed to dupe conservatives who actually want more democracy.
I guess they really do think we're all that stupid.
Stay with us for more.
Well, it marks one month since the government of Alberta arrested and imprisoned Pastor James Coates.
For what crime was he arrested?
Well, no crime, actually, yet he has been in the maximum security facility of the Edmonton Remand Center for a full month, which I should tell you is a punishment that even violent criminals seldom face.
Before the pandemic, 400 violent criminals from that maximum security facility were released lest they catch the bug.
But Pastor Coates was put in there.
And I had the opportunity to meet Pastor Coates' wife 10 days ago, and she tells me she has not had a single visit with him in his month in prison.
And she's not even allowed to make Zoom calls with him.
She has to go to a government facility when they can arrange it to chat with him briefly by voice calls.
I have never heard of a prisoner treated this way.
Even when I visited Tommy Robinson in the most secure prison in the United Kingdom, HMP Belmarsh, similar to Guantanamo Bay, he was allowed two visits from his wife a week, even though he was in the special handling unit at that terrorism facility.
Pastor James Coates has done a month of very hard time, and for what?
For not closing his church.
Well, the good news is today, after one month in prison, the government of Alberta has decided to drop all but one charges against him.
That one charge is a health infraction, like a traffic ticket, really.
And Pastor Coates should be out in a matter of days.
Joining us now via Skype from Calgary is the head of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, John Carpe, the public interest law firm that has been defending Pastor Coates.
John, great to see you.
Congratulations on this change.
I know it's a day of happiness for Pastor Coates and his family and his congregation, but for me, it's a day of fury that he has been in there for a month and that the various charges against him were dropped so casually by the satanic prosecutor.
I say that because putting a pastor in prison while releasing violent criminals, that's right out of the Bible.
That's who would you want to free Barabbas or Jesus?
That's right down to what that is.
And for a month, that prosecutor thought, oh, let's keep him in.
So I'm not particularly impressed that after a month, she says, okay, maybe I got it wrong.
But you tell us the facts.
Well, I'm really grateful to have a superb legal team.
It was Leighton Gray and James Kitchen and Jay Cameron who did outstanding work.
Negotiations With The Crown00:15:44
We were in negotiations with the Crown for several days back and forth.
And of course, the government is loath to do a 180-degree turn and suddenly drop everything.
On our end, of course, we were not going to agree to the bail condition that was keeping Pastor Coates in jail, which is that he would agree to have his charter rights and freedoms violated by unscientific and unconstitutional health orders.
He was not willing to agree to that.
And so he was in jail.
Now, this time being released, there is not this condition that he agree to have his charter rights and freedoms violated by unconstitutional health orders.
So therefore, his release is going to be possible by as early as Friday, March the 19th.
Now, I want to ask you, why does it even take two extra days?
If the prosecution says, all right, fine, forget about the last month.
Let's just pretend we haven't had a pastor in prison for a month.
If they've come to that agreement with you, does it need to be sanctioned by a judge?
Is that the delay your agreement with the prosecutor has to be stamped by some court?
That's correct.
There's going to be a joint Crown and Defense submission to accept a guilty plea to failure to abide by an undertaking, which, by the way, it was an undertaking that was imposed on Pastor Coates.
He never agreed to it at any time.
But apparently police can impose undertakings on people and then charge you for violating them.
So there will be a joint Crown Defense submission that Pastor Coates pay a $100 fine in respect of that criminal charge of not complying with an undertaking.
But the good news is this is going to trial May 3rd because there's one of the charges of breaching the Public Health Act is going to trial May 3rd to May 5th.
And the onus will be on the government to prove that the violations of our charter freedoms are justified and the government's not going to be able to operate just by news conferences and fear-mongering.
Government's going to actually have to produce evidence in court to show demonstrably that these lockdowns were necessary, that they're beneficial, that they're working, that they're effective.
And most significantly, the government is going to have to prove that the lockdowns are doing more good than harm.
And I think the government's going to have a tough case to prove in court.
John, you sound optimistic.
You sound hopeful.
You're looking forward to that event.
I understand all that.
I'm still not over the last month.
And I want to ask you this.
Is it the same prosecutor, Karen Thorsrude, who made the deal with you that put the pastor in prison to begin with a month ago?
And by the way, this was the pastor you and I spoke about this the other day that was obviously so embarrassed by what she was doing, she asked the judge to not put her name on the prosecution.
She was so ashamed of her own misconduct.
Is it that same disgraceful prosecutor, Karen Thorsford?
No, I believe that the Justice Center lawyers were, I read the letters back and forth and it was a different individual that we were dealing with.
It was not Karen Forsrud.
But I do find it rather despicable that she would ask to have her name removed, especially when it was previously publicized.
Her name was not removed when she was before the Justice of the Peace arguing to keep Pastor Coates in jail.
But it wasn't her.
Well, I suppose I'm glad to hear it.
I mean, the idea of a secret prosecutor who hides from the world while throwing pastors in jail is just too gross.
I mean, even the Star Chamber in medieval London had lawyers mandatory, not lawyers secret.
So, so gross.
I think that Pastor Coates, by pretty much any definition, would be a political prisoner.
I say again, what he's charged with, you mentioned $100 ticket.
I've had parking tickets of almost $100.
I don't know if there are even any speeding tickets under $100.
Those are, I'm not going to call them trivial matters, but they're non-criminal matters.
And the idea that you would be in jail for a parking ticket is unthinkable in Canada.
Yet it happened for a month.
I have a theory, and I know it's only speculation, but I have seen the last two public opinion polls in Alberta, both of which put the United Conservative Party in second place.
In fact, the latest by leger pollsters has the NDP at 51% and the United Conservative Party at 30%.
I'm not sure if that poll is reliable, but Leger is, you know, they've been around a while.
I think that there is an anger in the province at these lockdown extremists and the way they're being so punitive against pastors, against restaurant owners.
I know the case of Pastor Coates has been reported literally around the world.
Do you think that there was a political decision to change course?
I mean, how can you hold the line against a pastor for a month and then suddenly say, oh, okay, pay $100 and you're out?
You know, I know that the Justice Center lawyers were in negotiations with the Crown, and it was somebody other than Karen Thorsrude.
You know, it's just pure speculation as to, you know, how independently or not was the Crown Prosecutor's Office operating.
And frankly, for purposes of the rule of law and, you know, to not have repeats of the SNC Lavillin situation, there is something to be said for elected politicians not being involved in decisions to prosecute or not prosecute or what kinds of agreements are entered into.
Now, that said, I think at the end of the day that unless you or I have got special access to conversations that we were not privy to, I mean, we'll probably never know whether there was any influence there or not.
But certainly on the face of it, we were just dealing with the Crown and you kind of have to take it for granted that the Crown is acting independently as it should be.
Yeah, you know what?
I suppose you could say, well, the law is the law, but a law that's promulgated by unelected, unaccountable public health officers who are not judges, who are not even police, and who have tyrannical powers to throw some in prison, that is inherently political.
And the idea of a prosecutor saying, in my professional discretion, under the aegis of the Justice Department, I say put that man in prison for two months till his trial, that's inherently political, especially when down the road, Costco, Walmart have thousands of people filing through every day.
I don't know.
I just find the whole thing political.
And although of all the 10 premiers, Jason Kenney, I think, is the closest to being a conservative and the closest to being a Christian, the treatment of Pastor James Coates was unique in Canada and I dare say unique in the free world.
I am unaware of any Christian pastor or priest anywhere in the Western world who has been imprisoned for opening his church.
I simply have not, and I follow the news fairly closely.
I bet you do too, John.
It's unique.
It's unique in the world.
It's a unique discretion.
And you mentioned the political aspect of it.
I can't help but ask why were the restaurant owners in Alberta, not a huge number, at least one, the owner of Whistle Stop in Mirror, Alberta, but apparently two or three others, there were restaurant owners who said, we are staying open.
We're defying these unconstitutional health orders.
Issue as many tickets as you want, but we're going to stay open.
And those people did not end up in jail, and yet Pastor Coates did end up in jail.
And Jason Kenney delights in telling Albertans that the restrictions here are less onerous than in other provinces.
And as far as I know, that's probably true.
But that's no excuse for having unconstitutional health orders that hugely violate our human dignity and our human rights and our basic freedoms, like being able to associate with whomever you want, when you want, where you want, how you want, in person, not having the chief medical officer tell you that you can only enjoy relationships by way of a two-dimensional computer screen.
These are severe restrictions on our charter rights and freedoms, even in Alberta.
And there's no way that Pastor Coates should ever have been put into jail.
The condition that was imposed upon him, that he actually make an express commitment to abide by unconstitutional health orders that violate his charter freedoms, that's unusual because usually the condition for a bail release is be of good behavior and keep the peace.
It's a very boilerplate clause, you know, that you agree to be of good behavior and keep the peace, and that's it.
And yet the government here sought to impose this condition on Pastor Coates that he agree ahead of time to abide by unscientific and unconstitutional health orders.
John, I went to the Grace Lab church about 10 days ago.
I was in Edmonton and I went to the church on that Sunday morning.
I was wonderful.
I'm not even Christian, as you know.
I'm Jewish, but just to be with hundreds of normal people living normally, not living in fear, not being gripped by fear.
And like you say, they're not looking at a screen.
I mean, basically, every man, woman, and child has been instructed to live either watching Netflix, buying something on Amazon or in a Zoom call.
And for just a couple hours to be with real humans in person and talking about something other than the latest Netflix series was the most refreshing day I've had in a year.
And I joked that if I lived in Edmonton, I'd go to that church every week, even though I'm not even Christian.
I would just go there for the normalcy.
And I found that the members of the church that I spoke with were very politically aware and awake and very conscious of what was happening, as you would expect.
And like I say, the church was full when I was there.
So Pastor Coates was in prison, but that church was given her.
What do you think is going to happen?
Because I can't imagine that a man who endures prison for a month won't immediately go back to his church the Sunday he's free and that his church will be more packed than ever.
What's going to happen now?
I don't envy the RCMP detachment in Stony Plain.
You know, that's another unknowable but very interesting question is, you know, who are they taking orders from, if any, and how are they going to exercise their discretion?
Because as your reporter, Sheila Gunnreid, attended there, I haven't been up to Edmonton in over a year.
But, you know, you and other media are reporting that they've had a full church every Sunday since Pastor Coates was imprisoned on February the 16th.
And I would be surprised if he's out of jail on Friday.
Why would he not attend church on Sunday?
So it'll be really interesting to see what happens in the next six weeks or so, six or seven weeks until the trial, May 3rd.
It'll be interesting to see each Sunday what the health authorities are going to do with that situation.
You know, John, you're a Christian, I'm a Jew, and I know there's some differences between the Old Testament and the new.
Old Testament, a bit of fire and brimstone, New Testament, a bit of turn the other cheek.
And I understand why you're so sanguine and excited and you had a victory.
He's out of prison without selling out his soul.
And you deserve the kudos and you deserve to take a victory lap and you deserve to have a smile on your face.
I am still not over the grievous injustice of the last 30 days.
And I am full of an Old Testament style anger on that.
And I don't know what can be done about that because that is a justice deficit.
That is a justice debt.
I think I told my viewers once, maybe I even told you, the very first time I was in criminal court as a young articling student for a law firm in Edmonton, by the way, I went in and I heard all manner of criminal matters and I heard a judge sentence a man to 30 days for sexual assault.
30 days and for sexual assault.
And here we have a pastor who's just done 30 days for opening a church.
And this is a warp in the fiber of the universe.
And I don't know how it can, I think justice must be done in some way.
And I don't know what that is.
What can be done for the lost month that we've had?
I mean, fight the future.
Go fight on May 3rd to 5th in court.
You're doing that.
Go to the church this Sunday, yes.
But surely the last month, something must be done about it.
Is there anything that can be done?
It's a good question.
It's a fair question.
And by the way, I agree with you that, you know, yes, I am smiling because it's great that he's going to be out in the next, you know, two or three days, as opposed to having to stay in jail all the way through to May 3rd.
So I am smiling, but I also share your anger.
This is a travesty of justice.
This is a grave injustice to have a pastor put into prison simply for exercising his charter rights and freedoms.
And then in a province that's governed by a man who has for decades held himself out to be the champion of religious freedom.
You may have come across my post-millennial column a few weeks ago quoting Jason Kenney from his speech to the St. Thomas More Lawyers Guild group of Catholic lawyers speaking at a Toronto dinner in 2014 about conscience and how conscience has to stand up to the prevailing spirit of the age.
And now we've got the prevailing spirit of the age says that we should all be living in a permanent state of fear of some virus that is harmless to 90% of the population.
And we've got Jason Kenney enforcing the spirit of the age.
So there has been a travesty of justice in terms of civil remedies, wrongful imprisonment.
Concentrated Benefits and Unjust Imprisonment00:04:15
I mean, you and I know those are potential legal remedies.
I don't think that they're on anybody's mind just yet.
But who knows what Pastor Coates may want in the future.
Yeah.
I mean, it's hard to get a wrongful imprisonment case if the judge oversought it.
I mean, when a judge gets it wrong, you appeal it.
You don't sue the judge.
You appeal the ruling.
But I think that the misconduct of the police and the health officers is something to investigate.
And I know they're harassing churches around Alberta and across Canada.
And it's my observation, and you're defending a lot of churches.
And I salute you.
We like to give you journalistic support.
And we tell our viewers, go to jccf.ca and chip in, because you guys survive on donations too.
We're representing a few churches in Canada and elsewhere.
One of our lawyers noted how the, and by the way, Jewish synagogues in the Orthodox parts of Montreal, it's the churches and the Orthodox synagogues that are being really poked at by the law.
There's a disparity that they're going after churches more than they would never go after the church of material consumption, Walmart, Costco.
They wouldn't go after those capitalist churches, but they go after religious churches.
I just think there's something very wrong.
John, I won't belabor the subject.
This is a day to be happy.
Sheila told me she had a little cry when she heard the news.
It was such an emotional relief.
And I think that's wonderful.
And, you know, keep up the fight and get them out of jail and keep others out of jail.
And we'll do our bit where we can.
But I think there's unfinished business here.
And I think we have to weed the garden of these illiberal, un-Canadian lockdown arrests and persecutions.
I know I'm rambling, John.
I'm just mad.
I know you're happy, and you have a fury underneath it, but I'm all fury.
Last word to you, my friend.
Well, lessons to be learned.
You talked a few minutes ago about, you know, the future, because I think that Pastor Coates is an example of courage and principle.
And he reminds us of the fact that you can only win battles by fighting them.
And if we all cheerfully, unthinkingly, meekly comply with all of these measures and slowly turn ourselves into the government sheep and cattle to be managed like farm animals rather than being free and responsible adults living in a free society and making our own decisions.
If we just continue with this blind and sinister obedience, we're going to lose our rights and freedoms more and more.
And it's just going to get worse and worse.
So Pastor Coates, you know, Silver Lining on the Cloud, he, because of his suffering and the unjust imprisonment for losing a full month of his life, that should serve as an inspiration to you and to me and to everybody to be that courageous and to take a stance and to continue to exercise your charter rights and freedoms in the face of intimidation and stand up to government.
And you'll be surprised what happens.
If all of us stand up, the government's going to start losing a lot more battles.
That's a very New Testament thought to end on that the pastor suffered for the sins of the lockdown.
I'll stop being sad and mad and I'll enjoy the day.
And congratulations again to you.
And we'll definitely continue to cover this story.
John Carbe, congratulations and please pass on our viewers' best regards to your team.
We've talked to some of your other lawyers over the months and they've done a great job.
So kudos to you.
I'm so glad you're out there fighting.
Thanks for having me on your show, Ezra.
Right on.
There you have it, John Carpe.
He's the boss of the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, JCCF.ca.
Concentrated Benefits00:02:26
If you got a few bucks kicking around, don't be shy.
Feel free to give them to John.
They don't take any government funding, which is why they're so good.
Stay with us, more ahead.
Hey, welcome back on my show last night.
Derek writes, tell a lie long enough and people will believe it.
You're talking about that Pfizer investors call where they say, hey, guys, great profit-making opportunities.
Yeah, here comes the third booster and the fourth booster.
We're never going to get out of this, are they?
Are we?
And why would we?
I mean, there's such concentrated benefits to extremely wealthy people that each of us suffers a little bit, but the wins are so concentrated.
the Pfizers, the Amazon.coms, the liberal insiders getting massive contracts.
They will never allow this to end.
They just have too much skin in the game.
Jerry writes, Bill Gates and Jeffrey Epstein hanging out tells you everything you need to know about this man's character and trustworthiness.
Yeah, I know one person who met Jeffrey Epstein and was immediately creeped out by him.
And it's actually Ann Coulter who tells the story of when she was, when he pulled up alongside her in his limbo, and she just immediately, all the alarm bells were ringing.
I obviously never met Jeffrey Epstein, but even if he didn't creep you out and weird you out just on site, Bill Gates was still hanging out with him after his crimes came public.
So I think Bill Gates knew exactly what Jeffrey Epstein was about.
And I wouldn't be surprised if he was a participant.
Paul writes, Ann and Phelm have been kicking it lately.
I'll be donating.
The trouble today is that you want the truth.
You have to go looking for it.
Big media will deliver nothing but lies, half-truths, and censorship.
Yeah, I mean, listen, we're talking about lots of crowdfunding, right?
Rebel lives on crowdfunding.
We mentioned John Carpe in the JCCF, Ann and Fellow McAlier.
That's how it is when you're not in the government track.
I mean, if we were in the government track, we'd be getting huge bailout money, maybe huge corporate money, maybe even venture capital money, but we're not.
We're for the little guys, so we rely on little guy donations.
It's a tough way to live, but I think it's a more honest way to live.