Canadian pastor Art Hindle was jailed in Calgary on May 17 after police forcibly interrupted a church service, arresting him mid-service while his children cried—despite the congregation complying for over a year. Meanwhile, pro-Hamas protesters violently attacked Jews in Toronto (Nathan Phillips Square), Montreal, and Hamilton with sticks and bottles, yet faced no significant police action. Over 1,500 Canadian journalists, including CBC staff, signed an open letter framing Israel’s actions as "ethnic cleansing" while ignoring Hamas’s anti-Semitic charter or terrorism, raising concerns about media bias. Levant warns of escalating anti-Jewish rhetoric and tactics, now spreading from universities to mainstream outlets, and highlights Rebel News’ growth as a counterbalance to perceived double standards in law enforcement and journalism. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I take you through some of the news of the weekend.
It's a tale of two countries.
On the one hand, a Christian church is busted up mid-service in Ontario.
Christian pastor is jailed in Calgary.
But at the same time, thousands of pro-Hamas protesters are on the streets with impunity, even as they throw rocks and bottles at police.
Oh, well.
Anyways, I'll take you through it.
I'm going to show you a lot of footage, which is why I'd like you to consider not just listening to the podcast, but actually becoming a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this podcast.
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You get access to the TV version of my podcast, plus podcasts from Sheila Gun Reed, David Menzies, and Andrew Chapatos.
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We don't take a dime from Justin Trudeau.
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Here's today's show.
Tonight, in the same weekend, a Canadian pastor was jailed for opening his church while pro-Hamas protesters attacked Jews with impunity.
It's May 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 is the government about why I publish them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Did you see this tweet from Justin Trudeau?
Everyone has the right to assemble peacefully and express themselves freely in Canada.
That's actually not true if you're an anti-lockdown protester.
Anti-Mask Violence00:15:16
But we cannot and will not tolerate anti-Semitism, Islamophobia, or hate of any kind.
We strongly condemn the despicable rhetoric and violence we saw on display in some protests this weekend.
Hmm.
What's he talking about?
He doesn't say something about anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Well, which was it?
Was it both?
And what was it?
What despicable rhetoric and violence does he mean?
Oh, well, who knows?
Probably nothing.
I mean, if it was something, he'd say so, right?
Well, yeah, no, I think Justin Trudeau has a rule.
He never talks about anti-Semitism without immediately mentioning Islamophobia at the same time.
It's as if he's worried he could lose certain supporters if he were to express concern only about Jew hatred.
Here's what he was reacting to.
The last politician in Canada to mention it.
Yeah, so pretty clear what's going on there.
There's no Islamophobia there.
A Jewish man was being beaten with sticks, flagpoles actually, from Palestinian flags.
He's a Jewish man.
So where were the police?
Well, here are some.
These videos are from outside Toronto City Hall, Nathan Phillips Square, it's called.
You might recall police kicked our reporters out of there, said we were trespassing when we were simply reporting the news there last year.
That's how we're treated, but thousands of protesters were there on the weekend.
No rules about masks or social distancing.
No mass arrests by police for illegal gatherings.
I'd call them Palestinian protesters, but of course, few of them are actually Palestinian.
I think it's more accurate to call them anti-Israel protesters or maybe even pro-Hamas protesters.
They're in support of the Hamas terrorist group that's attacking Israeli civilians with rockets every night.
Not all of them, but many of them are.
They brought a bit of that pro-Hamas spirit with them to Toronto yesterday, throwing bottles at a small group of pro-Israel counter-protesters.
And the police, well, they bravely told the Jews to leave.
So this was appalling to many people.
Or really to some people, let's be more precise.
Here's a Jewish conservative center named Linda Frum who's upset by it.
Good for her, but that's not surprising.
Here's a liberal Gentile MP who's upset by it.
Good for him.
That is a bit surprising in today's Liberal Party.
The vile display of anti-Semitism and hate speech yesterday in protests in Montreal, Toronto, and other cities across Canada is entirely unacceptable.
Well, good for him.
And here's what he means about Montreal.
Throwing rocks at Jews, just like we're in Gaza.
Why not, right?
And the most Trudeau will say is, hey, guys, no more anti-Semitism or Islamophobia.
Can you show me the Islamophobia there?
So that's what went on in part of Canada yesterday, massive gatherings that turned violent against the Jews.
Hey, I thought gatherings were illegal.
Yeah, for some people they are.
Here's what happened at a church in Calgary.
A large group of armed police surrounded and arrested and jailed another Christian pastor.
That makes three now.
That was Calgary.
At least they waited until after the church service to arrest the pastor in front of his children.
Nice touch there.
You could hear them crying.
But what about this from Aylmer, Ontario?
And why did they literally walk right into the service halfway through and interrupt it?
Ladies and gentlemen, my name is David Miller.
Here's the mic.
I'm a court enforcement officer, commonly known as a sheriff.
I have a valid court order here today requiring the sheriff, that's me, and the assistants of the police to vacate everyone from the building, and we will be locking the building.
I'd ask for your respectful assistance in this and everyone leave please in an orderly fashion.
This would be of great assistance to us.
Obviously, I know this is an upsetting circumstance that's come to rise.
If you would please kindly all leave the building at this time, we would appreciate it.
Thank you so much.
Why did they do that?
Why did a half dozen officers with guns walk into a church in the middle of it?
Why didn't they wait till it was over?
Why six of them?
And why did they bring their guns in?
Did they have plans for those guns?
This church has been operating for the past year.
Why did they need to get in there right in the middle of it?
Why didn't they wait till it was over?
Section 176 of the Criminal Code of Canada specifically talks about disturbing church services.
It's literally a crime.
It's in the criminal code.
It's a crime to interrupt a church service with a civil lawsuit or anything like that.
It's right there in black and white.
So why did they do that part other than they know they can, they know they'll get away with it, and they want to humiliate a Christian pastor and scare his congregants.
So you have thousands of protesters in Montreal and Toronto, pro-Hamas, some of them violent.
No problem to police.
Trudeau's worried about Islamophobia.
COVID, what's that?
Hey, by the way, did you know that anyone who protests outside is a racist white supremacist?
Yeah, I learned that from the mayor of Calgary.
Those people with those anti-mask protests, let's not kid ourselves.
They're not people who need to eat.
They are people who are marching in thinly veiled white nationalist supremacists, anti-government protests, and they don't deserve that kind of sympathy.
And I also learned that from the head of the NDP.
Yes, I do think that there is an connection with people who aren't wearing a mask or who aren't following public health guidance and the extreme right and the idea that folks in the extreme right don't care about people around them, aren't concerned about the safety and well-being of people generally, their neighbors and the people in the community, and to brazenly not follow public health guidelines puts people at risk.
And that is something that we've seen with extreme right-wing ideology, putting people at risk, not being concerned about the safety of others, not being concerned about the welfare of others.
There is a connection, certainly.
I wonder where they are now.
They really are worried about white supremacist Nazis.
They keep saying so.
And they wouldn't lie.
So look at this.
Nazi flags, not from white supremacists, but from the pro-Hamas protesters.
These are the new Nazis, no doubt about it.
Swastika flags.
I'm trying to confirm that these were in fact taken in Hamilton, Ontario.
I'm still double-checking that.
But here's what Hamilton police were busy doing on the weekend.
This is our head of video, Efron Monsanto.
How's it going?
Efron Monsanto.
Monsanto.
Oh, you have a pre-written ticket for me?
Yeah, buddy.
Okay.
So, here we issue the ticket for failed to comply with the concrete section.
Order.
Reopening act of Ontario.
So this is another 885?
Okay.
Yeah, buddy.
Whoa, for what again?
I wasn't even, I just came.
I've been separated from the whole group.
Okay, well, we have you here, and they have home order and abduction.
But also, like, you know, the Palestinian rally was here Thursday.
What did you say for that?
No one was ticking it then.
Okay, well, here's your ticket.
Okay.
You can go to court.
I'll explain to you three options on the back.
So for simply being outside reporting, you guys.
Okay, you have three options on the back.
First one is you plead guilty, you can pay it off.
Second one is early resolution, you meet with a prosecutor.
Third one is you go to trial.
Okay, whatever you choose to do, you can roll it off.
Just one question.
This is for like public health.
You're within two meters of me.
Like, do you feel unsafe right now?
Let me explain.
Please understand.
Okay.
Sure, go ahead.
50 Main Street East.
Camel's down there.
Do you understand?
Yeah, sure.
Here you go.
Thank you.
Got it.
So our reporter, standing alone, reporting on a protest, gets a ticket, almost $1,000 from police who were spying on him from inside a building and came out and gave him a free FAB, $880 plus tax fine.
You can see the cop himself violated the six-foot rule.
There's no sense there.
They were too busy ticketing Efron to, you know, do anything about the Nazi patrol, stop the mini riot.
Too busy arresting Christian pastors, too busy busting up Christian services in the middle of them.
There are mosques that are busy too, but maybe police don't go there because maybe the police don't think their congregants will go away as quietly as the pastors I've shown you today.
Why would police think that could be the case?
Why would police think that maybe mosques might be more resistant, maybe violent, I don't know.
If that is their rationale, that's Islamophobia, the soft bigotry of low expectations.
So maybe Trudeau is right after all, and maybe the police need to go through some sensitivity training.
Welcome to our mad world.
Well, in any battle between a liberal democracy and a terrorist group or a dictatorship, I know whose side I'm on.
That's why I rooted for Hong Kong against communist China.
While I still love little Taiwan, I'm not ethnically related to the Taiwanese or the Hong Kongese in any way.
I just know the good guys from the bad guys.
I feel the same way about Israel.
I have a special connection and affection as a Jew, but I think, I would certainly like to think that even if I were not Jewish and even if I had never visited the place, I would still stand up for Israel against the Hamas terrorist group, an explicitly anti-Semitic organization that can best be understood as a modern reincarnation of the Nazi Party.
If you read their charter, you can see they explicitly want to kill not just Israelis, but Jews.
They don't want to have some sort of rapprochement or new deal with Israel.
They want to utterly destroy it and exterminate it.
It is language reminiscent of Hitler's Mein Kampf.
That's my view.
And I hate to see the violence and that war pop up here in Canada and some of the violent protests we saw throughout the country on the weekend.
Of course, it's a minor point to note that police certainly didn't enforce anti-gathering lockdown laws, mask laws, social distancing laws against those folks.
Meanwhile, they were locking down churches and arresting pastors.
But one of the most interesting things that probably escaped much notice because it's behind the scenes is an open letter to Canadian newsrooms on covering Israel-Palestine.
And this has been signed by more than 1,500 reporters or those who want to be reporters.
And just in the very title there, you know where they're coming from because the battle is between the Hamas terrorist group and Israel, but it's immediately being recast as a battle between Israel and Palestine.
Let me just read a few lines from this open letter to you.
The Middle East is complicated.
We need to hear both sides.
Everyone has a lot of emotions about this.
These are just some of the excuses news editors have provided to Canadian journalists trying to cover the escalating violence against Palestinians.
Oh, is that what we're talking about?
Is that the only violence to talk about?
And we have to lose that nuance, according to this letter, and we have to embrace the truth of one side, the Hamas side, that accuses Israel of, quote, ethnic cleansing.
This letter goes on to demand that media in Canada be advocates for Hamas.
And it's signed by reporters who work for the Globe and Mail, CTV, Global News, the Toronto Star, CBC, and many others.
Joining us now via Skype to talk about this is our friend Andrew Lawton from True North News.
Great to see you again, Andrew.
You know, I was just chuckling.
It's not funny, though.
When you and David Menzies and Kiam Bexti applied to cover the 2019 leaders' debate, you were excluded by the parliamentary press gallery who claimed you were advocacy journalists.
Now, the federal court threw that out as untrue, but it's incredible that people who would call you advocacy journalists are demanding that all media in Canada say that Israel is an ethnic cleansing Nazi state and that the other side is simply peace-loving Palestinians, don't even talk about terrorism or Hamas.
And they're still working at these media outlets.
The whole thing's incredible to me, Andrew.
Media Bias Demands00:09:31
What do you take?
What's your take on the whole thing?
You're very right.
And you mentioned in your introduction there that this didn't really make the news.
I would say that's true, but that doesn't mean it's not reflected in the news.
Because what's happening here is dozens, perhaps hundreds of mainstream media journalists in Canada are actually signing a letter that says they will not represent both sides of a conflict.
And even that line you gave at the beginning, that we need to hear both sides.
The letter rejects that idea.
They reject the idea that there is another side to be heard when covering the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
And that is something that is incredibly dangerous.
There's another paragraph that they talk about.
Why shouldn't Palestinians be afforded the same nuance, referring to other groups?
And by nuance, again, they don't mean detail context.
They mean why are they not being painted as the good guys by the press?
Now, I would say, and I'm unequivocally pro-Israel, and I own that.
I'm very transparent about it.
These are the people who claim that their reporting is objective.
These are the people who claim that they don't have a bias, that their position is neutral and everyone else's is opinionated.
And that's why this is so dangerous, because you have people in the media conspiring.
It's in an open letter, but by definition conspiring to paint Israel as being a perpetrator of ethnic cleansing when, by the way, it's Hamas's charter that calls for the ethnic cleansing of Jews, not the other way around.
Yeah.
You know, let me just read one more line from this letter.
This is their official point of view, and they're saying you are too nuanced if you dispute this.
They say Israel was guilty of decades-long crimes against humanity against Palestinians.
And they say that that needs to be covered more widely.
Now, that's an opinion.
I may disagree with it, but these 1,500-plus signatories are saying that is the way we must cover this issue.
It's as if they're putting their own ideology ahead of their, first of all, ahead of their editors, ahead of their viewers, and they're saying we are going to use all these media in which we have roots.
Like the very first signatory on this is Andre Domais, who's a contributing editor to McLean's very first signature, a senior guy at McLean saying, yeah, Israel is an ethnic cleanser.
They're guilty of war crimes.
This is how we're going to cover it.
And anyone who doesn't is, you know, in cahoots with the bad guys.
I don't know.
I mean, I think their only mistake is making this letter public because they were just doing this anyways.
Yeah, that's the whole thing.
Now they've been very transparent, and I guess we can be grateful about that fact if there were actually attention being brought about to this by people other than you and me.
But the reality is that with Andre Demise, I'm not as concerned.
He's a columnist.
He's opinionated.
Everyone knows where he stands on this.
It's all of the people who hold themselves up as the arbiters of truth and neutrality that I take issue with.
There are, I think, about two dozen from CBC that have identified themselves as being with CBC, numerous others from the Globe, Global, CTV, lots from the Toronto Star.
And interestingly enough, I was looking through some of these names, and you might not be surprised by some of them.
You might not be shocked, but certainly the volume of it and the transparency of, hey, we believe that it's important to tell a biased anti-Israel version in our coverage when this thing happens.
And I wonder if the public editors are going to respond to this.
I wonder if any of the management, any of the owners are going to respond to this.
I'm not holding my breath, quite frankly.
You know, just as you were saying that, I went to the letter.
You can find the document online and I typed in CBC.
And there are 30 hits on this from, you know, I mean, let me just give you an example.
You mentioned that Andre Demise, I think I'm pronouncing that right, is an opinion journalist.
Fair point.
Well, Matthew Amha is with CBC News.
Jody Porter is a CBC reporter.
You know, Latifa Abden is a producer with CBC News Network.
Peter Ashe is a senior researcher.
I'm just reading these.
Andrea Selinger, producer.
Beza Saif, senior producer, radio.
So these are not columnists.
It's not like someone who's known for having spicy hot takes is saying, yeah, you know me.
I'm on the side of Hamas.
These are people within the bowels of the organization that are tweaking things, researchers.
Tannis Fowler, editor, CBC News.
Vivian Tabar, CBC.
I won't read them all.
There are literally 30 CBCers alone.
I shouldn't be picking on the CBC.
You should guess the CBC.
But there's Global Mail people here.
There's Toronto Star people.
I don't know.
How can you, on the one hand, I'm glad they're outing themselves, but I think they should, everything these people touch should be labeled opinion now.
Like if they're saying, we believe there's ethnic cleansing, we believe this is an apartheid racist state.
We believe that there's decades-long crimes against humanity, and that's how we're going to cover it.
All right.
All right.
But I don't think you can then say, no, no, I'm just a neutral reporter now.
I think what their work should be labeled commentary.
And if it's at the state broadcaster, I mean, they have to say, well, I think we have an even larger interest because, I mean, listen, if someone wants to have any opinion in the world, that's fine.
It's a free country, especially in a free newspaper.
But if it's in the state broadcaster, do you think we have some sort of right to object, Andrew?
Well, you'd think.
I mean, we are the, you know, we are the payers of the CBC, but unfortunately, there's not much in the way of accountability there.
I will say on the weekend when I discovered this letter, I tweeted about it and tweeted my concerns with the lack of neutrality and objectivity that was being called for by the design of this.
And I had a lot of response to it from many of the people who signed this letter taking aim at my position because they see neutrality as enabling.
They see, you know, just like if you were neutral when the Holocaust was taking place, that's the comparison they draw between this.
And the reality is that there's a gross misrepresentation of facts, of context, of history.
They don't understand the situation on the ground.
But the reality is that they are so arrogant as to believe that their position is neutral.
That's one of the more egregious parts of this.
They think that if they take an advocacy position, well, it's not advocacy because that's where everyone should be.
Yeah, that's a great point.
Is that they don't even realize, or they won't, sorry, they won't accept that what they're saying is a point of view.
They're just saying it's an absolute fact.
I'm just going through and just typing in Toronto Star, Global Mail.
It truly is widespread.
And I don't think I should be as surprised as maybe I am because I remember not long ago when the National Post had sort of a woke struggle session against Rex Murphy.
Rex Murphy, really one of the two remaining reasons to subscribe to the National Post the other being Conrad Black.
Rex Murphy wrote an article saying Canada is not inherently racist.
We're trying our best.
We're multicultural.
We're really friendly.
You know, he didn't say that Canada is not racist at all.
He said we're not inherently congenitally racist.
And the majority of the National Post's newsroom signed a condemnation of not just a small number, but a majority of the Post.
So this is allegedly the most right-wing newspaper in the country, I suppose.
And if they are this far down the woke river, of course, the Star, the Globe, the CBC are going to be just as far as so.
I think this is just a state of where media and politics in Canada are today.
Yeah, no, I will point out, though, honorable mention goes to the brave CBC Toronto reporter who was the 143rd signatory by the name of Anonymous Anonymous at CBC Toronto.
So even at CBC, they don't quite know if they can go the whole distance and put their name to it, or perhaps their name is Anonymous Anonymous.
You never know.
But that's, I mean, that is almost worse, though, because now you have someone who is going to allow this to color their coverage, but they won't even publicly own up to the fact that they are putting their anti-Israel agenda front and center in their reporting.
Well, yeah, I mean, that's the giveaway, isn't it?
I mean, everyone knows where I stand.
Everyone knows where you stand.
We say who we are.
We say what we stand for.
We say what we say.
People can take it or leave it.
Much of what we do is commentary, although we both do news reporting, but we are who we are.
For someone burrowed into the CBC to sign this incendiary letter, but to hide their identity shows they know that what they're doing is inappropriate.
They know that they're in a position where they can't be saying this because it casts into question their neutrality, their accuracy.
And that's actually the worst signature of them all because it's someone who says, yeah, I shouldn't be doing this.
I know that.
University's Percolating Violence00:03:19
And I know I'll be removed if I do because I'm in a position that requires trust and impartiality.
But I just want the world to know we're everywhere.
I think that's actually the worst giveaway.
I don't know.
I'm worried about the war.
I think that in some ways the bigger war is in the West.
I mean, obviously, the rockets are not falling out here, but I saw armed, sorry, not armed, I saw marauders in the United Kingdom driving through the streets with speakers saying we're going to find Jewish girls and rape them.
I saw a gang of Brits with Palestinian flags smashing their way into an apartment looking for a YouTuber who was critical of Palestinians.
Let me just show the proof of what I've just said.
Here's these cars driving through London saying we're going to rape Jewish girls.
Take a look.
Unbelievable.
And here is a gang of pro-Palestinian radicals smashing into an apartment, Hamas style, looking for someone who they thought said something that was too critical.
Take a look.
This is what a dirty dog, Abu Lait, who disrespects our brothers and sisters of Palestine.
That's actually more worrying to me, Andrew, is that the violent mentality, the thuggishness of Hamas, isn't just in Gaza anymore.
It's in the West.
And even Justin Trudeau couldn't muster himself to condemn it specifically and forcefully.
He just said, oh, hey, guys, no anti-Semitism and certainly no Islamophobia.
Okay.
Okay, good night.
That's what I'm worried about even more than the war, Andrew.
Well, anti-Semitism is the last acceptable bigotry.
And this is the tremendously dangerous thing that people will condemn individual aspects of it when you do see flare-ups.
But for the most part, this is something that is ingrained in what passes for political discourse, especially around Israel.
And again, I'm not saying that criticism of Israel equates to anti-Semitism, but I'm similarly going to say that the two are often inextricably linked.
And a big part of this comes down to the fact that so many people on the left have no issue connecting Hamas to Palestine and actually accepting the premise that Hamas is the representative of the Palestinian people in this conflict.
And that, to be honest, is on them.
They should be the first ones to say, yes, we can support Palestinian people and support all of these human rights issues we say we care about, but also realize that there is a group of terrorist thugs who are speaking for them, who are firing rockets in.
But so many people on the left in the West, including in Canada, have accepted that Hamas is engaged in what they view as some sort of legitimate resistance by firing rockets into Israel.
And you can't believe that without believing that Jews are worth dying.
Young Minds Thinking Critically00:03:11
Yeah.
You know, I was at university more than 20 years ago, and this stuff was just percolating into the colleges since then.
For a quarter of a century, it's been percolating and bubbling in the universities.
But things don't just stay in the university.
Those university students graduate and move into the workplace, now many workplaces.
It doesn't matter what your politics are, but any of those that depend on ideas, journalism, history, either professors, those wicked ideas from a quarter century ago are now in the mainstream.
And this is the kind of letter you'd see in the student journalism newspaper a generation ago, but now it is in the heart of the media industry itself.
It's scary times, Andrew.
Great for thanks very much for joining us today.
It's great to see you again.
Always a pleasure.
All right, there you have it.
Andrew Lawton, the boss of the Andrew Lawton Show, and he works at True North, which you can find at tnc.new.
with us more.
Hey, welcome back on all the new Rebels joining our team.
And by the way, we actually hired another rebel in Quebec after we recorded that.
Bruce writes: I love all these new people, the rebels hiring.
I'm encouraged to see so many young folks who are able to think rather than just parrot leftist talking points.
Me too.
I mean, I'm 49.
I don't know how it happened.
Last I checked, I was like 28 or something, and then poof, I'm 49.
I don't know where the years went, but almost everyone's younger than me now, except for my friend David Menzies.
But it is great to have so many young people.
It's hopeful, and there's an energy there and new skills, especially in the digital media world.
Barb writes, great crew, really touched by Matt Brevner's story and how he was the product of cancel culture.
It's very inspiring how he handled it and used it to shape how we move forward.
Yeah, and you know, I interrupted him when he was talking.
I shouldn't have done that.
And someone wrote me an email to that effect.
I talked too much, but Matt had a very poignant story, didn't he?
Jack writes, five new rebels, eat your heart out, Gilbo.
You know, you're not kidding.
I was talking to a lawyer for McLean's the other day, and he said to me that McLean's has a grand total of 14 staff.
Well, I think we're around 30 now, and we're hiring more.
And we're actually doing interesting stuff, not just rewriting liberal press releases.
I mean, I always think of us as small, and our office is very modest.
It's in a low-rent part of town.
All the furniture is secondhand.
You know, we really are modest in many ways.
But maybe I have to get over the idea that we're a startup.
I mean, we're more than six years old now, so we're not quite a startup.
And 30 people and millions of viewers, maybe we're not quite as little as I still think we are in my mind.
In fact, maybe we're the biggest independent news agency in Canada.
Maybe that's exactly why Stephen Gilbo is coming to kill us.
I'll leave you on that happy thought.
Hey, folks, great to see you again.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, to you at home.