Ezra Levant examines President Biden’s July 16th order to Facebook, demanding deletion of "problematic" posts—like anti-vaccine misinformation—while questioning why claims from Dr. Fauci or COVID-19 lab origins aren’t censored similarly. Meanwhile, Canada’s Quarantine Act fines hit $20,000 per family, with 2,006+ cases and daily submissions, despite eased lockdowns; the Democracy Fund now aids legal battles against these penalties. Levant suggests governments are weaponizing censorship to control discourse, framing it as a threat to democratic debate and individual freedoms. [Automatically generated summary]
I tell you, I thought Canada was bad at censorship, and it is, but the things that they're saying in the White House are terrifying.
Directing Facebook to censor mean tweets and dissonant ideas on the lockdown.
It's crazy.
I'll show you a bunch of clips from Jen Saki.
That's Joe Biden's spokesman.
But let me invite you to become a subscriber to what we call Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
You get my weekly show, Sheila Gunread's show, David Menzies, Andrew Chapidos, and the satisfaction of knowing you're keeping Canada's free speech channel, that's us, alive.
Just go to rebelnews.com and click subscribe.
Thanks.
Here's today's podcast.
Tonight, the President of the United States is telling Facebook to delete posts it finds problematic.
It's July 16th, 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 government is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Big tech censorship is out of control.
They have long lists of things you specifically can't say.
Misinformation on Media Platforms00:08:05
I mean, lists very specific, very weird.
You can say that the 2016 U.S. presidential election was unfair, for example, that Hillary Clinton actually won, but you can't say the same thing about the 2020 presidential election.
That's pretty specific, isn't it?
You can't promote ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine as remedies for COVID-19, but you can recommend them for any other malady, even ones you make up.
You can say you're the king of the moon, and that's fine.
But if you say that a transgender athlete is a he instead of a she on Twitter, that's called illegal misgendering, and you'll be suspended.
It's pretty extreme, but not extreme enough for Joe Biden and the Democrats in the United States, or Justin Trudeau and the Liberals and the Democrats in Canada.
Take a look at this clip from Jen Sackey, Joe Biden's spokesman in the United States.
Listen to this.
So about, I think this was a question asked before, there's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.
All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms, including Facebook, ones that Facebook owns.
Third, it's important to take faster action against harmful posts.
As you all know, information travels quite quickly on social media platforms.
Sometimes it's not accurate, and Facebook needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts.
Posts that will be within their policies for removal often remain up for days.
That's too long.
The information spreads too quickly.
Finally, we have proposed they promote quality information sources in their feed algorithm.
Facebook has repeatedly shown that they have the leverage to promote quality information.
We've seen them effectively do this in their algorithm over low-quality information, and they've chosen not to use it in this case.
And that's certainly an area that would have an impact.
So these are certainly the proposals.
We engage with them regularly, and they certainly understand what our asks are.
There's a lot in there.
The government is tracking 12 people that they don't like.
So they're not criminals.
They're not like on the FBI Most Wanted list.
They're not breaking the law.
They're just saying things the Democrats don't like and the government is tracking them.
Imagine if Donald Trump or Stephen Harper had done that to liberals he didn't like.
It's not just a subject of disagreement, according to SACI.
What they're saying is harmful and Facebook needs to move.
So that's an instruction to Facebook.
They need to.
They just have to.
And in case that wasn't clear enough, the White House has been in constant touch with big tech companies, making proposals, engaging with those companies to censor people they hate.
I wonder who those 12 enemies are.
And to promote quality points of view, which of course means people who agree with them.
Here's a Fox News reporter asking a question you'd think every journalist would be asking.
Are you spying on people on Facebook?
For how long has the administration been spying on people's Facebook profiles looking for vaccine misinformation?
Well, that was quite a loaded and inaccurate question, which I would refute.
Well, Peter, first of all, as you know, we're in a regular touch with a range of media outlets.
Let me finish.
As we are in regular touch with social media platforms, this is publicly open information, people sharing information online, just as you are all reporting information on your news stations.
Okay, so these 12 people who you have on a list, 12 individuals, do they know that somebody at the Surgeon General's office is going through their profile?
I'm happy to get you the citation of where that comes from.
There's no secret list.
I will tell you that these are people who are sharing information on public platforms on Facebook.
Information that is traveling is inaccurate.
I thought this part was creepy.
Saki's saying that she wants all the big tech companies to act as a cartel.
If you're banned from one, you should be banned from all of them.
She's saying the quiet part out loud.
Providing for Facebook or other platforms to measure and publicly share the impact of misinformation on their platform and the audience it's reaching, also with the public, with all of you, to create robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties and provide transparency about rules.
You shouldn't be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation out there.
Another reporter from a different network asks the question, why isn't the government going harder?
Alex.
Thank you, Jen.
Can you talk a little bit more about this request for tech companies to be more aggressive in communicating misinformation?
Has the administration been in touch with any of these companies?
And are there any actions that the federal government can take to ensure their cooperation?
Because we've seen from the start, there's not a lot of action on some of these platforms.
Sure.
Well, first, we are in regular touch with these social media platforms.
And those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team.
Given, as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic.
In terms of actions, Alex, that we have taken or we're working to take, I should say, from the federal government, we've increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General's office.
We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.
So they're flagging posts for Facebook, just being helpful, I guess.
Facebook's not flagging them hard enough already.
So this is just friendly help because Facebook doesn't have enough staff, maybe they might be missing things.
So the White House is just helping a company do its censorship work.
Senior staff are pressuring Facebook.
But no, they're not censoring anything themselves.
Who gave you that crazy idea?
Keep that in mind.
About things that are on Facebook.
I looked this morning.
There are videos of Dr. Fauci from 2020 before anybody had a vaccine.
And he is out there saying there's no reason to be walking around with a mask.
So is the administration going to contact Facebook and ask them to take that down?
Well, first, I think what Dr. Fauci has said himself, who's been quite public out there, is that science evolves, information evolves, and we make that available in a public way to the American people.
Exactly.
I have never seen any data to suggest that the vaccines cause infertility.
That is information that is irresponsibly traveling.
Okay.
Just one more.
Sorry.
Just one more.
Okay.
About the science, about the science evolving.
Facebook used to post, used to block people from posting that COVID may have originated for a lab.
That is something this president now admits is a possibility.
So is there any concern that things you're trying to block or have taken down might someday turn out to be we don't take anything down.
We don't block anything.
Facebook and any private sector company makes decisions about what information should be on their platform.
Our point is that there is information that is leading to people not taking the vaccine and people are dying as a result.
And we have a responsibility as a public health matter to raise that issue.
The responsibility we all have, the government, media, platforms, public messengers to give accurate information.
Go ahead.
Facebook is already the world's largest censor, censoring people in almost every country.
I say almost every country because Facebook is not allowed in China or a handful of other authoritarian regimes that don't want to outsource censorship to Facebook.
They want to do it themselves.
Two billion people are censored by Facebook.
And the thing about that is you're often being censored by people in other countries who have their own illiberal authoritarian political traditions.
Removed Content Controversy00:12:35
I mean, who is this woman?
And how is she in charge of anything you do or say here in Canada?
And what we're trying to find, of course, I think many of us who are engaging in this conversation is that middle road.
How do you moderate content?
And how do you find that balance between human rights and free speech, which is a human rights, but also other human rights?
Because obviously free speech is not an absolute human right.
It has to be balanced with other human rights.
And that is what the oversight is there to do.
Until now, we have seen content moderation, as I said, from a select few in Silicon Valley and ultimately Mark Zuckerberg, who's been moderating content.
Now we have the Oversight Board, which is a completely new invention, to do this work.
And of course, I want to say that I think this is a very, very positive new way of doing it.
That's a former Scandinavian politician, but she's now on Facebook's censorship committee, along with this failed British politician.
They're the ones who actually decided to censor Donald Trump.
They're foreign meddlers.
Speaking of foreigners, let me show you something from a left-wing Danish TV station.
This was on YouTube, by the way, but then they took it down.
Let me give you the background.
Tommy Robinson was set to go to Copenhagen for a free speech award, and this local left-wing TV station wasn't happy about it.
They don't like Tommy Robinson.
They think he's an intolerant extremist.
They don't tolerate intolerance.
So they were going to do a show condemning Tommy Robinson.
And they put their Facebook page, a post, asking their viewers to give them their opinion.
So if I'm not clear, they hate Tommy Robinson.
They were going to attack Tommy Robinson.
But when they simply put his name and face on their Facebook page, it was deleted by Facebook within nine minutes.
And they couldn't believe it.
They had never been censored before.
The left-wing TV station, I mean, they just always thought that happened to the bad people like Tommy Robinson, not the good people like them.
So they called up the Facebook boss for all of Scandinavia to ask him about it.
And he actually came on the show.
And you've just got to watch a few minutes of this.
It's amazing.
I'm going to play five minutes, but you're not going to regret it.
Take a look.
Først sletted Facebook den radikale højrefløjs-activist Tommy Robinsons profil.
So Facebook started to set up, that supported Tommy Robbinsons.
And now they started to set up, that just announced Tommy Robbinsons name.
Is this a way to handle our conversation?
Ask Facebook's Nordic communications chief Peter Münster for a moment.
Facebook has removed me.
I had 1.2 million.
I was the most, the most interacted with political Facebook page in Britain.
I had a reach and interaction that politicians could only dream of.
If I went live, I'd have 20,000 people watching me instantly.
That would then spread to millions by the next day.
When the radical højrefløjs-activist Tommy Robinson talked about violence and Islam, he made his budskaper a gang bred out on Facebook.
It does not do it anymore.
In February, Tommy Robinson was removed from Facebook, and his side was closed.
And not with that, at the last time, the banding has some other consequences.
At the last time, a lot of facebook users have found out, that the banding has been removed, only because they are talking about Tommy Robinson.
And this has been a hard critic.
Is our ytterings-free reelt and why the Magthavs doesn't respond?
For example, the first time you have to go to the next blood and we can use the bed.
Samsung Henry Keller Robinson and Kimpe and Joel.
Efter at have delt sin klone på Facebook, er Donbæk i øvrigt netop blevet udelukket fra at lave opslag og kommentere på Facebook de næste 24 timer.
Og på sin hjemmeside skriver Trygge Frihedsselskabet i dag, at selskabet er blevet truet med at få fjernet sin Facebookside, og her til aften meddeler de så, at de er blevet blokeret fra at poste på den.
Desuden skriver formand Aya Fogg, at hun selv er blevet blokeret i 30 dage på grund af omtale af Tommy Robinson.
Ifølge Aya Fogg kommer forbuddet ikke fra Facebook selv, men, citat, fra stærke politiske kræfter, der mere eller mindre direkte lægger pres på de sociale medier, citat slut.
Den forklaring ligner Tommy Robinsons egen.
And the maddest thing is, I've done nothing wrong.
They run with these lies.
They keep saying that I promoted violence against Muslims.
Show me where.
Show me one screenshot that I done.
Peter Münster, no communication for Facebook.
Tommy Robinson, is he so far, that only the name of his name gives the world to a far place?
Problemet is not that you can use his name.
Problemet is that he has fallen in a category of what we would like to have a predicate.
People who primarily use their position in the offentive room to organize or to be able to vote against a minority.
We don't have to deal with hate speech, but we don't have to deal with people who have it as a part of their offentive work and profiling.
So it's a hard sanction.
It's a hard sanction.
But what happens now is that people who are talking about Tommy Robinson, who have stolen their offentive work, are blocked or are treated with the whole of Facebook.
How do you deal with that?
The rules are not to talk about Tommy Robinson.
Man might be saying, that you can't like him.
Or you can't be a part of the EU, as it's been named in the intro.
And who are being pulled off?
Yes.
That's a question.
But at the point of time, it's not to be able to support our regents.
It's to be able to support, to support, to support, to support, to support, to support, to support.
What does it mean to give a representation?
It means that if we have a policy, which means that a man like Tommy Robinson doesn't have a profile, and heller doesn't have a side, then it doesn't have a follow-up, who can be on Facebook and say, that I have talked with Tommy Robinson today.
He told me to say to you all, that so, and so, and so.
Okay.
So that we also have a policy.
I would like to hold fast at what you said was another question.
I would like to show you some of my redactors, who made it earlier today.
He wrote on Facebook, I aften, I would like to tell you something about Tommy Robinson.
What is the best article about Tommy Robinson, which we would like to read in the redactions?
There was nine minutes, and then it was found out.
It was found out for the understanding of a phenomenon like Tommy Robinson, and the possibility of talking about the thinking, which he represents, that such a statement was found out.
I don't know if he's going to ask you, I'm not going to ask him.
I would like to ask him if he's in the chat.
I don't know.
I'd like to ask him if he doesn't know what he asked him.
You're saying you're not going to ask him on the phone.
I would like to ask him.
show you the whole video, but we don't have time for that.
You can find this video not on YouTube, by the way.
You have to go to a dissident video site called BitShoot to find it.
It's worth watching in full.
This Facebook guy can't actually name anything or prove that Tommy Robinson, he can't show anything Tommy did that was promoting violence, for example, but he still equated him with a terrorist.
I'm serious.
You can only denounce Tommy Robinson on Facebook.
You can't praise him.
You can't even just say what he says.
He's literally been unpersoned.
So that's what happened.
But look at what the Facebook boss then said: there's a secret list of people who are blacklisted, and you can't see who's on the list, and you can't appeal, and you can't get off it, and just trust us.
What does that mean in this case?
Because in this case, there is a question in the context that you are your own infrastructure for your own conversation.
So where can either of them, or journalists, or who can we go after in such a situation in such a situation?
We are not platforming for the offentive conversation.
We are only platforming, which has been in many years.
But from 16 to 24-year-old, for a fourth of them, are in the social media, the only platform they have given.
Yes, and it is a big answer.
It is almost a platform.
And it is something we take very far away.
So where can you go after in such a situation?
As I said, the concrete list is not offentic.
And it is a list over them, who are completely out of Tommy Robinson?
It is a list over the people, where we, out of our normal rules against hate speech, actually not to allow people to support them.
Can you see the list?
No, it can't.
How long am I?
I don't know.
I don't know.
I have actually never seen the list.
Står Hitler on the list?
Står Pol Pot on the list?
I don't know.
It is not my role to be in all the details about these events.
Who has been on the list?
It is the team we have, who are our politicians.
It is a part of Facebook's employees.
It is a part of the work they have done with external experts.
That is a part of Facebook's employees.
So, So that's, by the way, from a couple of years ago.
Imagine them now.
And they even have voice recognition.
You can't even say the word, Tommy Robinson.
And now they're going after 12 people in the United States, they won't say who, who have the wrong ideas, not about terrorism, but about the pandemic and lockdowns and vaccines.
Funny, because what is our wrong idea about the pandemic?
Is it still wrong to say the virus came from the Wuhan Institute of Virology?
Because that's what was banned last year.
Is that still banned this year, or is that now back in vogue?
I showed you just yesterday Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister.
I thought she was an extremist, and she is, but she's really not that much worse than these Americans.
We will share with you the most up-to-date information daily.
You can trust us as a source of that information.
You can also trust the Director General of Health and the Ministry of Health.
For that information, do feel free to visit at any time to clarify any rumor you may hear: covid19.govt.nz.
Otherwise, dismiss anything else.
We will continue to be your single source of truth.
We will provide information frequently.
We will share everything we can, everything you are, else you see, a grain of salt.
And so I really ask people to focus.
Well, it's the greatest example of that appears to be this text which originated in Malaysia and has kind of become a viral hope for Australia and in New Zealand.
How irresponsible is it the people that are sharing that news of a lockdown imminent in New Zealand?
Yeah, and look, that's the kind of thing that adds to the anxiety that people feel.
So I continue to share the message: New Zealanders must prepare, but do not panic.
Prepare.
And when you see those messages, remember that unless you hear it from us, it is not the truth.
And I really ask people: just visit covid19.govt.nz.
It has all of the up-to-date information.
And we will continue to provide everything you need to know.
And why am I blaming New Zealand and America?
Of course, there's Canada.
This is from Black Box Reporter.
Tweets undermine Canada.
Lawful but offensive Twitter posts are undermining Canada's democracy.
Heritage Minister Stephen Gilbo's department says in a briefing note: regulation of hurtful comments is needed for a truly democratic debate, it said.
Got it, got it.
If we really want to democracy our democracy, we've got to censor our democracy democratically, of course.
Prosecutor's Warning00:06:30
To make it more free, you have to make it less free.
My friends, things are about to get worse.
Stay with us for more.
Well, last time we spoke to you about the Fight the Fines project, we had 1,834 cases.
I can't even believe that.
I remember when we took our first case, it was actually Pastor Arthur Pavlovsky who was fined for feeding the homeless.
Well, 1,834.
Our friend Victoria Solomon, who's the legal coordinator for Fight the Fines, she went on a much-deserved holiday for a week just to take some time off.
You've been going full tilt for so long.
You've come back and I asked you, well, what's the latest number?
And you told it to me, but I want you to tell our viewers how many fight the fines cases do we have, including those that we're just now distributing to lawyers across the country.
What is the total figure?
Well, when I came back from my vacation this week, I counted the client number again, and it was 2,006 people.
This is just a mind-boggling number.
I can't even believe that.
I remember when I announced at a staff meeting that I wanted to take a thousand cases.
I said a thousand cases.
And everyone's looked at me and said, you're crazy.
What are you doing?
And here we are at over 2,000 cases.
I'm exuberant that we can take so many, but at the same time, each one of these cases is a disaster for the individual family or person who's been hit with this.
I mean, I'm excited that we're taking it, and that's why I'm sort of laughing that the number is large.
I'm laughing at the absurdity of it.
But there's actually no humor in it because each one of these cases is someone who's facing stress, possibly financial ruin, in some cases, a criminal record.
And actually, one of our clients, Pastor Arthur Pavlovsky, has served three days in jail.
Another client, Chris Scott from the Whistle Stop Diner, he was in jail too.
So each one of these is a potential life-altering crisis.
So we've got to be serious and we've got to keep fighting.
Oh, definitely.
And some of the quarantine act tickets, I mean, in Ontario, there's $3,750.
And people, certain people have multiple tickets arising out of the same occasions.
So there may be a family with up to $20,000 worth of tickets.
You know, unless you are a millionaire, a $20,000 bundle of fines will break your family.
Definitely.
It'll possibly force you into bankruptcy.
It could force you to miss your mortgage payments.
Obviously, there's no more eating out.
There's no more vacations, no more kids, sports.
A $20,000 after-tax penalty is, that's, I mean, when you think of it in terms of after-tax, that's half a year's work for an ordinary family.
Definitely, yeah.
And it's not only the financial aspect, but people are stressed.
They don't know what to do.
They don't know where to turn.
And I'm glad we're able to step in and help people.
I mean, by providing them legal assistance, by supporting them morally.
Now, you were on a well-deserved one-week vacation.
I'm saying that because you were telling me, and I hope you don't mind me telling it to the camera, you were telling me you were having dreams about cases.
And I know that if you're dreaming about work, that means you needed a baby.
Yeah, no, it was very nice to have time off.
But while you were away, obviously we still had hands on deck.
We have two full-time paralegals, and we have a team of lawyers around the country.
Around 20?
Yeah, I'd say so.
And actually, we have three full-time paralegals now.
Three-time.
We just hired Mark Cardi.
I'm very excited about him.
He was actually a provincial offense prosecutor.
Really?
He was a prosecutor.
He's now a sort of offense prosecutor.
And in Saskatchewan, we have a new team member, a new lawyer, Luke Kupal, and he was also a crown prosecutor.
And he's doing just an amazing job for our clients.
Isn't that great?
So we've got, I mean, if you're a prosecutor, you really know how it works, how the other side thinks.
So now to come and fight for our side, that's very exciting.
I remember you mentioned his name to me, but I didn't really know much about him.
Now, while we have people's attention, there is one province that we've been having a little bit of trouble recruiting a lawyer.
Why don't you tell our people about that?
If there is a lawyer watching who's interested in joining Fight the Fines, we do pay.
I mean, you're not going to get rich doing this kind of law, but you will get paid.
We don't have any pro bono lawyers or paralegals because we want people to really fight hard.
And we don't want them.
You know, I find that lawyers, when they do pro bono, it's always well-intentioned, but it seems to fall down their priority list because they have to earn a living.
So we pay lawyers.
Tell us where we need help to fill in the gap.
So we need help in the maritimes.
In particular, in Nova Scotia, we have over 20 clients that have asked for help.
And we've been trying hard to find a lawyer in Nova Scotia.
We've asked clients to assist, and so far, unfortunately, we have not been lucky.
And I believe we have one client that asked for help in Newfoundland, and we don't have a lawyer there either.
So if there is anyone interested in assisting us who practices in the Mary Times, we would be more than happy to have a new member join us.
And you know what?
People can send me a note and I'll pass it to you.
Just send me a note at Ezra at rebelnews.com and I'll pass it on to Victoria.
You know, I went to the law school myself out west, so I know lots of lawyers in Calgary and Edmonton and whatnot, but I just don't have that many buddies in the Atlantic.
I, you know, you know, the one fellow, we tried to get on board with this.
We do need people on the ground out there because every province has slightly different procedure.
The laws are different province by province.
And so we just need, and we don't want to fly someone out there.
We just need someone in Halifax mainly and Newfoundland, St. John's, to help.
So if you can help, go to ezrabelnews.com, send me a note.
Well, that's good.
Cases Still Coming In00:06:10
Now, last time we spoke, you told me that 91 cases have been resolved, including dozens where the Crown Prosecutor, when he looked at the ticket, said, yeah, I'm not going to go to court with this.
They basically realized that it was a junk ticket meant to scare people into paying a fine.
To me, that's appalling that they're handing out such rotten tickets and hoping just the fear factor will make people pay them, fear and stress.
In a sense, those are the best ones because they're the most unjust if they were to proceed.
What's your latest stats?
Do you know the latest stats in terms of how we're moving along?
They haven't changed since then, but unfortunately, compare it to 2000 people, that's a pretty small amount.
So we have a fight ahead of us, definitely.
Now, I mentioned the very first case we took was Arthur Pavlovsky 15 months ago.
And you and I have talked about how one of the rules in our criminal law system and in our Charter of Rights is the right to a speedy trial.
Because evidence fades away, memories fades.
It's hard to defend what you did two, three, four years ago if you can't even remember exactly.
I mean, our memories fade.
And it's unfair to the accused because you have this cloud over you for years, this stress, the stigma, even though you're not convicted yet, the fact that you've been charged or accused or ticketed is a kind of a blemish.
And you need that trial to acquit yourself of it.
So here's a question to you.
If the first cases we took were from April 2020, May, June, July.
So we're 15 months into it.
By the time we get around 18 months, like that's about the time that these cases start to really rot from the point of view of the prosecution.
Is it 18 months, 24 months?
What's sort of, what's the standard rule, do you think?
I believe it's somewhere between 18 and 24 months, depending on the offense.
So I think we're approaching a decision point for a lot of these governments.
Do you prosecute?
Do you have that vindictive spirit?
Do you want to go for that grandma and that grandpa and wring out $1,000?
If so, we've got a lot of lawyers, but the government has unlimited resources.
They could hire 20 prosecutors like that.
I don't know what the judges would think.
So really, I think we're coming on that decision time, aren't we?
Yeah, I think it remains to be seen how courts are going to deal with this.
I mean, ultimately, I think it will be up to the judge if this comes before him or her and the unreasonable delay argument is raised.
Possible that they will decide to extend this period due to the pandemic, but I mean, it remains to be seen how the courts will deal with this.
In Ontario, most jurisdictions haven't been hearing contested matters and this is why none of our cases have come up for trial, because we're fighting them all.
Yeah, very so so, and the courts are basically closed unless it's like an emergency matter right yeah, and and these tickets haven't been, you know, classified as an emergency matter.
So this is why we haven't had trials and most jurisdictions well, I mean, we haven't had any trials yet.
We had.
We have two in Alberta that started and have been adjourned, but it's mostly because courts have been closed due to COVID.
So when they reopen now and things start moving, we will see how this unreasonable delay issue is going to be dealt with.
It's very, very interesting from an academic point of view definitely, but we've got to remember and I chuckled at the number 2006, but you know, one person being ground down is a tragedy.
2000 is a statistic, and so we always have to remember it's individual families going through this for a while.
There, the largest fine for any of our clients was $14,000.
It was the church in Prince Albert Saskatchewan, which we have since won.
They dropped that.
Have you heard?
You mentioned three thousand dollar fine multiplied by family members.
So you said somewhere around twenty grand.
What is?
Is that the largest fine that you've seen?
Out of these two thousand?
Yeah, I think I think so.
The fourteen thousand as an individual fine, I think that's the largest one that i've seen.
Yeah yes, but but because uh, you know that there may be multiple family members getting those quarantine act tickets, it just gets ridiculous, and sometimes it may be four family members.
Two tickets per family member multiplied by four, like that's just a mind-staggering amount.
Yeah yeah, I mean just for the viewers.
Seriously, imagine if you had to come up with fourteen thousand or twenty thousand dollars for some foolish covet hotel.
That was frankly, more dangerous than just going home to your own house.
It's just crazy.
Now can you tell me you mentioned cases are still coming in.
You would think that the lockdown is easing in most parts of Canada, so maybe the the flow of cases would be declining.
How many cases on any given day are coming in?
It looked like a lot came in today.
Well I, I think I i'd say maybe five to ten.
So I suspect our number now is higher than 2006.
This was a few days ago.
But the cases that are coming in, they are quarantine act tickets because people are still crossing the border by land and by air.
So I think this will continue to happen.
And some people believe that they may be exempt from from a quarantining environment requirement or exempt from taking a covet test, and they're actually not exempt.
And then they get fined, right.
And then there are people who um received tickets uh, before the lockdown was eased, but they haven't come to us yet and they're coming to us now right, so I suspect that we're still going to be getting a steady flow of tickets.
Proud Counsel of the Democracy Fund00:05:24
Yeah, I think you're right.
You know, I mean when, when 2000 people across this country, like really in almost every province and territory I don't think we have anyone in Nunavut uh, I don't think we do, but I know we have you can.
Northwest territories um obviously, Ontario and the West Quebec we have a whole Quebec law firm.
They're probably at several hundred now, over 200 people.
Well, I don't want to sound too proud of this, because you don't want to be proud of helping it in a disaster.
That's the wrong mindset.
But I am proud of our team.
You, Victoria, you're a lawyer and you're the coordinator.
The three paralegals.
I forgot about the new fellow we just hired to handle that.
So I'm proud of the team.
Let me say that.
I'm proud of the fact that we've assembled a network of lawyers coast to coast.
We do need help in Halifax and St. John's, if you can help us.
And obviously, the greatest thanks goes to our viewers who paid for it.
Because everyone, you know, of the lawyers, we do pay.
Now, I think we do try and negotiate to keep their rates down.
I mean, if you give a lawyer 20 cases, he's going to give you a discount.
So I feel like we are being responsible with the money.
Definitely.
And yeah, and these are lawyers who are doing this for the principal.
I don't think they're looking to get rich.
And they are not, you know, recent graduates.
All of them are senior counsel, some former crown prosecutors.
Yeah, that's really good.
Yeah, they have entire law firms behind them.
None of them practice a loan.
So there is one head, you know, main lawyer that's representing the firm, but they're working with many lawyers within their firm and paralegals and staff.
So it's a staggering amount of lawyers and staff and law firms that are working with us on this project.
Yeah, I mean, and some of them, our viewers probably know Leighton Gray, for example, Queen's Counsel.
We've interviewed him actually as a guest a couple years ago on the channel.
So, I mean, he's a very senior lawyer.
Anyone who's a QC, Queen's Counsel, that means you've been around a while and you're recognized by the government as being a leader in the profession.
I just want to say one more thing because a few months ago, we had an innovation that really helped us, and it was the advent of the Democracy Fund, which is a registered CRA charity that has as one of its activities civil liberties litigation.
And so, all of a sudden, the money we were raising and spending on these lawyers could be, could receive a charitable tax receipt.
And that made a lot of difference because all of a sudden, someone who was going to donate 50 bucks, well, they could donate 60 or 70 or 80 and have the same net result.
As I like to joke, it reduces your taxes.
If you could pay $20 less in tax to Trudeau and have that money go to fight the fines, why wouldn't you do it?
That's at least in my mind.
So the Democracyfund.ca is the charity that's been helping us.
And I want to say that they are looking for a project manager.
So you would be working with Victoria and other folks on the team to continue the good work.
If you or someone you know would like to be a project manager for the Democracy Fund working on civil liberties projects, other humanitarian projects, go to thedemocracyfund.ca slash jobs and apply, and you'll be working with great folks like Victoria.
Well, listen, thanks again.
I want to say we've done a lot of things in six and a half years at Rebel News.
Done a lot of interesting stories, not just here in Canada, but around the world.
We've been to a great many countries, you know, a great many crises from Hong Kong to Iraq to Israel to Mexico to all over America and Europe.
But I think that perhaps the greatest thing we have done in terms of changing the world has been helping these 2006 families.
I really feel that way.
And I like to joke that when I get to heaven and they close the pearly gates on me and say, you go downstairs, Levant, I'll say, no, no, no.
And then I'll say, I did something worthwhile in my life.
And I helped people who needed it.
And Victoria, you were a key part of that.
Thank God.
And everyone who chipped in, whether it was 50 bucks or 500, or there were some folks who gave even more.
So thank you to you.
Sounds like we're not out of the woods yet.
Oh, no.
I think we're just beginning because now courts will reopen and this is when the fight will really start.
Yeah, well, we better keep fundraising then because it's one thing to take the cases, another to run hundreds of trials.
But we have to.
We absolutely have to.
Well, there you have it, an update.
2,006 cases plus, you know, five, 10 more every day.
Thank you for your support.
If you want to join the team, the Democracy Fund is looking for a project manager.
go to the democracyfund.ca slash jobs.
And as Victoria can show, it's a very meaningful job.
It's not just a job.
It's a way to help your fellow Canadians.
All right, stay with us more.
Cult Leader's Message00:01:16
Hey, welcome back on my show last night.
Stark writes, I work for the government.
Trust me.
No scarier words have been spoken.
Yeah, well, they're not even asking you to trust them.
They're just sort of forcing you to obey them.
It's even different, isn't it?
Brad writes, sounds like a message from a cult leader.
Yeah, Jacinda Ardern, she has so many trappings of a cult leader, but that is oozing around the world to Canada, even to Joe Biden.
M.N.W. writes, all government messages are identical.
I wonder who sends them their daily briefings to read to the public.
Well, that's the thing.
When Trump was in office, he was a real anomaly.
And since he was the president of the most powerful country in the world, that was enough to be a dam against this mighty river of globalism and leftism.
But now that Joe Biden is there, the river runs through it.
And you've got everyone from Angela Merkel to Trudeau to, you know, pretty much to Macron to pretty much every country in the world now on board.
Donald Trump resisted the tide.
I don't know if America is going to be transformed enough in the next four years to stop such a president from ever being elected again.
Wouldn't surprise me.
That's our show for the day and for the week.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Until next time, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, Do You at Home.