Ezra Levant’s legal victory forced Canada’s Handpick Debates Commission—led by David Johnston and including Deborah Gray—to accredit 11 Rebel News journalists after two years of exclusionary tactics, including a 2,000-page submission filed the night before. The ruling exposed arbitrary COVID testing demands (like rejecting Alexa Lavois’ negative rapid antigen test) and Trudeau’s $1.5M spending to censor them, while mainstream media and civil liberties groups remained silent until after the win. Despite promises, Levant doubts Rebel News will gain question access, calling Trudeau’s allies hypocrites on free speech, and credits crowdfunding and Candice Malcolm’s legal support for their success. The case reveals systemic efforts to suppress dissent under the guise of fairness. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello my friends, what an incredible 48 hours it's been.
We beat Justin Trudeau in federal court yesterday and then we beat him again today.
I want to tell you all about it.
It's on today's podcast.
I want to invite you to get the video version of the podcast too.
We call it Rebel News Plus.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com.
It's $8 a month.
Bob's your uncle.
We don't take any money from Justin Trudeau, and I think that's why he doesn't like us.
That's why he fights us in court.
If Trudeau had his way, there'd be only two kinds of journalists in Canada.
Those who are paid by the government and those who are banned by the government.
If I had to choose between those two, I know which side I'd be on.
All right.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com to subscribe.
Otherwise, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, we beat Trudeau in court today.
I'll have all the details.
It's September 8th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a 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 will want to publish them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Yesterday, we had a three-hour emergency trial, a hearing at the Federal Court of Canada.
It was our application to get the court to order Justin Trudeau's Handpick Debates Commission to let in our rebel news reporters.
11 of our reporters had applied to go.
You might recall that last year, Kian Becky and David Menzies applied to go.
They were blocked.
We went to the federal court in 2019 and we won.
They were accredited.
They went and asked great questions.
I thought, well, let's do it again, but not just with two reporters.
Let's send a ton of them.
So we sent 11, which I think weighs about a ton.
And as you might guess, they were all rejected by Trudeau's debate commission, but they did it different this time because last time the federal court of Canada said this was outrageous.
You gave them a one-line response.
You didn't publish the rules.
You had no systems.
You outsourced the decision.
This is atrocious in all ways.
Those lads are going in.
So in the last two years, this debates commission has obviously taken that to heart.
And they thought, well, we will be so rigorous.
There's no way a judge will let us force us to take in the rebels.
So instead of having a two-line email saying, sorry, guys, you can't come with really no explanation, they sent us like 10-page, deeply researched lawyer's letters for every one of our applicants.
Instead of having secret rules, they published their outrageous rules right online.
They clearly have spent the last two years thinking how can we stop rebel news.
In fact, we were the only media outlet referred to by name in the application process.
It was incredible.
You know, the Americans have a concept of bill of attainder.
It's a phrase, it's an archaic phrase.
You can see it in their Constitution.
It's against the law in their Constitution.
A bill of attainder is when you pass a law targeting one guy.
Like let's say you wanted to target Bill Gates and take all his money.
That's against law in America.
It's called a bill of attainer.
That's really what Trudeau's Debate Commission did to us.
They had this whole system designed just to stop us.
They were obsessed.
They did all sorts of opposition research, digging up old things that all our reporters might have written about or tweeted about in the past.
It was a little bit creepy.
The trial yesterday was very exciting.
The judge was based in Newfoundland.
The lawyers for the commission were in Ottawa.
Another Justice Department lawyer was in Toronto.
There were seven lawyers on Trudeau's side.
We had one guy, Chad Williamson, in Calgary.
So it was truly a national Zoom hearing.
There were about 2,000 people watching the hearing on Zoom.
I don't know, but I think that's got to be one of the largest watched, most watched court cases in Canadian history other than the Supreme Court cases, which are televised.
It was incredible.
And I had a good feeling about it because the judge was asking skeptical questions of the government.
And frankly, I think the government talked too long.
They were a little bit overdone.
Again, they had seven lawyers on their side.
I understand that they filed 2,000 pages of submissions to the judge the night before.
And I know that because the judge, the very first thing she said when the trial was on was, why did you send me 2,000 pages to read last night?
There's no way I could have humanly accomplished that.
I think the judge was sort of upset with Trudeau's lawyers from the very beginning and it went downhill from there.
Anyways, the trial went three hours.
And the judge said, I'll let you know the results tomorrow.
So I went to bed last night with a good feeling, but I didn't want to get my hopes too.
Hi, you know how that is.
It's better to be a pessimist.
That way you're never let down.
In fact, I sort of drafted two emails, one if we won, one if we lost, and I thought, oh, good luck to us.
But this morning, we got the news, and here it is, see for yourself the ruling from the federal court.
Now, she didn't get into her deep reasons because she just wanted it quick.
She ordered them to accredit all 11 of our journalists in the manner that all other journalists are.
Now, because of the COVID rules, some journalists are in person, some journalists are on a phone system, but all 11 of our journalists are accredited.
Alexa Lavois will be our journalist going in in person.
So that was yesterday.
It was great.
And what made it feel so great is knowing that Trudeau spent, what, a million and a half dollars, seven lawyers, two years scheming for that day, and they failed.
And Freedom won.
And I love the fact that the judge was Newfoundland.
I know it shouldn't matter, but I really like that, that a judge who probably is considered sort of an outsider, you know, Newfoundland, as opposed to being in the center of the country in Toronto.
I love the fact that a Newfoundland judge struck down, you know, Ottawa Trudeau and his Ottawa and Toronto lawyers.
I have to tell you, that made me feel pretty good.
So that was great.
But my question is, how come this keeps happening?
And by the way, the actual chief commissioner of the Debates Commission, his name is David Johnson.
That should ring a bell.
He was our former governor general who had an illustrious career as a professor, a scholar, a journalist, governor general, and now he's running this ragtag operation as an errand boy for Trudeau.
And he's lost twice.
He's presided over Trudeau's little scheme twice.
And why is he allowing his reputation of a dignified, successful, scholarly man to be sullied like this in the sunset of his life?
I don't understand that.
I looked at the debates commission, and my old friend Deborah Gray is on it.
Remember the very first Reform Party MP from Alberta?
She sat by herself.
Stan Waters was in the Senate.
Deborah Gray was in the House.
They mocked her.
They marginalized her.
They taunted her.
They called her an outsider.
And now she's part of Trudeau's Debates Commission doing the same thing to us.
I think Deborah Gray and David Johnston should resign and disavow the disgrace of the commission.
And if they don't, it's on them.
Boy, I hope Deborah Gray gets off that thing.
So we were feeling pretty good today.
And the judge said, let them in.
And yesterday, the lawyer for Trudeau said, we can accredit these people right up until the starting time.
I heard her say that, and so did the judge.
Well, today they suddenly sprung a new one on us.
They sent us an email just before noon Eastern time saying, oh, by the way, you have to either be vaxed or get a COVID test.
Oh, they just sort of made that up out of the blue.
Well, Alexa Lavois, our in-person point person on this, got a rapid anti-gen test.
Shows negative.
She sent it in, and they said, no, we don't accept that.
The debate starts in about six hours.
You need to take one of those fancy PCR tests that takes 24 to 48 hours to get back.
So the debate's in a few hours.
You have to take a test that will get the results after the debate is over.
Could you be more transparent about it?
Well, guess what?
Our lawyer called up the judge, gave notice to the other side, and they had a case management meeting.
And believe it or not, Alexa managed to get a PCR test that was negative in like an hour.
I don't know how she managed to do it.
We sent that to the commission.
PCR Test Controversy00:04:37
They still refused to accept it.
But only when we went back to the judge, disturbed the judge who had already issued her ruling.
Only then did Trudeau's lawyers accept Alexa's rapid PCR test.
Could you imagine these extreme lengths they went to?
I would call that tantamount to contempt of court.
You're ordered to accept rebel journalists and you keep coming up with new excuses and we meet the excuses every time and you say, well, no, that's not good enough.
That's not good enough.
I think that that is in contempt of court.
And it was incredible and I give thanks to our lawyer, Chad Williamson, who was on the file.
Chad also asked if the debate commission would even call on our questioners.
And they said, oh, we'll treat them fairly.
I don't believe a Trudeau promise.
Anyways, that was their scheme today.
The debate is going to be a mess anyhow.
Look, Rosemary Barton, who is a Trudeau fangirl, it's just awful.
You know, here she is taking selfies with Trudeau.
I mean, come on, come on, get a room, you two.
And remember, she was the one who sued the Conservative Party of Canada in court.
Like, how is that even permitted?
I don't know.
All the themes of this debate today are lefty themes.
I note there's nothing in there about Trudeau's foreign policy disasters.
Whether it's China and the two Michaels who are now in jail there over a thousand days or Afghanistan, Trudeau called the election the day Kabul fell.
And he's abandoned Canadians over there.
Nothing on foreign policy allowed.
It's going to be a junk debate, which is why it's so important our reporters are there.
So it's been an incredible 48 hours.
And we won and we won and we won.
And I thank you, our viewers, for sponsoring us through your crowdfunding.
We were seven to one and our lawyer beat him.
It was incredible.
But I want to ask you some questions.
Where was Aaron O'Toole in all this?
Not a word.
Where were some of the civil liberties groups, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Penn Canada, Amnesty International?
Where are all the so-called journalists and civil liberties groups?
They were silent.
They weren't even in there, they weren't in there helping.
They weren't even just chatting their support.
They were silent.
Well, how about just other working journalists?
No coverage of this until we won.
Are you telling me that if Stephen Harper had banned 11 journalists who were called liberals, that that wouldn't have been the trial of the century if Harper had banned it?
Trudeau banned it.
Well, Trudeau's paying all these other journalists.
I should tell you the debate is incredible because all the party leaders who are involved in the debate tonight, O'Toole, Jack Meet Singh, the bloc leader, Blanchette, Annamie Paul of the Greens, they didn't say a word about us being kept out.
They agree with it.
And why should that surprise you?
They're all fine.
And they're excited about the fact that Maxime Bernier is kept out, even though Bernier has higher support in the polls than Annemie Paul the Greens or than the Block Québécois.
Don't for a minute think that Aaron O'Toole or the other major party leaders believe in free speech.
They didn't in the case of Maxime Bernier, and they didn't in the case of Rebel News.
I'm excited about tonight.
And instead of having a guest tonight, I'm going to invite you to tune in to our 11 reporters.
Alexa Lavois will be inside.
Our other 10 reporters will be on the phone system for accredited journalists.
Now, you'll have to count with me and watch with me to see if our reporters are even allowed to ask questions.
Trudeau's lawyer made us a promise, but a Trudeau promise and 35 cents will buy you a payphone call, am I right?
So I'm going to say goodbye to you now.
I want to thank you for helping us crowdfund this lawsuit.
You can see all the documents.
By the way, if you want to see the 2,000 pages that Trudeau's lawyer dumped on the lap of this judge the night before the trial, you can actually find them on our website, letusreport.com.
I don't propose that you read the 2,000 pages.
The judge herself said she couldn't.
She didn't, but the government, Trudeau, certainly loved.
I mean, imagine the cost of filing 2,000 pages.
Like I say, Trudeau spent a million and a half dollars trying to censor us.
I would like to say thanks to Candice Malcolm of the Independent Press Gallery, who stood up for us.
She swore an affidavit in our defense.
But other than her, we were in court alone.
But I guess we weren't alone because we had you on our side.
All right, that's the show for tonight.
I'm going to say goodbye now, but I'm going to invite you to tune in for our live stream of the debate and hopefully of our journalists asking great questions.