Alberta’s Justice Adam Germain—appointed by Jean Chrétien after electoral defeat—ordered Pastor Artur Pawlowski to repudiate his COVID dissent, adopt the government’s narrative, and face $42K in fines for 18 months, plus a travel ban, after a 70-minute church service during lockdowns. The ruling, tied to $50K in awarded costs, mirrors Soviet-era compelled speech, with prosecutors under Jason Kenney initially seeking 21 days in prison. Pawlowski’s U.S. speaking tour warnings and Nazi comparisons were deemed "vicious" by the judge, while Levant’s legal team appeals via savearthur.com amid fears this could silence churches like Street Church, echoing Alberta’s struck-down 1938 Press Act. Toronto’s Danforth Avenue protest framed vaccine mandates as "apartheid," but YouTube censorship halted further discussion, underscoring broader threats to free expression. [Automatically generated summary]
Today a special show all about a bizarre court ruling out of Alberta where a judge sentenced a Christian pastor not to prison but rather to an 18-month speech ban, or actually not so much a ban, but forced speech.
Anytime this pastor criticizes the government about the pandemic, he's now ordered to immediately rebut himself and give the government's view.
I've never seen anything like it in Canada.
We'll talk more about that.
Obviously, I'm talking about Arthur Pavlovsky.
So stay with us for that.
And let me invite you to get the video version of this podcast at RebelNewsPlus.com.
You get my daily show plus weekly shows from Sheila Gunri, David Menzies, and Andrew Chapdos.
And it's eight bucks a month, which I think is pretty reasonable, if I may.
And that's how we sort of pay our bills here at Rebel News.
So please go to Rebel News Plus and click subscribe.
Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, the most bizarre court order I've seen in Canada.
A judge orders Pastor Arthur to denounce himself every time he speaks in public.
It's October 13th, 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 is a lot of them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Today, the judge enforcing Alberta's pandemic lockdown laws sentenced Pastor Arthur Pavlovsky.
His crime?
No crime, actually.
He simply opened his church during the lockdown.
In a bizarre 40-minute rant today, Justice Adam Germain ordered that for the next 18 months, whenever Pastor Arthur talks about lockdowns, the pandemic, or vaccines, in tweets, in speeches, in media interviews, he must immediately repudiate himself and give the official government view, condemning himself after he gives his own views.
He must argue against himself.
He must condemn himself or go back to jail.
It's compelled speech, like a Maoist struggle session in communist China.
You have to say what the government tells you to say.
This is unheard of in Canadian law.
Even convicted murderers cannot be ordered to apologize for their crimes.
And anyway, such a forced apology would be meaningless.
But a convicted pastor must now violate his own conscience and repeat an angry judge's talking points or face prison.
And that's the whole point of it.
This judge wants Pastor Arthur to submit, to acknowledge the government as his master.
And if he can't convince Pastor Arthur of this voluntarily, he'll just force him to say it with a court order.
It's like forcing him to kneel, which the police have already done.
The judge also hit Pastor Arthur with $42,000 in fines and another $10,000 for his brother David.
What a disgrace this judge is, especially to Alberta, whose official motto is strong and free.
And that's not all.
In his 40-minute rant, the judge repeatedly criticized Pastor Arthur for talking about civil liberties to the media.
He specifically mentioned Pastor Arthur's appearance on Fox News.
But what does that have to do with allegedly breaking a Canadian lockdown law?
Nothing.
But it has everything to do with politics.
So to stop more media appearances by Pastor Arthur, the judge has ordered him to self-denounce after every public statement.
So an interview would be ridiculous.
The judge also raged at Pastor Arthur for going on a speaking tour and warning other churches around North America about the threat to civil liberties.
So to stop that, the judge also banned Pastor Arthur from leaving his home province of Alberta for the next 18 months.
He's banned.
There's no legal precedent for any of this.
It's completely unconnected to Pastor Arthur's alleged lockdown crimes.
It's simply a power-mad judge's revenge on Pastor Arthur, a blatant attempt to stop him from speaking freely.
This truly is the most absurd, un-Canadian, and clearly unconstitutional court ruling in recent memory.
In fact, to find anything like it, you have to look back nearly 90 years to William Aberhart, the former Alberta Premier.
Aberhardt passed a series of laws together called the Alberta Press Act, which forced newspapers to print the government's rebuttal to their own editorials.
That laughably illegal law was taken all the way to the Supreme Court, and in 1938 it was struck down.
And the Edmonton Journal, the newspaper that led the charge against the Press Act, they won a special Pulitzer Prize for their efforts.
Justice Germain has brought back that illegal law, but applied it just to one citizen.
Alas, today the mainstream media are cheering for the censors this time.
It'll probably not surprise you that Justice Adam Germain is a failed liberal politician who, after he lost his election, was appointed to the courts by Jean Cretchen.
Obviously, Pastor Arthur intends to appeal, and obviously we've got to help him.
I just got off the phone with Pastor Arthur's top gun lawyer, Sarah Miller.
We're relieved that Pastor Arthur was kept out of jail.
Jason Kenney's prosecutors has demanded a 21-day prison term.
But Justice Germain is smart enough to know that actually throwing the pastor back in prison would have made international headlines again, and clearly that's been on the judge's mind.
But what he's done here, issuing a political self-denunciation order, is almost as bad.
Sarah and the rest of Pastor Arthur's legal team are already working on the appeal.
I promise to send you a copy of their appeal the moment she files it in court.
Please help us to crowdfund that appeal by going to savearthor.com.
I'm glad that Pastor Arthur will sleep at home tonight instead of in prison as the government of Alberta wanted him to.
But this judge's communist-style sentence must be fought with everything we have.
Please help us crowdfund Pastor Arthur's appeal.
Our lawyers are great.
They kept him out of jail today, and they're running circles around the government's abusive prosecutors.
I promise that we will keep interviewing Pastor Arthur on Rebel News, and I promise we will never ban the knee to an out-of-control judge who thinks that he can force us or anyone we interview to repeat some government mantra.
Never, never.
Go to savearthur.com.
Well, that video I released earlier today, it's my thoughts, my first blush thoughts on the shocking court order issued today by a liberal partisan who lost his election and was appointed to the courts by Jean Chrétien.
His name is Adam Germain.
And what's troubling to me is that just a couple of hand-picked judges in Alberta have been given all the lockdown cases.
And I can't think it's a coincidence that they chose two of the most heavy-handed authoritarian judges to do it.
And Adam Jermaine, the fact that he was a liberal partisan probably doesn't say as much as just the fact that he is clearly a total believer in all lockdownism, and he has a deep despise for anyone who thinks differently, who has a different opinion.
And I think the fact that Arthur Pavlovsky is stubborn, he is, and Christian, he is.
and won't bend the knee, he won't.
I think there's a real personal vendetta there.
And I was sort of surprised, I'll be honest, that Arthur Pavlovsky was not sentenced to prison because the government of Alberta, Jason Kenning's prosecutors, were slobbering, salivating over the prospect.
They demanded he be jailed for 21 days.
Compelled Speech Controversy00:12:27
Now, the judge didn't do that.
I think he knew that would create an international shockwave.
And the media was very much on the judge's mind.
He referred to Pastor Arthur's media appearances, including on Fox News, that clearly bothered the judge.
So the judge didn't say, I'm going to throw you in jail, but he did something much worse.
He said, anytime you say anything in public about the lockdowns, the pandemic, the vaccine, you must immediately correct yourself by telling you, by saying to the world what I tell you to say.
I've just never seen anything like it in my life.
And joining us now is our reporter, Chief Reporter, who was covering this live, watching the hearing on video and live tweeting it, our good friend Sheila Gunread, who joins us now.
Sheila, great to see you.
Hey, boss, thanks for having me on the show.
Oh, come on.
It's a pleasure.
And you were listening to this.
It was basically a 45-minute, I call it a rant by Justice Jermaine.
Is that how?
So, you know, the parties were represented.
Their lawyers stood up, and the judge basically rattled off 45 minutes of his thoughts.
Was he reading from a script or did it seem off the cuff?
No, he did have prepared notes.
He did cite specific things that Pastor Art had said in the past.
He took great umbrage with Pastor Art's statement to the court that he made last appearance before sentencing.
He said it was a taunt.
He said it was vicious.
Now, we've published that statement in full.
Art provided that to us.
People can read for themselves what this judge thinks was vicious.
And what Art did in that statement was quote the Bible, cite his experience growing up in post-Nazi and Soviet Poland, but also pointing out the hypocrisy of the government, specifically Jason Kenney, who violated the same order that Art was arrested under when he held his meeting up on the Sky Palace, that private dining club that they have up on Sky Palace.
So, I mean, the judge, he had a very specific list of things that he referred to.
He said that because of the ability of Chris Scott, who is also sentenced today, and the Peloskis to fundraise that they would require strict and steep fines.
And that's what they got today.
And AHS was awarded costs.
So, I mean, it reminds me of, you know, the Soviets charging you for the bullet by which they kill you.
Yeah, I added up the cost.
It was around 40 or 50 grand that these pastors have to pay.
That's obviously going to come from money that they could instead spend on their real work, which is public service.
I was following along your live tweeting of the judge's rant.
And it's clear he wanted to jail them.
Like it's just so clear by what I was reading everything you were transcribing and I thought, oh my gosh.
I thought for sure, I thought for sure, not only are these guys going to get jail time, I thought 40 days.
And the only reason I can think of that he didn't do that is because this judge is so political.
Remember, he used to be a liberal politician that he's probably obsessed with all media coverage, as politicians are.
I bet he's watched every single video you've made about him, everyone I've made.
And so he obviously hated Pastor Arthur going on Fox.
So he thought, well, if I put him back in prison, he's going to get a lot more media.
Let me not do that, but let me do this really weird Maoist thing where I've got to order Pastor Arthur that whenever he makes a public utterance about the lockdown, pandemics, vaccines, he has to immediately follow it up with a statement, oh, but I'm wrong.
Everyone else says I'm wrong.
Which is sort of what YouTube does to us when we put videos up on vaccines or the pandemic, which is why we've sort of moved off of YouTube.
But that's, you know, you can choose to be on YouTube or not, and I have my quarrels with them, but this is a government judge who's telling a human being that he can't have a contrary opinion.
And why does Arthur have to be ordered to say the mainstream opinion?
We hear it everywhere.
Every voice in society is giving the mainstream opinion.
Is the judge worried that maybe someone hasn't heard it?
Like, that is pure Sovietism.
It's exactly the kind of punishment that Pastor Arthur Pavlovsky escaped from.
Soviet Russia, Soviet-dominated Poland, and Nazi-dominated Poland.
Yeah, this was pointed out time and time again, that this is really just compelled speech.
You can cut out a man's tongue, but it doesn't change his mind.
And I think that's what the judge is trying to do here.
And I think if the judge thought that this would sort of take the air out of the outrage balloon, it has the opposite effect.
Because now they're trying to imprison the mind of these men, the thoughts of these men.
You know, you could have stuck Chris Scott and the Peloski brothers back in jail, but they would still be entitled to their opinions.
This is a judge trying to strip these men of their opinions and their ability to express their deeply held opinions.
And I thought it was interesting that the judge said that none of this would violate the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
None of that has gone before a judge, a different judge.
So how would he be able to make that determination?
That was not before him today.
But you can tell that it was a serious consideration.
And when you say that this judge does watch news coverage, I mean, he took great disdain for the fact that Pastor Art had taken his speaking tour to the United States, which is literally probably the only place that he can express his opinion now without fear of reprisal from the courts.
And I think the judge missed the whole point that the Americans are looking on with shock.
It's the judge's own behavior from beginning to end and the behavior of Alberta Health Services and the court system that has created the demand for Pastor Art to go on the speaking tour in the United States because they can't believe what they're looking upon.
Yeah, this order is completely, I mean, remember what Pastor Arthur was charged with in the first place.
Opening his church for a grand total of 70 minutes during the lockdown.
That's it.
So why does he have to self-denounce for the next 18 months?
Why can he not travel outside of Alberta for the next 18 months?
What's that got to do with, in fact, really you would say don't go near your church for the next 18 months.
I mean, obviously that would be absurd.
But if you were trying to have your punishment stop the infraction, what's that got to do with telling a guy he can't travel?
That what this judge really is trying to do is stop him from talking, stop him from meeting other churches, stop him politically.
It's got nothing to do with stopping the alleged offense of opening his church for 70 minutes and the irony of saying and I was following your tweets you said that the judge particularly was furious with Pastor Arthur for saying that the Alberta health police were like Nazis.
Did the judge say that?
Yes yes, he said that directly that Pastor Art, he basically said Pastor Art, coming from Poland, you should know better, as in the judge's comfortable, privileged Alberta experience.
Yes, so as in this judge from Alberta, his comfortable, privileged Alberta experience, the judge would know better than Pastor Art, who was born in Poland, what a Nazi would do.
Well, you know the.
There's one more layer by you called the police Nazis.
I'm mad at you, so I'm gonna give you a Nazi like punishment of making, of banning your speech and making you self-denounce.
That'll convince you that we're not Nazis.
I'm gonna give you a authoritarian police state sentence because you said we're like a authoritarian police state.
It's, it's just the craziest ruling and that we haven't got the exact transcript of the written version, but we're gonna do our best to get those quickly.
There's one more wrinkle that just makes me laugh.
For those who don't know pastor Arthur, basically what he does is he's got a street ministry in fact it's called the Street Church.
He's always feeding the homeless, etc.
In addition to hitting him with almost 50 grand in fines and this weird speech ban, the judge says, oh, you have to go out and do public service, community service, that's all Arthur Pavlovsky does.
Now weirdly bizarrely, the the judge says, oh, but you can't do what you normally do.
I spoke to Arthur's lawyer and she said and you can correct me if you tell me what you heard that he's, he has to do some other sort of community service, not feeding the homeless, like just some weird rule of what he can't do.
Is that right?
Yes yes, so he's got to do something other than he helping the least of Calgary's residents.
I don't know what could be of more value in Calgary than what pastor Art already does.
And it was interesting because, in my interpretation, some of the things the judge said calls into question whether or not he even thinks Street Church is a legitimate church because um, when citing the case of the Church Of God In Aylmer Ontario, there are separate fines levied there, one to the pastors and then another to the church.
Specifically, this judge said he was going to level levy the fines directly to pastor Art because he called it quote his alter ego as in.
This isn't just a church, this is just another personality cult of pastor Art Pulossi.
This judge is out of control, you know, I was uh reminded of the like this weird rule, you have to self-denounce.
That was tried in Alberta 90 years ago by Bible Bill Ebrahart and it was thrown out by the court.
Yeah, and back then the the media knew that was outrageous and they campaigned against it and the Edmonton Journal got a special Pulitzer for that.
But I don't see any of the media denouncing it now.
Really, we have a self-denunciation order.
And the Edmonton Journal, I haven't heard a peep from them.
Maybe it's coming.
But I think the media like this.
I think they agree with the censorship.
I think they hate churches in general.
I think they are authoritarian.
And they hate Tucker Carlson as much as the judge does.
I think this is the single worst court ruling I've ever seen in Canadian history.
And I know that sounds really dramatic to say that, but you're attacking a man for defending civil liberties.
You're tailoring a bizarre order to stop him from doing a civil liberties speaking tour.
You're forcing him to basically punch himself in the face every time he says something political.
None of this has any connection to the alleged offense in the first place.
This is pure banana republic stuff.
And I think it's deeply embarrassing that it's happening again in Alberta.
Yeah, and it's not just a self-denunciation order because people aren't going to denunciate themselves.
They're just going to stop talking.
And really, that's what this is designed to do.
I mean, Art is not going to, well, he might, just for fun.
I mean, who knows what art's going to do.
But a normal person is not going to say, this is what I deeply believe, plus this is what the government is making me say.
You'll just quit saying it.
And I really think that's the intent of this order here.
But all of this is because Pastor Art, through his continued advocacy for civil liberties and the fact that he went on this American speaking tour because the Americans looked upon what was happening in Canada with horror, that this is about the judge's feelings of embarrassment for the justice system in Canada, of which he is a part, but also on behalf of the government.
He said breaches like this, quote, challenge the authority of the court and bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
Judge's Embarrassment00:04:50
And he also said the court has a right to, quote, protect its own dignity.
And that's what this is about here.
This is about an embarrassment that Art brought to the justice system in Alberta and to the government in Alberta simply by telling the truth of what the government has been doing to him.
Yeah, I have an opinion on who brought the justice system into disrepute here.
And Arthur Pavlovsky.
Well, Sheila, I think, and you heard Arthur earlier today say it to our Adam Sos, who's on the ground there.
He said that it was because of rebel news that he could tell his side of the story.
And we actually did crowdfund.
We've been crowdfunding for him for the last 18 months.
And I believe it.
I believe it.
I mean, there were a few other citizen journalists that gave him a fair shake, but no one of our size.
And there was no one who's been able to crowdfund like we have.
We have amazing viewers who share our belief that we should try and fix the world, not just report on its awful state.
So it was nice to hear him give a shout out to our viewers.
And I spoke with Sarah Miller, Arthur's lawyer today, and the appeal is already in the works.
And you know what?
If the government of Alberta were smart, which is a big if, they would just leave Arthur Pavlovsky alone.
And occasionally they'd see him as they were driving in the more decrepit parts of downtown Calgary.
They'd see some guy in the alleys handing out free food and clothing, and they'd grumble because they hate him.
But they should stop prosecuting this turbulent priest.
They should leave him be.
They're not doing themselves or the justice system any favor.
They're not promoting justice.
They're destroying civil liberties.
But really, they're making themselves look like a bunch of clowns.
And I think that the prosecution should drop it.
I think the Court of Appeals should overtune this atrocious decision.
And I think Jason Kenney, it falls to him to make a public statement reasserting and reaffirming the government's commitment to civil liberties.
Because right now, there's only one place that has this bizarre jihad against Christian pastors in the free world.
And it's just laughable to think that 10 years ago, Jason Kenney was in Parliament as the champion of religious freedom around the world, and yet in Canada, he's the champion jailer of pastors.
It's so crazy.
Last word to you, Sheila.
We must fight this.
We must appeal this.
As I listened in court today, they were citing cases of other churches that were fined, and this case will be cited going forward to punish other COVID scoff laws and people who speak ill of the government, because that's what this comes down to.
This is someone who spoke ill of the government, and so they're taking away his ability to speak ill.
And this will have a knock-on effect of other cases going forward.
So today it is arts free speech, but it is truly all of our free speech if we want to be able to speak truth to power.
Yeah.
You know, one of the things we have to do too, it's un-Canadian, but in a good way, is we have to criticize judges.
Why should they be above criticism, especially when they're so blatantly political?
It's this failed liberal politician.
He was a one-term liberal MLA in Alberta.
He was thrown out by voters.
And Jean-Cretchen said, well, you flew the flag for the Liberals in Alberta.
I'm going to put you in the court.
And here he is now, you know, some 20 years later, getting his revenge on the province that rejected him.
It's a disgrace.
Sheila, great to see you.
thanks very much.
Welcome back.
What do you think?
Do you think I'm too tough on this judge?
You think I should be more deferential to him because he's a judge, and by that I mean when he lost his election 20 odd years ago, Jean-Cretchen gave him a patronage gig.
Does that mean I should be more respectful of his insane ruling?
Or am I allowed to call it insane?
How about I won't call it insane and I'll just call it communist style self-denunciation?
There was a next level of an awareness there where this Canadian judge, and I'm Canadian too, says that Arthur Pavlovsky, an immigrant from Poland, may not call someone Nazi-like.
He's not allowed to, even though his country and his people lived through that.
I think this is atrocious, and I have to stop and think of what it would be like if there were no rebel news and no democracy fund and no fight the fines and no savearthur.com.
You would have Arthur, who's a good egg, a good man, but he doesn't have the financial resources and he doesn't have the legal connections, I don't think, to put in place the kind of legal defense he has.
Picnic Protest Paradox00:03:35
And I'm so glad that we've got Sarah Miller there.
I really believe Sarah helped keep him out of jail.
And I really believe that Sarah will be able to throw out this atrocious ruling.
And I think that's very important because as Sheila mentioned, otherwise this would become a new precedent, a new layer of sediment in the law that other judges would build on.
So I'm really glad we're fighting for Arthur.
And I'm so mad at what's happening.
And I can't even believe it's happening in Alberta, let alone Jason Kenney's Alberta.
Like really, if this is under Jason Kenney, imagine what it would be like if, God forbid, Rachel Notley were to win again.
Anyways, that's obviously been the top of our mind today.
Thank you for your support.
I want to leave as we do these days with a video of the day.
And we'll take a break from Alberta and we'll go to our friend David Mancies, who's got a little picnic story for you.
So I'll say goodbye now and I'll ask you to keep fighting for freedom.
And I'll leave you with this video of our friend David Mancies.
Good night.
It's our choices.
We have the choice of what we do.
And we are only fighting for our freedom.
Canada is becoming an open prison.
And that's absolutely not what Canada is about.
So I don't see how the passport goes.
It's not necessary and this is something we all need to oppose because it's headed down a really bad direction where we don't want to live.
We've lost 40 to 60 percent of our revenue since they've implemented this stuff in September.
And all I want to say is, and you're surprised at this?
Warning, censorship.
Warning, censorship.
David Menzies for Rebel News here in Toronto.
Well, folks, I'm on Danforth Avenue or the Danforth as it's known by.
Great place to go and grab a bite to eat, especially Greek food, which it's famous for.
But in John Torres, Toronto, in Doug Ford's, Ontario, apparently right now, apartheid is on the menu.
That's the daily special because if I want to go to one of these wonderful restaurants here on the Danforth and sit indoors, I have to have my papers.
And if you're double vaccinated, you get in.
And if you're not, well, you are shown the door.
It's a disgrace.
In any event, there are several dozen people gathering here at Danforth and Logan, and they're going to do what's known as a picnic protest.
These have been popping up all over the world, including in Calgary a few days ago.
The complicating thing is today is that it's been pouring a little break in the rain right now.
So I don't know how many people want to picnic in the rain.
We'll see as the day goes on and see what happens in this picnic protest, which isn't really about not being allowed to get into a restaurant as it is in the new dual-tier citizenship that is now inherent to Doug Ford's Ontario.
What brought you out to this picnic protest today?
Well, David, I just think it's extremely unfair that people are having to show their so sorry folks.
We can't continue to show you the rest of the interview on YouTube.
Their censorship laws simply won't allow it.
In fact, I can't even say what I can't talk about.