Ezra Levant critiques the Supreme Court’s five-to-four ruling upholding Mike Ward’s freedom of speech after jokes targeting Jeremy Gabriel, a disabled child, sparking debate over intent vs. impact and judicial bias. Dave Rubin joins to discuss Rumble’s merger with Locals, aiming to create a censorship-resistant ecosystem with paid subscriber chats to curb harassment while avoiding PayPal/Stripe restrictions. Meanwhile, healthcare workers from BC’s 100 Mile House Hospital—Colleen (18 years), Laura (18 years), and Teresa (16 years)—detail firings for refusing vaccine mandates, citing unaddressed risks like heart palpitations and government secrecy. The episode ties free speech battles to broader critiques of medical coercion and platform dependency, warning of potential overreach in both comedy and healthcare policy. [Automatically generated summary]
I take you through a Supreme Court ruling today on the case of Mike Ward, the Quebec comedian, who made fun of a disabled kid called Jeremy Gabriel.
Now, the court sided with Mike Ward's freedom of speech and his right to make jokes, but that's not interesting to me.
What's interesting is that the ruling was five to four.
All it takes is one more judge to switch sides, and those jokes will be banned.
So I'm not going to read the majority ruling.
I'm going to take you through the minority ruling, the dissenting ruling, and I'll show you what the four censorship judges have to say, because I reckon that'll be the law in, what, five years?
Stay with me for that, but before we get to that, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe, eight bucks a month.
My show, Sheila's show, David's show, Andrew's show, lots of shows, lots of content, eight bucks.
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All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, the Supreme Court says a comedian's jokes aren't illegal, but the vote was five judges to four.
It's October 29th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say to the government about why I'm publishing it is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Mike Ward is a Quebec comedian.
He's one of the few comedians in Canada who's funny enough to make a living at comedy.
Most comedians in Canada either have to move to the U.S. to make a go of it, or just do it as a hobby, or as many do, go work as a government comedian at Trudeau's CBC State Broadcaster.
I don't think it's possible to be a government comedian, just like I think it's impossible to be a government rock band.
A government rock band isn't singing rock music.
It's, I don't know, singing a jingle like an advertising song.
And some of those can be really nice, but they're still ads.
Same with government comedians.
Basically, Liberal Party policy spoken with a laugh track.
Do you doubt me?
If the old saying is true that you're only as sick as your secrets, oh my, the Harper government must be rotted out with disease and illness because it's all hush-hush in Harperland.
Makes you wonder, though, what kind of unspeakable evil they're getting up to to need that kind of impenetrable veil of secrecy, doesn't it?
I mean, what is their dark agenda?
What are they roasting puppy dogs on sticks back there?
So, help save poor Stasi Steve this season.
God knows Here Harper doesn't have enough sense to save himself, so let's bring him a load of sense.
Yeah, put aside how gross it is to imply that Stephen Harper, the most pro-Israel Canadian prime minister in Canadian history, is a Nazi.
My bigger beef in this context is she's just not funny.
Now, you could say that about Mike Ward.
Some comedians work clean, as they say, never swearing, never too dangerous.
I'd put Jerry Seinfeld in that category.
You can call them dad jokes.
Hey, working hard or hardly working, that kind of joke.
Mike Ward is rougher.
He's not to everyone's taste.
And one of the things he joked about was this guy, Jeremy Gabriel, who was actually just a kid at the time.
As you can probably tell by looking at him, he has a rare disability called Treacher Collins syndrome.
It's tough.
It's tough to look at.
Imagine how tough it is to be him, to be his family.
And he was a kid at the time, and Mike Ward made fun of him.
That's definitely not to everyone's taste.
I think it's very important to note that Jeremy Gabriel was not a private person, though.
He was a celebrity, like a child actor, like Greta Tunberg was until, like so many child actors, she aged out and became just an actor, which has less cachet.
Jeremy Gabriel was a celebrity because he was born deaf, but when he got turned six, he got a special hearing aid that allowed him to hear.
And he began to sing, and that's how he became a celebrity, because he was a child with such a punishing disease, and yet he still had dreams, and he tried to reach them.
I suppose he did.
He even sang for the Pope and Celine Dion.
I think we can all agree that mocking little Jeremy is punching down.
He wasn't an immoral person.
He was a kid.
He didn't do anything wrong.
In fact, he did a lot with what little God had given him.
Maybe that is doing a lot, actually.
He was a celebrity, and Mike Ward took a run at him.
So the kid's parents took Mike Ward to the Quebec Human Rights Commission.
I know a bit about that.
In 2006, I published the Danish cartoons of Mohammed as part of a news story about them being banned and the riots against them, etc.
And I was taking one of those kangaroo courts myself.
The claim in that case was that I was mocking Mohammed, who, by the way, died many centuries ago.
But publishing those cartoons in that context was a very important journalistic act, if I may say so myself.
Not because the cartoons were inherently interesting.
I would never have published them or even known about them were it not for the boycott against them, the banning of them, the riots that killed more than 200 about them, and later the terrorist attacks against other cartoonists.
I believe what I did was journalistically and legally and morally important, very valuable.
And the human rights complaint against me was odious for those reasons, but also because even if my publication of those cartoons was not important, it's still my right because we're a free country.
I'm not here to tell you that Mike Ward's jokes about a disabled boy were journalistically and morally important or valuable, but I'm here to tell you that despite that, or maybe even because of that, they're important to defend.
Because you have to fight for free speech, even for people you don't agree with.
You don't have to think jokes are funny to approve of them legally.
You can be mad at Mike Ward.
You can say so.
You can ignore him.
But saying mean words is not a crime.
I acknowledge they hurt the lad.
Here's what he told the Human Rights Commission.
He said, I was 12 or 13 when I saw those videos.
I didn't have maturity to be strong in the face of this.
I lost confidence and hope.
It made me think my life is worth less than another's because I'm handicapped.
I accept those comments as true, but what is the rule for jokes?
They can't make fun of people on what grounds?
And if they're under 18 or over 18?
What if they're a child celebrity promoted by their parents, as in this case?
What if the joke teller themselves is disabled?
What's the rule for that?
And what exactly is disabled?
What's the definition?
And who gets to decide?
Again, I'm not saying I like picking on the kid, but you're seriously going to ban mean jokes?
And who decides what's mean?
And does it matter if it's a funny joke?
Some mean things can be really, really funny.
Oh, and by the way, can a disabled person tell jokes about disabled people?
Can he tell jokes about himself?
I actually see a lot of that these days on Twitter and places like that.
It's kind of reclaiming the words just the same way many black people use the n-word because they want to take it back, take the power and hurt out of it.
Lots of Jewish comedians tell Jewish jokes.
Frankly, many female comedians tell jokes that could be called anti-women and even more tell jokes that are definitely anti-men.
Are you going to make up some rules?
Because in this one case, Mike Ward was objectively mean.
He'll admit he was mean.
Do we have a joke tester general who gets to decide?
Don't be surprised if you're allowed to make fun of people or not based on their politics.
You've never seen anything more racist or sexist or anti-gay than a liberal who sees a minority or a woman or a gay person who's conservative.
Oh, the viciousness that comes out there, whoo!
But that's okay, naturally, because reasons.
And comedy, of all things, remember, and we've talked about this before, that a jester isn't just about making us feel good and laugh a bit.
Jesters often speak truth to power.
This is Will Summers, the court jester to Henry VIII.
He was the one man in the court who was allowed to joke at the king's expense, to say things that embarrassed the king that everyone else was thinking but was afraid to say.
You can imagine how important that would be with a bit of a tyrant like Henry VIII.
I mean, the court fool, the court jester, had to be careful.
But he had an enormously useful role, speaking truth with a laugh, to get the king to think twice about things, which is why most tyrants don't have a court jester.
They ban comedy or ban joking that embarrasses them.
Stalin did it.
The Ayatollahs did it.
So what about Canada?
Well, the Human Rights Commission in Quebec convicted Mike Ward.
They said he discriminated against young Jeremy.
And the Quebec Court of Appeal upheld that.
They said that Jeremy Gabriel had a right to dignity.
And that was more important than Ward's right to make a joke, even in a comedy show that explicitly took on sacred cows.
See, I haven't actually, I don't think, told you any of the jokes that Ward made, have I?
I've only told you who Jeremy Gabriel is and how he was a kid who was disabled.
Are you curious about Ward's jokes?
Do you think it's possible they were funny?
I mean, is it possible?
I've heard some comedians tell jokes about the most atrocious subjects.
Is it okay for her to tell a Holocaust joke because she's Jewish?
Can she tell a rape joke because she's a woman?
Can I laugh at a Holocaust joke because I'm Jewish?
If neither of those things were the case, would it still be okay?
Isn't laughing about things like that taking back some of the power from it in some way?
I don't know.
Who gets to decide these things?
A bunch of crusty old judges who probably haven't been to a comedy club in 50 years?
And by the way, do you really think that these judges would have the power to stop you from actually listening to jokes on the internet in this era?
Other than punishing a comedian who has already been punished by nearly a decade in the court system, what have they done?
They perhaps scared more comedians from making politically incorrect jokes, but I assure you that that's only above ground.
I put it to you that underground, jokes continue, as they will till the end of time, as humans continue to want to laugh at themselves, at others, at the absurdities of life, and at power too, and occasionally at vulnerable people.
And maybe that's not funny, but you're not going to stop it.
I tell you, it's not far from banning jokes against a disabled boy to banning jokes against, oh, I don't know, a public health officer like Teresa Tam or banning jokes against Justin Trudeau.
Once you ban a joke, then all that remains is which jokes are to be banned.
And really, what's the difference amongst them?
They're just jokes.
By the way, are you curious what Ward's jokes were?
Do you want to hear what sent him all the way to the Supreme Court?
Do you want to hear the jokes that these judges weighed and measured?
You know the saying analyzing a joke is like dissecting a frog, and at the end of it, the frog is dead.
But of course, you want to hear them.
Of course you do.
And you can hear them, right?
Because you, I don't know about other people, but you are a proper person and you have the moral fiber to handle a bad joke without being corrupted by it, right?
That's what the judges say.
They wanted to hear the jokes for themselves to rule on them.
They could handle it.
Isn't that odd?
They get to hear the jokes and judge them, but you can't.
At least that's what the Human Rights Commissioner and the Court of Appeals said.
They said that they were moral enough, they were strong enough, they were righteous enough, they were uncorruptible, so they could hear bad jokes about a kid without turning evil themselves.
Just you aren't.
They'll do the thinking for you.
Well, hang on, I'm a grown-up.
This was grown-up comedy.
There were no kids in those comedy clubs.
Why can't we each decide for ourselves?
So the Supreme Court ruling came out today, and as usual with our Supreme Court, it's monstrously long.
It's just awful, these multi-hundred-page rulings.
In this case, 136 pages, mercifully brief, as this court goes.
And they ruled in favor of Mike Ward.
Not that they thought his jokes were funny, but that they thought that his jokes were not illegal.
That if the young man wanted to sue in defamation, for example, he could have done so, but there wasn't a human right not to be offended.
That's a counterfeit human right.
Five judges said that, but four judges said no.
Ban the jokes.
Punish the jokester.
That's how close things were today.
A reminder of one of Stephen Harper's two great failures.
He could have totally remade the courts with truly conservative judges.
He was prime minister for nine years.
He made half a dozen appointments.
He didn't.
That's what the left would have done.
Harper simply didn't.
He appointed one truly conservative judge.
And one of the censorship judges today was actually one of Harper's appointees.
The other Harper failure, if you want to know, is that he just kept the CBC and actually increased his power.
I'm going to read you some lines from the four dissenting judges, because I want to show you what is an inch away from becoming a law in Canada.
And remember, three out of the four judges here are liberal.
What happens when, because Aaron O'Toole lost the election, Trudeau appoints another judge and another judge.
So I'm not reading for you the law as it is in its final moments with five judges for free speech.
I'm going to read for you from the dissenting four judges to show you what is coming.
It is a case about the rights of vulnerable and marginalized individuals, particularly children with disabilities, to be free from public humiliation, cruelty, vilification, and bullying that singles them out on the basis of their disability and the devastating harm to their dignity that results.
Marginalized Voices Matter00:08:17
I agree that this was a child and that he was marginalized.
But who else is marginalized?
Well, everyone these days.
Everyone on the left says is marginalized.
Women, minorities, sexual minorities, immigrants, the disabled, the poor, Quebecers, Newfoundlanders, Aboriginal people, etc.
It's probably 80% of people.
So really, unless you're making jokes at the expense of white men, jokes are banned.
I wonder if that applies to Dave Chappelle.
He had a very popular comedy show on Netflix the other day that made fun of trans people, and they objected.
So who wins in that battle of political correctness?
A black comedian or a white trans activist?
So far, the answer is actually green.
He's just worth too much to Netflix for them to cancel him.
But does this mean you're not allowed to make fun of marginalized people at all?
Is that just a new rule now?
No jokes.
I'm not saying these jokes that Mike Ward made are funny.
But I'm not saying they're not.
I'm saying imagine four Supreme Court judges saying they have the right to listen to a comedy routine and then determine whether or not it's legal.
Let me give you an example of one of the jokes.
I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm going to.
Here's what Ward said.
He said, I went online to see what his illness was.
You know what's wrong with him?
He's ugly.
Oh, okay, so you're going to ban that?
Give the guy a huge fine?
And if he doesn't pay it, I don't know, maybe throw him in prison for condemned, calling someone ugly.
Woo!
Oh, hot stuff.
Here's some more.
Then after he sang for the Canadians, the hockey team, people complain again.
He sings badly.
He's off-key.
He's no good.
Christ, he's living out a dream.
Let him live out his dream.
He sang for Celine Dion.
Again, with the he really sucks.
He's off-key.
He sings badly.
Christ, he's dying.
Let him live out his dream.
I defended him, except now, five years later, he's still not dead.
Now, that's sort of actually true.
They thought he was going to die.
He's very much alive.
I'm very glad to say that.
That was sort of the joke part that Mike Ward was saying, hey, stop picking on how bad his singing is about to die, but he didn't die.
He said some other things too, but four judges in Canada went through what I just read and said, that's illegal.
The four censorship judges acknowledge that Mike Ward was taken to task by many people in Quebec society, including other media, including other comedians.
The judges point out that Mike Ward was in his own way vilified and marginalized because of his conduct.
And one interview that the judges repeat, Mike Ward himself admits there's a good point to it, that he was bullying a kid.
Not in person.
He was just telling jokes about a celebrity kid who was disabled.
He sort of admits that it was lowbrow.
But that was not enough for these four judges.
Him being taken to task publicly, him admitting maybe he went too far.
That's not enough for these judges.
This kind of behavior is never tolerating in Barakua.
You shout like that, they put you in jail right away.
No trial, no nothing.
Journalists, we have a special jail for journalists.
But look at this.
The judges pointed out that Mike Ward admitted he was a bit of a bully, but they say it doesn't matter that he admitted it.
They say it doesn't even matter if Ward intended to mock this kid or not.
The only thing that matters is if the kid felt mocked.
The intention of the comedian has nothing to do with that.
Let me quote.
We see no reason to depart from this court's jurisprudence, confirming that it is the impact of the conduct that matters, not the intention.
Rejecting the proposition that it is acceptable to discriminate if it results from treating likes alike, and that freedom of expression includes the right to discriminate.
Mr. Ward's justifications that he did not intend to discriminate, that he was treating Jeremy Gabriel like any other celebrity, and that his artistic license as a comedian gave him a right to mock a disabled child, have, as a result, no basis in law.
So Mike Ward said he was having fun, not discriminating, whatever that means.
He didn't, you know, kick anyone out of an apartment or fire from the job.
He just told jokes.
And he did so because the kid was a celebrity, which is obviously true.
So what, say, the judges?
Imagine how that would play out, say, against you.
You told a joke.
You didn't mean to pick on anyone.
You didn't mean to be bigoted or unwoke, but someone felt that way.
Again, not your intention.
It's how someone felt.
So you're guilty.
Four out of nine judges said so.
I just read you their words.
They say it again, more clearly.
I'll read it again.
At this stage of the analysis, it is immaterial whether Mr. Ward intended to mock Mr. Gabriel because he has a disability, whether Mr. Ward was joking or being serious, or whether Mr. Gabriel was skewered in the same way as other celebrities.
The issue is not Mr. Ward's stated intention not to discriminate against Mr. Gabriel.
The issue is the impact of Mr. Ward's comments on this child with a disability.
Do you get it?
Now, Mike Ward pretty much admitted to everything here, other than he said he chose the kid because he was famous, which is obviously true.
It's inconceivable that he would have singled out some private person with a disability.
All his jokes were about, you know, the kid singing to the Pope and singing to Celine Dean and being off-key.
But the court says whether Ward was making jokes or not, whether they were serious or not, whether he meant to be mean or not, what he said was illegal.
Nothing matters about what he did other than the kid's feelings were hurt.
I read it to you two different versions now.
You can't call a kid ugly.
You can't say a kid saying on a tune.
You can't if the person is marginalized.
Even if you don't intend to be hurtful, you're guilty.
By the way, I look forward to these same judges of the Supreme Court being this dainty and hypersensitive with something, oh, just a wee bit more hurtful than a joke being told at a comedy club.
How about treating someone, I'll use the language, who is marginalized for health reasons, for medical reasons, or religious reasons, and, oh, I don't know, can't take a vaccine and is fired from their job intentionally, on purpose, with real direct harm, real discrimination, not just jokes.
Will these judges be as generous to those people?
Or are the marginalized just whoever the judges happen to agree with?
Here's another quote from the dissenting four judges.
In this case, Mr. Ward's message about Mr. Gabriel, albeit one said in jest, was that he was disposable and that society would be better off without him.
Unlike other sacred cows targeted by Mr. Ward, Jeremy Gabriel fell victim to a stark power imbalance here.
The focus of the jokes was not only on Mr. Gabriel's disability, but was connected to harm, full, dehumanizing notions associated with the worth of children with disabilities.
This is quite something coming from a court that is completely in favor of assisted suicide, eugenics, and abortion.
I'm delighted they've suddenly found their humanity and don't believe in marginalizing the weak.
But you'll notice that the words they use is not actually what Mike Ward said, which is important.
The judges had to rephrase his joke in order to make their point.
And they're saying that a comedian was powerful as opposed to a child singer.
I don't know, that could be.
And the jokes here were dehumanizing.
All right, could be.
It's a matter of opinion.
But can we apply that new leftist rule to, I don't know, a cisgender privileged white male settler, millionaire, son of privilege, denormalizing and dehumanizing vulnerable people with disabilities.
Yeah, by that I mean Justin Trudeau talking about the unvaccinated.
They are putting at risk their own kids and they're putting at risk our kids as well.
Those people are putting us all at risk.
Those people are putting us all at risk.
Yeah, no, something tells me that these judges don't plan on taking on the truly powerful and they're dehumanizing of the marginalized.
Social Media Shifts00:13:10
Just comedians who make jokes they don't like.
They're the minority today, these four judges, but don't expect that to last long.
Stay with us for more.
Welcome back.
Well, one of my favorite guys is Dave Rubin.
He's the host of the Rubin Report.
I first came across him when he was touring with Dr. Jordan Peterson, sort of like a warm-up act.
And I thought, well, that's my kind of guy.
And he's not just a content creator, as they say.
He's a bit of an entrepreneur.
And he founded a free speech-oriented social media site called Locals.
And it really caught on not only with people who were free speech-oriented, but for people who wanted control of their data.
What I mean by that is we have 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube, but we don't know who they are.
YouTube won't tell us.
And so YouTube can break the bonds between us and our subscribers, and there's nothing we can do about it.
Locals actually connected content creators and their users.
Well, the big news this week is that Locals is merging with rumble.com.
And for those of you who watch our show, you know what that means.
They are a video rival to YouTube with a free speech orientation.
Full disclosure, I have a teeny tiny sliver of a share of Rumble.
I couldn't believe this good news.
And I thought, well, let's get Dave on the line and find out what it means in terms of defying the tech giants, free speech, and other good things.
And joining us now via Skype from LA is our friend Dave Rubin.
Dave, great to see you.
Normally, you're interviewing me about the civil liberties crisis in Canada, but today you've got some good news about a civil liberties solution, I think.
Yeah, well, first off, Ezra, I did not know that you had a teeny tiny sliver in Rumble.
And now I'm very happy to report that hopefully if this thing goes as I plan it will, you're going to be doing all right one of these days.
That's the plan, Ezra Levant.
Well, tell our viewers a little bit more about the thinking that went into locals and why it's, I mean, when I heard it, I thought, oh my God, that is a perfect fit.
But I'd like to hear it through your words because I don't know if I understand it completely.
Go ahead.
Sure.
Well, your intro was quite good, actually, because bringing up your 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube and that it's not only that you don't know who they are, you have no ability to get a message out to those people.
So, you know, when we all got on YouTube, everyone thought, oh, if someone subscribes to your channel and they tap that notification bell, the implication is that you're going to see those videos, that creator's videos, in your feed.
That's what we all thought.
I think that's what most people actually think to this day.
Well, that's just not how it works.
We know that through algorithmic tricks and for whatever reason, I'm not even implying that they're all nefarious.
YouTube does not send out all of your videos to your subscribers.
We know that often if they don't like your political opinion, they can actually put recommended videos that could completely sway your opinion or send you down some other rabbit hole.
As I always say, when it comes to big tech, it's not the things that we know that I'm worried about that we know they're doing to us.
It's the things that we don't know.
So a couple of years ago, it was actually just less than three years ago.
I sort of had the idea that, well, if I was going to be truly independent, really independent from these platforms, what would I need?
And I would need, A, I would need a subscription service.
So, you know, I would need my audience to be able to fund my program.
So I would be free of outside influence in terms of the political and cultural things that I was talking about.
So we built a subscription model.
Then we thought, all right, well, we need a great video player.
Let's build that.
We need a great audio player.
Let's build that.
Let's make sure that I have direct communication with my audience.
So we have, at first we started with live text chat, but now we have live video streaming from your phone or your desktop.
Then we thought, well, we want to make sure that you as the creator own the user data so that if someone subscribes to me and let's say I get kicked off YouTube, I have a way of communicating with them.
So we have great push notifications that go out to people so that you may remember, Ezra, at the end of July, I was kicked off Twitter for saying that vaccine mandates were coming.
Well, I wasn't completely incapacitated because I was still able to communicate with my locals community.
So I was live streaming a minute later, able to get my message out to people.
Then they could share it on their social media channels.
And then we got there to be enough public pressure that Twitter not only brought me back, but they said it was an error that I was banned in the first place.
So I think we had most of the pieces lined up properly for a partnership like we're now doing with Rumble to come into place.
And I'll add one other thing, which you described Rumble as sort of a YouTube alternative video site.
It's actually much more than that.
What they have done there, and Chris, who's the CEO of Rumble, who's a great guy and he's been working on this for over a decade, they have truly built infrastructure.
I mean, servers and all of the infrastructure needed to host all sorts of websites.
So, you know, the big one, of course, was when Parlor got blown up after January 6th, Amazon just pulled the plug.
And that's no way to run a business, knowing that the people that you're renting space from, so to speak, can just take you out at any moment.
So Rumble has not only a great video service that we're working on fixing some of the interface and all that kind of stuff, but they really have the underbelly of the internet stuff to make sure that big tech can't just blow up the Rebels' website or my website or anyone else.
So I think this is a really important week in the fight back against big tech.
I'm really glad to hear that.
And, you know, I like Rumble in that they're taking steps not just to be our, quote, right-wing alternative.
They've signed up quality programmers like Glenn Greenwald, who's an iconic man of the free speech left, Tulsi Gabbard, the Hawaiian Democrat who ran for president.
These are not right-wing voices, but they're voices that believe in free speech.
I'm really excited about that.
Tell me what it means that locals and Rumble are merging or acquiring.
I don't know what the term is, but what will it mean for people on either system?
What will it mean for folks who follow videos on Rumble now?
What will it mean for folks who use locals right now?
Yeah, great.
So in essence, it's a merger acquisition.
So I have sold the company, locals, to Rumble.
So they fully own it.
I do not own locals anymore.
However, myself and my partner, Asaf, who really was the brainchild behind this and the architect, we're staying on as part of the team so that, you know, I'll be doing this sort of thing, public talking about our ideas and our policies and things of that nature, you know, PR in essence and helping guide some of the policy.
Asaf will continue to run locals.
So you can think of it sort of how, although this sounds a bit nefarious, I suppose, how Facebook owns Instagram, but they're still separate brands and separate companies, but they obviously share infrastructure, human resources, things like that.
So Rumble, which is really well funded, it now adds a tremendous amount of resources for us.
But in terms of the user side of things, well, locals will be the official subscription provider for all Rumble's Rumble creators.
So if you're a Rumble creator.
That's huge.
Yeah.
So that's huge because that allows us to scale, right?
That's the key piece for us in this is how do we scale, not just bring on a few creators every day or if I know somebody, bring them on board.
This is if you are a Rumble creator, you will be officially connected to locals so that that can be the real financial engine for your show.
You know, then we have a lot of other things that we're sort of putting the pieces together with right now.
So, for example, when I do my show, which now we live stream every day on Rumble, right now, I allow for chat in my locals' community.
So, there's no bots, there's no trolls, there's no angry people.
This is good, enlightened, interesting, honest discussion that happens during my live stream.
We're going to start bringing that on board the Rumble platform as well.
So, it'll be your paid subscribers who will be chatting.
So, not only is that an engine of revenue for a creator like you guys, but it also allows us to have a much more decent conversation online.
You know, one of the reasons that the online conversation sounds so terrible is because people have 20 burner Twitter accounts to harass people all day long.
I'm not saying they can't have it, but we want to create something better.
So, you're going to see a lot of ways that we tie these bonds.
And, you know, the other part, Ezra, and you know this, is that in 20 years of, you know, 20 years ago, it was MySpace or just the beginnings of MySpace, the beginnings of social media.
We didn't know what we were all signing up for.
We had no idea.
You're friends with your grandma on there.
Next thing you know, you see a picture of Trump and a terrorist attack and a baby, and you're having crazy emotions.
None of it makes sense.
Why is your grandmother and your friend that you just reconnected with from fifth grade?
Why are they on the same page arguing about politics?
It doesn't make sense.
But now it's 20 years later, and we can assess that and say, well, what would a better internet look like?
What would a better social media ecosystem look like?
So look, we're going to build communities, but we're also going to build the underbelly of the internet.
This is going to come along with payment processors and a whole bunch more.
I can't say everything.
Dave, what you just said there at the end is so important because, of course, you can find a replacement video server.
Like we were suspended for a week from YouTube and it really shook us to the core.
We thought, okay, we're back on YouTube, but we better find Plan B, C, and D.
And when PayPal gave us the boot on a Friday night at 6 p.m. Eastern in an unsigned email, no explanation, no warning, no appeal, I thought, oh my God, that is the next step of deplatforming, and we need Plan B, C, and D there.
If you guys at Ruben and locals can find a payment solution, because that's the scary part.
When they ban people from even having the ability to earn a living, that kind of deplatforming is so horrific in terms of the wreckage it can do to ordinary people.
That's the most interesting thing you said here.
I'm excited about it.
Well, I'm glad you're excited.
I remember when that happened to you guys, and 100% crystal clear, we are working on it.
There will be solutions.
We should not be beholden only to PayPal, Stripe, and a couple banks.
Because, you know, the next level of this, Ezra, of course, is not just that, say, PayPal is going to say, oh, Rebel News is too scary for us.
It's that they're going to say, oh, the viewers of Rebel News are too scary, or the viewers of the Rubin approach are scary.
And then should they have access to a Stripe account where they can share these videos, right?
Like, are they going to do that?
So we really, that's why I keep saying this idea of we have to build a parallel ecosystem.
Let them have all of their things.
I am not here to destroy YouTube or Stripe or anything else.
What I would like to do is leverage their audiences to build a better product.
And that's exactly what we're going to do.
So yes, payment processors, video hosting, community building.
How do we get around the iOS and Android store, the Google Play Store?
I mean, there's all sorts of things.
But I think for the first time in a long time, we had a good week, those of us that are fighting this stuff, because this is just the beginning.
Dave, you know what?
I'm so, I mean, I was happy when I saw this news, but hearing, you've obviously been thinking about this for a long time.
And we like the guys at Rumble, and for you guys to team up is really great.
My one piece of advice is make sure you have foreign currencies for the payment processor, because obviously you're in America.
We're up here in Canada.
There's people all across the Anglosphere, UK, Australia, but even all around the world.
I mean, whether it's in Brazil or France, where, you know, Facebook deleted 40,000 accounts on the eve of the French election, or Germany, which is one of the most censored places in the free world.
I know that a lot of people in a lot of different languages and currencies, boy, the sky's the limit.
If you have an alternative, anti-fragile, you know, resilient system.
I am very excited.
Dave, I wish you good luck.
Couldn't happen to a better guy.
Congrats.
I remember when you started Locals.
I was thrilled by it.
And I'm grateful for you popping by today.
I know how busy you are.
So thanks for the personal update.
Ezra, I thank you for the kind words.
You know, we're all in this fight together, and we've all found allies in places we didn't think we were going to find allies.
Opting Out00:10:45
And I don't know that they'll let me in Canada anytime soon.
But if they will let you into America, I look forward to breaking bread with you one of these days.
Well, thank you.
Hopefully I'm not coming there as a refugee.
We've got a few more fights up here.
In fact, I might try and conscript you into that.
Ezra, if you come in as a refugee, don't come in through Canada because we don't give you anything.
But if you come in through Mexico, apparently we're going to give you $450,000 on your way in.
So get down there.
You're going to get a retirement plan.
I forgot to tell you.
All right.
Well, Dave, it's great to catch up with you.
There he is, everybody.
Dave Rubin, the boss of Rubin Report, the founder of Locals.
And the big news is, of course, they're merging with Rumble.com, the free speech alternative in video.
with us more ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your feedback.
Carol Bergman writes, Mr. O'Toole is from now to be known as Mr. Ofool.
I will never vote conservative again.
I mean, what is the point of him?
I'm not even kidding when I say he really could be a Trudeau cabinet minister.
The difference between him and Trudeau is microscopic.
I don't even think you could slide a sheet of paper between him and Trudeau.
They're so close.
Barbara Baxter says, not sure I'd want to be treated by those who don't mind working under Premier Horgan's yoke.
You're talking about the decision in BC to sack 4,000 nurses and doctors.
I mean, don't you want ethical people who will stand on a point of courage or principle?
Like, you're seriously weeding out.
I mean, you're weeding out some people who have a religious objection.
You're weeding out some people with a medical objection.
But in every case, you're really weeding out people who say, I'm going to take a stand on principle at great personal cost.
Aren't those actually the best people?
All I can think of was Jody Wilson-Raybold, the one ethical cabinet minister in Trudeau's cabinet.
So the one he had to throw out.
And Jane Philpott left too because she felt the same way.
Aren't we doing that en masse?
Like in every institution, aren't they throwing away, even if you're vaxed, even if you believe in vaxes, you're throwing out people who on principle say, I'm not going to be forced?
What are you doing?
Someone with a nickname of Noodle Max says, Saskatoon City Council passing a bylaw to restrict gatherings, unvaxed, not allowed in other homes.
Yeah, I mean, it's out of control.
I don't know how they'll possibly enforce that.
But listen, I've seen nothing stopping any police in any place in the world.
Like, really.
Tell me a judge who's stopped anything in a meaningful way.
Well, that's the show for today.
Until Monday, on behalf of all of us here from Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.
And let me leave you with our video of the day from Drea Humphrey, who went to 100 Mile House to speak to some nurses about this very subject.
Goodbye.
Well, I am pretty much terminated.
So I've been off on unpaid leave since the 12th of this month.
And on the 26th, I will be terminated.
I have opted to hold off with getting the vaccine.
I'm just not happy with the information that I've not been given.
And I'm not comfortable with the fact that I don't get to actually consent or refuse.
Absolutely.
Myself, during this whole thing, I have a daughter that lives in the UK.
And my forethought is, I'm going to wait.
Yes, I want to travel and see my daughter and everything else, but I'm going to wait.
I want to see what's going to happen, where we're going with this.
If there's any adverse reactions, what are they going to be?
For myself, I have opted out.
I have done my research.
I believe in medical freedoms.
I believe in the rights and freedoms of all Canadians to choose for themselves as they know best for themselves.
A stranger should not be choosing how care should be done for you and potentially putting you at risk not knowing what your circumstances are.
Drea Humphrey here with Rebel News.
I'm sitting here with Colleen, Laura, and Teresa, all frontline workers.
Just let us know what you guys do.
I'm a trained health care professional.
I am a healthcare professional in acute care, 100 Mile Hospital.
I'm a long-term care aide for 16 years.
Right.
And so unless you've been living under a rock, depending on your lady's vaccination status or whether or not you were comfortable disclosing that, you guys are either terminated, laid off without paid pay, or about to experience that at the time of this report.
So let us know where you are with that right now.
Well, I am pretty much terminated.
So I've been off on long-term, or sorry, unpaid leave since the 12th of this month.
And on the 26th, I will be terminated.
And how many years were you working in the field?
18 years.
And what about the hospital?
You guys are all at the same hospital.
This is a fairly smaller area.
And site.
And site.
And so how many years were you there?
I've been here for pretty much the 18 years.
I did a little bit of traveling down in the Kootena region.
I worked there for a brief period of time, but ultimately, this is my vocation.
Wow.
And how about yourself?
How long have you been doing your job and specifically in this area?
I've been doing in the healthcare field for 18 years.
I moved up to 100 Mile House five years ago and I've been here five years, over five years now.
And same question for you.
I've been doing curating for 16 years.
I've worked complex care, multi-level extended care, and hospice and brain injury for 16 years.
And I've been in 100 Mile for 10 years.
10 years.
Yeah.
Wow.
Now, who can speak to you, if anybody can get a guess about the estimation on the size of the population that you guys care for?
Like, I'm assuming, based on this, you guys are the primary hospital to treat if people, you know, need care.
We are a rural community.
We have a community that is larger than ours north of us.
That would be Williams Lake.
And then, of course, the primary tertiary center is Kamloops.
And then, of course, Kelowna.
We probably service approximately plus or minus a total area of about 18,000 people.
And so, when we talk about the vaccine, are you guys comfortable giving your vaccination status right now?
Yes.
Yes.
And so, what is it?
And if you're comfortable sharing, I'm assuming that it's well, I have opted to hold off with getting the vaccine.
I'm just not happy with the information that I've not been given.
And I'm not comfortable with the fact that I don't get to actually consent or refuse.
Absolutely.
Myself, during this whole thing, I have a daughter that lives in the UK.
And my forethought is: I'm going to wait.
Yes, I want to travel and see my daughter and everything else, but I'm going to wait.
I want to see what's going to happen, where we're going with this.
If there's any adverse reactions, what are they going to be?
For myself, I have opted out.
I have done my research.
I believe in medical freedoms.
I believe in the rights and freedoms of all Canadians to choose for themselves as they know best for themselves.
A stranger should not be choosing how care should be done for you and potentially putting you at risk, not knowing what your circumstances are.
I think that it's on the one hand, it kind of made sense.
I'm not saying the mandates made sense at all, but that they pick sort of the acute care and long term to start this.
But it should have been surprising to most of the people how many across Canada in your industry were not ready to get the vaccination.
So, what do you say to people who kind of think maybe you guys are sort of villains or something for not just jabbing and doing it, doing your part?
I would say it's called critical thinking.
We were educated to critically think.
It's called ethics on doing your research, asking your questions, knowing your demographics and that, and just looking at it and seeing what's out there.
And you know what?
I mean, the peer reviews are not being seen right now.
And that is the biggest thing is that they are being silenced.
Brown Institute has peer reviews of this.
You know, and that is the biggest thing: looking at your peer reviews and being open-minded.
And I just want people to know that, yes, people say, oh, it's been around for years or all that other thing.
But the thing is, though, is that it was still in the emergency use.
It was, that's all it was.
They haven't finished the trials.
They haven't finished the clinical trials.
It's ongoing.
And even they'll say that they don't know the long-term effect.
They're going to try and put this on to children.
Children that they haven't even tried it on at all.
There has been no clinical trials and outcomes for children.
Well, we've seen that I believe it's Denmark and Sweden when it comes to Moderna has at the moment held off on giving it to young people.
Pfizer, right on its fact sheet from the FDA, says that, you know, that trials are still on and you might have severe reactions.
So it's kind of concerning that we're giving this to children.
What about the reactions in your experience?
Are you coming across those?
Concerns Over Pediatric Vaccination00:07:52
How are they being dealt with?
And how are they being tracked?
I'm, from my personal story, and like I said, my daughter lives in the UK.
She chose to get the vaccine.
So this is when all the restrictions were down, that you couldn't travel, you couldn't go anywhere, there was lockdowns.
So your daughter faced or messages you and talks to you and says, Mom, I'm not feeling good.
I'm tired.
My heart's pounding.
Sometimes I get short of breath.
All I want to do is sleep.
This is after the first vaccine.
So I'm thinking, here's a 26-year-old girl, my own daughter, phoning me and saying, what do I do?
I'm not feeling good.
And this is about three weeks after the vaccine.
And I kept telling her, go to the hospital, go to the hospital, but the UK system is much different than ours.
And finally, after two days, like, I mean, she ended up having rashes and that, and she ended up going to a hospital and they just kind of just swept it under the carpet and that.
And how do you think a mother feels with her daughter on a 12-hour flight away?
There is nothing you can do.
And you tried to educate her to not get it, but she wants to travel.
She's young.
She has faith in the people that are telling, giving you this information.
She has faith in the scientists that are pushing this.
And we've seen, you know, the lies come out and people being exposed and scientists, the healthcare professionals that are on TV.
And you know what?
There's millions and millions and billions of people that are trusting these people.
And for me, it's all about being very, very straightforward.
These are the facts.
And that's what it has to come down to is facts and truth.
So tell us a little bit about what this means to be laid off without pay or terminated for you guys.
How is that going to affect your livelihood?
Well, no money is a big deal.
It is a little bit mad.
Yeah.
We have been told that once we are terminated, there will be no severance.
There is talk about being denied the ability to collect any form of EI.
There's threats of losing our pension.
There's threats of losing our licenses.
We don't know if these are all factual.
There's just lots of talk.
And then just being able to figure out, okay, what else are we going to do?
So the uncertainty of not really knowing where to go from here.
Because our careers, I mean, we've pretty much a good chunk of our life.
We have, we've cared for people.
That's what we love to do.
That's why we're, you know, that's why we're doing this.
This is not an easy decision.
It is very hard because we are giving up a lot.
And it just seems that people aren't really understanding that.
I think that they feel that we're quite evil and we're horrible people when in fact we're the very opposite.
We love what we're doing and we love our patients.
We love the people we work with and it's heartbreaking to us.
And so that part is a big loss.
This is a huge, huge sacrifice we're making.
Absolutely.
Does anybody else want to talk about that?
Yeah, like for me, I believe that our rights have been violated right across the board.
You know, our livelihoods are being destroyed.
It's discriminative.
We're being singled out.
We're not being treated with the same privileges over an experimental vaccine that potentially is looking like it's quite harmful to many people.
I have a couple of friends and family who've had injuries from these shots, and I don't like calling it a vaccine because it's actually an mRNA gene therapy drug and it is not proven to be effective.
Yeah, I just, I don't know.
I just, I can't, I just can't wrap my head around how somebody would take something experimental and how the government wouldn't offer, you know, the short-term and the long-term effects and the data.
They haven't been open and honest and factual about their findings.
In fact, they didn't even have a proper reporting center set up.
A lot of doctors aren't even aware of where to report these.
And often they will be diagnosed by their symptoms and not related to the adverse reaction of a shot.
And rashes have been very common.
Some of my friends and family had swollen lymph nodes for several weeks after very painful, very tired, not feeling good, short of oxygen, just not feeling well at all, feeling sick and not knowing what's wrong with them.
Sorry?
Nope, that's it.
And then it becomes an assessment of risks versus cons.
I mean, the younger you get and the healthier you get and things like that, because I hear that all the time, like, oh, for a week I was so sick.
And, you know, they're like 20 years old.
And that's from the shot.
What would it have been like to have COVID, right?
So what about overwhelmed hospitals?
So it's just flabbergasting to me that the whole thing almost the last 18 months, let's not overwhelm the hospitals, let's not overwhelm the hospitals.
And here we are in one room with three of you being let go from the hospitals.
Can you, any of you, speak to what overwhelmed hospitals was like prior to COVID-19 versus during COVID-19 and versus more recently?
We had difficulty maintaining baseline in residential due to the fact that there wasn't enough staff.
It's a hard job.
The demands were much higher.
It became more complex.
Dementia is on the rise.
And unfortunately, we were always told it wasn't in the budget to be able to hire more staff to take care of them.
So we were run off our feet literally and there wasn't any room for people calling in sick or having some time off.
It was mentally and physically draining for everybody.
Everybody was very, very, very tired mentally, emotionally, physically, you know.
And I think it hardens you after a while because you're looking after so many people and it then becomes a matter of feeling like you're on a production line because you don't have the time to look after anybody anymore.
And I hate to even say that, but we were forced into that to be able to look after everybody.
Right.
And when you think of that, if it was this big bad pandemic, it seemed like they needed to bring more people in so that you guys were working with less people and not as tired and things like that.
But here we are seeing the opposite happen.
So I guess my question is, what do you guys think of the health care system overall?
I know you can't necessarily speak too specific to your hospital right now, but just healthcare in general.
How are we going to manage an earthquake or something like that if COVID is so highly survivable and we're in our fourth wave to the point that we have to actually can people who have the skills to care for people in a rural area.
Government Dictates Vaccination Decisions00:07:50
What has the government, in your opinion, how have they failed to actually set people up for a more significant disaster?
There's no way we would be able to sustain any type of disaster.
I don't think most communities would be prepared for such a thing.
British Columbia has been shortstoped right across the board in every department.
You know, I mean, it's a tough job.
It's a tough job.
Now I see you've got papers in front of you.
You've got the order in front of you, the order of the provincial health officer for hospital and community health care and other services, COVID-19 vaccination status information.
What did you want to touch on this order?
My biggest thing is, you know, Section D, it says vaccines which prevent or reduce the risk of infection with SARS-CoV-2 have been continue available to residents of the province.
Yes, they are available, but do they prevent it?
Do they prevent you from getting COVID?
No.
They're going to do it with the Delta, right?
They don't prevent you from transmitting it.
They don't do any of that.
I'm not an anti-vaxxer.
I am fully vaccinated.
I am a fully vaccinated health care professional.
You know, we give our vaccination status as per, you know, our HEPS, our MMR, our diphtheria, our mumps, measles.
I mean, I'm fully vaccinated.
I really am.
But to say that this, and to falsely, and this is my biggest thing, is the false narrative that the provincial government and Bonnie Henry is saying to our public on the media.
And I'm going to say this.
And when I think of the media in general, I'm going to go with the fourth estate.
And that just, you know, I mean, the media has been bought off.
The large media corporations, I don't watch the news anymore.
I don't watch TV anymore.
They are dictated to on what to say from the governments.
How many million did the federal government give to the media?
I don't know.
Billions.
It was billions, I think it was 6 billion.
Yeah.
So then, and I mean, this is before an election.
And then also then you have Mr. Trudeau saying, and that's used very loosely, that, you know, he's going to give a billion dollars to the provinces that mandate these passports.
I'm a healthcare professional.
I love my job.
I'm good at it.
I want to see good health care.
I want to see honest health care.
I want to see health care that every person, no matter who they are and where they're from in this province, deserves good health care.
Honest health care.
Honest politicians that are supposed to be protecting our elderly, our First Nations, our children.
We and the citizens of British Columbia deserve that 100%.
We deserve transparency from the government.
And that's what we're not getting.
And we're not anti-vaxxers.
We're pro-care, but we're also pro-science on peer reviews because there are out there and they're just being covered up.
And so what about treatment too?
I mean, there's so much going on there.
Oh my gosh, don't take horse paste and all this stuff.
But it's definitely something we've dropped the ball on.
Am I right?
Does anybody want to talk about that?
Yeah, I mean, it says here, you know, that there's no other measures that are effective for SARS-CoV.
But, you know, we've become a healthcare system that treats the sick.
We're not being very preventative.
And the prevention has been said time and time again of, you know, vitamin D, vitamin C, zinc, magnesium.
You know, I mean, there's multiple things that we could be taking.
I mean, we get outside, we get the fresh air, we get our exercise.
You know what?
We're not perfect.
Eat healthy.
Yeah, we're cut down on the fast food.
But the thing is, though, is that you know what the mandates have done?
You don't need a health passport to get in a fast food place.
I know.
But to sit down and have an honest, good dinner, you need a health passport.
How does that go for preventing and dealing with the wellness of our province, of our country?
It's a class system, I think.
Part of the thing that bothers me too is a simple fact that when we were going through our training to become healthcare professionals, we were taught to respect choice.
We were taught that we might not agree with somebody's decision regarding their care, but we need to respect it and work around that.
We need to include them in their care.
It's about including them in their care.
They make the decisions.
We give them information.
They make a decision.
It's called informed consent.
That's not happening right now.
We are not allowed to say no or I'd like to hold off or, you know, whatever it might be.
We are just basically told this is what you must do.
And this is totally contrary to what we have ever been taught.
And so, you know, it just really bothers me because I feel that for me, I have always supported people in their decisions around their care.
Even if I didn't really feel that they were the right decisions, I respected those and I tried to work with them.
But this absolutely is not happening now and that's bothersome to me.
And the other thing that's really bothersome to me is the fact that they're going after our children and our grandchildren now.
And that, for me, is a huge issue because the children don't need these shots.
Absolutely.
It's very apparent that the government has made this very political and it's not about health care.
It's not about looking after anybody.
This is about complying with whatever their nefarious agenda is from, you know, from what I've seen.
You know, they've been reckless, irresponsible, and they need to be held accountable.
They don't answer emails.
You know, we've called out, we've done emails, we've been in touch with our MLAs and not even they can get an answer.
They're not responding and asking, like, you know, hey, you know, like there's some things going on here that we should probably look at.
But they don't.
They put the order out and they turn and they walk away.
They do not respond to anybody.
Do as I say.
They're not there to listen to you.
And the biggest thing I think is when Bonnie Henry came out, and this is to Bonnie Henry, came out and said for healthcare professionals, if you're not getting the shot, there will be consequences.
It's a threat.
And she has little patience for you guys.
reckless leaders00:01:58
That's right.
And I mean, even with Trudeau, you know, there's going to be consequences.
Well, you know, I'm sorry, but you work for us.
We pay your wage as taxpayers.
And you need to start telling the truth.
Because enough is enough.
That's right.
Don't threaten me and my family as a government official.
Amen.
All right.
Well, I want to thank you guys for your bravery.
I can tell you this.
I speak to many health professionals that haven't been able to do what you're doing.
We're seeing more of it right now and we desperately need it.
So I just want to applaud you guys for standing in truth and informing the people when our government and leaders lack doing so.
And thank you guys to our supporters who have already joined us in fighting this medical tyranny.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can pull out another device or go to another screen and search fightvaccinepassports.com.
We are challenging governments, including the BC government, for their tyrannical vaccine passports.
And we are also taking on cases.
We can't take them all on.
But what we're doing is taking on plaintiffs that represent the whole group and individual plaintiffs.
And we are challenging employers as well.
So we can't do that alone.
Every penny you donate at Fight Vaccine Passports goes to our civil liberties charity.
Not a penny goes to Rebel News.
And that's in partnership with the Democracy Fund.
So you also get a charitable donation receipt back.
I'm Drea Humphrey.
This is Rebel News.
And here, this is what heroes look like.
If you appreciate that Rebel News fearlessly brings you the other side of the story and brings you interviews like this, just know that we don't take a penny for the federal government.
And so if you want to support our journalism, you can do so by donating at realreporters.ca.