David Menzies and Andrew Chapados expose the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s disinformation governance board as a censorship threat, comparing it to dystopian "Ministries of Truth" and warning Canadians could face similar risks under Trudeau or Trump. Chapados highlights public distrust in centralized truth arbiters, citing past speech restrictions on election fraud and COVID-19, while questioning Canada’s Charter protections against such overreach. Menzies then skewers Catherine McKenna’s climate hypocrisy—$110K spent on chauffeur-driven SUVs despite promoting low-carbon transport—mirroring Chrystia Freeland’s limo waste. Their critique suggests insincere climate policies driven by optics, not conviction, undermining public trust in government leadership. [Automatically generated summary]
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you, in which we look back at some of the very best commentaries of the week by your favorite rebels.
I'm your host, David Menzies.
Well, folks, have you heard about what's happening south of the border?
Homeland Security wants to establish something called a disinformation board.
Does that sound, you know, kind of Orwellian to you?
Oh, you better believe it's Orwellian.
Andrew Chapados will drop by to dish out all the nitty-gritty on this latest form of potential censorship.
And hey, guess which former liberal MP racked up more than $150,000 in chauffeuring costs in just four years?
Well, it was none other than Climate Barbie, aka Catherine McKenna.
But wait a second, didn't she tell us that she got around in the summertime via bicycle and that she got to work in the wintertime via snowshoe?
Sheila Gunreed has the skinny on yet more climate change hypocrisy.
Courtesy of the usual suspects, of course.
And letters, we get your letters.
We get your letters every minute of every day.
And I'll share some of your responses about my brief interview with No More Comments lady at an Ottawa counter protest.
Yeah, she didn't seem to know what it was that she was counter protesting, if that makes sense.
Baffling and weird.
Those are your rebels.
Now let's round them up.
As you guys know, the new sector in Canada is in crisis.
And this contributes to the heightened public mistrust and the rise of harmful disinformation in our society.
Hey guys, Andrew here.
We're at the York Villey Royal Sinester waiting for Justin Trudeau to arrive.
We want to ask him about the disinformation board the Department of Homeland Security developed in the United States and if he agrees with that.
We'll see if we can get a question in.
So today we're just asking people about, they just started a disinformation governance board in the United States government.
So the government's going to determine what's disinformation online.
Would you support something like that in Canada?
It's scary.
I understand what they're doing, but it's scary to give them a power to do that.
How do you feel about that?
I feel the same way.
I don't want the government telling me what's disinformation or not.
I don't trust them, to be honest, quite frankly.
A disinformation board?
Is that out of, I don't know, 1984 or perhaps Animal Farm?
It sounds like an Orlean nightmare to me.
What next?
The Ministry of Truth, that's responsible for propaganda, of course, and the Ministry of Love, that's where you go to get tortured to death.
Unbelievable.
Well, thankfully, we had Andrew Chapados doing streeters on that.
And I say thankfully because it seems to me, Andrew, the good news is that almost everybody was not happy about a Canadianized version of a disinformation board.
And it reminds me of the streeters I did a few weeks ago with Elon Musk getting Twitter.
The vast majority of people at Young Dundas Square in Uber liberal downtown Toronto, thumbs up in terms of free speech.
My first question is, do you think maybe the pendulum is swinging that people are waking up that so many of their charter rights and freedoms are being eclipsed?
I think in a less broad sense, people are waking up to the fact that they don't want to be told what they can listen to or watch because then it seems that something nefarious is going on.
As soon as I tell you you can't watch that, then obviously you're automatically going to say, I want to watch that.
If you're talking to a kid, they can't watch South Park or something.
The kid's going to wonder, why can't I?
What's on that?
What am I missing here?
So the way people are sort of told that they can't talk about certain things online when there are plenty of other websites that exist where you can talk online, for example.
And as you know, 10 years ago, maybe it was a much broader option to find place where you could say anything you wanted.
I think people are starting to realize that there are ways. that both sides can censor people.
And if you've got Elon Musk in charge and you're starting to think about what if he likes Trump or something like that or he supports other things, what's going to happen to me?
And now they're starting to see the shoe on the other foot.
And that's why I think people are starting to notice that it's not a good idea to be able to tell people what they can say.
Because there's probably a lot of people who have disagreed with stuff like whether it's women and or men and women's sports or something teaching transgenderism to kids.
There's some sort of topic that they've seen that has been taken out of the public sphere and they disagree with it.
And you know, Andrew, you're so true.
That is human nature.
Once you tell somebody you can't do this, you can't say this, guess what?
They're going to do it or say it.
It reminds me years ago for Rebel News, I went down to Garland, Texas to cover the Draw Muhammad contest and it was a $10,000 U.S. first prize.
Did you chew in?
No, I did submit an illustration.
Actually, I can't draw worth anything, folks, but it was an artist who wants to remain anonymous.
Gee, I wonder why.
But, you know, the winning cartoon was an artist drawing Muhammad and a voice bubble coming out of Muhammad's mouth saying, you can't draw me.
And the voice bubble coming from the artist off the panel saying, that's why I draw you.
So in other words, once you say you don't do it, people automatically are going to do it.
Now, that's a severe interpretation of a religious tenant.
Now we have government getting into this ban too.
But the thing is, we have to analyze this along the lines of what is the definition of misinformation to begin with.
Well, of course, there is no real misinformation definition in terms of what is and what isn't.
I believe the difference between disinformation and misinformation is whether or not you're giving false information on purpose.
Now, if the government, and like I said in these Twitter, if the government's going to decide, or Twitter and Facebook, which they already do decide what's true and what's not, then it's all going to depend on who's in charge of that.
So the question I positioned people is, would you agree if it was Justin Trudeau or would you agree if it's Donald Trump?
Because obviously those are going to be biases that swing in different directions.
And like I said, I think people are starting to realize that you can't trust one person to decide what's true and what's not for you.
It's sort of something you have to come to a conclusion for yourself.
And that's why people watch certain shows.
They listen to different podcasts.
Because you might want to believe or agree with or listen to Joe Rogan's opinions and see that as your truth.
Or you might want to listen to Rebel Roundup with David Benzies and have that be your truth and have your whole life about, you know, Star Trek and Planet of the Apes.
I didn't know I was so pigeonholed into that, those seconds.
But you know, Andrew, I find this terrifying.
As you mentioned, this is a one-person decider, if you want, whether it's one person or a small star chamber panel.
The idea that these people are making decisions on what is appropriate or not when it comes to free speech, free thought, there's a Latin saying that translates into English, who watches the watchers.
In other words, how the hell would one person or a small group of people have this kind of power to determine what's appropriate?
Well, they don't.
And that's exactly the problem with, I think, specifically our Canadian political parties.
You look at a party like the Canadian Conservative Party, or even the people you most lovely interacted with recently at the PC party, they have their own little group thing going on there where they think what is appropriate is based on, you know, what would be allowed on Facebook, for example, or what's boosted onto YouTube.
So they have these people, I don't know what you want to call them, being the gatekeepers of these events because of what 20 people on Facebook might say about rebel news.
So when you get people pushing these ideas, then you have their little foot soldiers that will carry it out for them.
And this is going to happen every single time.
You've got one group of people deciding what's true and what's not allowed for other people.
You have people that are saying, no, that I disagree with this.
You'll have people in the middle who say, I don't care either way.
But you'll always have the people who, you know, for lack of a very modern term for you here, David Menzies, simping for them, which means just, you know, sucking up to them and doing whatever they please.
And why?
Because they want to be accepted.
You see it in the media when they want to be part of, you know, the Ottawa press gallery.
And you're seeing it now with the Ontario Conservative Party because they want to, there's always this chase of, I want to get the people who won't ever vote for me.
And it's a detached theory that Conservatives have had for a long time.
And in this country, it still rings true.
They desperately, desperately want the people who want them in jail to be on their side.
And you're never going to get it.
And when people are telling you what to believe and what to think, you're never going to be able to think for yourself.
And that's why I don't think they watch David Menzies.
I don't think they actually watch and think about the ideas that are being criticized.
They just say, this is what other people are saying is not allowed.
So we're going to say it's not allowed too.
You know, I thought, Hi, Andrew, one of the comments by a gentleman you interviewed on the street last Friday, and I think he's way off, but his quote was, there needs to be private-public collaboration.
And I would argue this, unofficially, there already is.
You have government, along with the censorious slugs who make up Silicon Valley walking in lockstep when it comes to discussing too hot to handle topics like election fraud, like the coronavirus.
And I mean, it's something, it's fascinating to me because this is something Orwell could never have envisioned given that 1984 was written in 1948.
There was no such thing as the internet or computers.
But I think it's downright scary that, as I said, you've got government and the tech giants walking in lockstep unofficially to curtail our freedoms and rights.
And to think that this is coming out of the United States of America, the land of the First Amendment, it's unbelievable.
Well, David, that was a guy who thought he sounded smarter than he really is.
Oh, if it's a public and governmental collaboration, there can be no wrong.
And we'll just have to keep a close eye on it.
And there will be no bias and there'll be no backdoor deals.
Everything.
We already see this happening, like you said, a Silicon Valley mainstream media.
They all get in line with the businesses and the government officials that agree with them.
So the only way to do it is have it open in the free market, which is why they have to rig the system.
This is why YouTube and Facebook have to rig the system because without that, they can't win.
And they know that they can't win.
That's why they're so against Elon Musk making Twitter a bit more fair because they know they can't win because once their actual arguments come to light, they're going to lose.
That's the same thing with this guy.
He just, you know, wordsmithed his way through the interview until it was over.
If I say government and public collaboration, then I'm pleasing both sides now, aren't I, David?
No, you're absolutely right.
And we see it not working in the here and now.
One last question, Andrew.
What are the chances that this is actually going to become a thing?
The establishment in the United States of a disinformation port?
Well, the issue with the United States is that they have an actual constitution, whereas we have one that's just like, well, this is dangerous, so no more rights for you guys.
I think that the idea there is much like the idea that they had in the United Kingdom, which was they had online incident reports.
And Lewis Brackpool from the UK talks about this a lot, where you weren't in trouble, you weren't committing any crimes, but the government put your name on a list if you did something that somebody didn't like online, and they came and paid you a visit.
Now, they were forced to scrap that list, whether it happened or not.
But this is a way for the government to further down the line say, hey, we already have a list of people that might be dissident, be dissidents, and might be saying things we disagree with right now online.
And we don't have the right to do anything to them right now.
But let's say in five years, if we've still got somebody in the Biden crew in charge, then maybe we're going to go a step further and maybe we'll amend something that will allow us to actually punish these people.
But for right now, I think that if you actually get this challenged and somebody tries from the Department of Homeland Security tries to find or arrest you for this, then you're going to be able to challenge that.
Government's Shadow List00:11:24
But that'll only be after they detain you for six days or something, David, and make an example out of you and say, hey, you went into the Capitol on January 6th.
You're in solitary confinement for two months.
You may not have committed a major crime in what you did.
You may not get fined for anything at the end of the day, but we're still able to detain you because the Department of Homeland Security was given these rights somewhat like 20 years ago.
I'm boosting.
I'm brimming at the edges, David, here with knowledge.
I'm giving you the greatest talking points you could ever find in this country, and I'm glad to be here.
No, well done, Andrew.
And I got to tell you, too bad you didn't get to shout a question at Justin Trudeau, that coward, probably saw the Rebel News mic flash and he went in through some other subterranean.
Yeah, I don't think they had ever, I think they might have done that, but the RCMP is so, it's so sad, David.
As soon as I walked up, you could point them out, seven o'clock, some guys are wearing sunglasses, there's no sun out.
And they immediately come out and they say, oh, you guys aren't going to cause any trouble, are you?
Are you not going to run inside?
Are you?
I don't think that made it on the tape just yet because I don't think Natasha's camera was rolling at the time.
But multiple RCMP officers came up to us and asked us if we were going to be a problem if we were going to go inside.
And it was so sad to see them be like, this is where the arrival is happening.
You guys can stand right here when he walks in.
And I was like, I know he's not coming in here.
Nobody's waiting for him.
There's no point.
And how about the fact that, David, nobody knew the prime minister was showing up there and nobody cared?
Unbelievable.
And you know what, folks?
What Andrew just said, imagine that somebody from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police saying, you're not going to cause any trouble.
Oh, like what?
Practicing journalism, shouting a question from a public sidewalk.
But I'm very happy that my colleague last Friday, unlike myself last December, wasn't beaten up by these Royal Canadian mounted henchmen and infected with COVID.
And yeah, we have our first day in court coming up about that one come September 7th, I believe.
Folks, keep it here.
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
You know, I actually gave him some real advice.
I said that if you actually say it louder, we've learned in the House of Commons.
If you repeat it, if you say it louder, if that is your talking point, people will totally believe it.
So just go in.
I actually carry my catlery.
You can now get little packages of reusable cattleways.
So I have steel forks and spoons and chalksticks that I carry around.
It just means I pull them out all the time.
I don't need to use single-use plastic catalyst.
I also carry a water bottle and a coffee mug whenever I can.
So what you're telling Canadians here, they will be asked to pay a $50 carbon tax, probably increasing over time, and there is absolutely no measurement of what the environmental effect will be.
Climate warrior Catherine McKenna spent $100,000 on her executive vehicle in just 18 months, and yet she tells me there's some sort of climate emergency.
Well, there you have it, folks.
Yet another heaping helping from the Justin Trudeau liberals of that old chestnut, do as I say, not as I do.
In fact, they don't even bother to hide the fact that they are hypocrites anymore.
Fascinating.
And joining me now for more on the latest example of climate change double standards is our Rebel News chief reporter, Sheila Gunread.
Sheila, another incredible piece.
You're always knocking it out of the ballpark.
There were many eyebrow-raising items about that report.
The one that made my jaw hit the linoleum was when Catherine McKenna said that she carries around her own cutlery and beverage containers.
Sheila, I was born in the day, but I wasn't born yesterday.
Do you for a second believe that?
No, definitely not.
In the same way that I don't believe that she snowshoes to work or that she takes a canoe to work or that she rides a bike in high heels to work or whatever she's having somebody photograph her doing.
I don't believe she's doing any of that.
And that's why we filed for the access to information is, of course, she's lying.
And here we can actually test our theory and prove.
She spent $110,000 over about 18 months on being driven around.
This is not just her personal car that she also charges back to the taxpayer because we pay for the kilometers and maintenance for all of that too.
This is her chauffeur-driven limo.
Yes.
Bigger than a Prius, definitely.
More carbon emissions than a Prius.
This is for that $110,000 over 18 months.
Yeah, I think she missed her calling.
She should have been the minister of photo opportunities.
But, you know, getting to the vehicles, like I'm not going to begrudge a cabinet minister of any political stripe transportation to get around.
They have to get around.
But here's the question, Sheila.
Why can't she practice what she preaches, despite how you feel about plug-in hybrids or electrical cars?
And I know how you feel.
But, you know, I think you did a report where you looked at the vehicles in the liberal cabinet.
I believe only one was a full EV.
I think it was either a Chevy Volt or a Chevy Bolt.
One of them that you had to have a fire extinguisher on orbit because the battery starts on fire.
Yeah.
But what I'm getting at, Sheila, they're preaching for us to go, you know, green, so-called, to get a plug-in hybrid, to get a full-on EV vehicle.
Why wouldn't they, for the sake of optics, practice what they preach?
Because how I see them getting around is big giant SUVs like a Chevy Suburban or a Ford Expedition, V8s spewing carbon.
I have nothing against that, but they supposedly do, but they don't practice what they preach.
Why not?
Because I don't think they believe it either.
You know, when they start acting like this, I might take them more seriously.
I might think they're sincere in their beliefs, but I don't think they're sincere in their beliefs.
Carbon taxes, that's why they push the carbon scare, is to push carbon taxes.
And carbon taxes is just a revenue tool.
It's a tax on literally everything.
That's why they push the carbon scare.
You know, they don't live as though the planet is going to end because of my comfortable SUV.
When David Suzuki stops buying property on the ocean, I will start to believe his sincerity about the rising oceans.
But they don't live this way.
Until such time, I'm not going to take them seriously.
We also saw, you know, another cabinet minister who likes to send us pictures of herself riding her bike in high heels, Christy Freeland.
We caught her sending ahead the limo ahead of the plane.
So flying from Ottawa to Montreal, I could match up that she charged kilometers on the limo, but we also had a flight for her.
So she was flying and then having the limo pick her up there while scolding us about our carbon emissions.
Sheila, that makes no sense because she could very well have a rental waiting for her.
The driver could come along on that flight.
You know, and here's the thing that's really bothering me: the hypocrisy, the double standards, the lies, but they don't seem to care.
They don't seem to be hiding it anymore.
They're that entitled.
Why?
You know, they know that nobody's going to hold them to account except us.
And one of the reasons I looked at the subsequent minister, Wilkinson, is because I wanted to have a benchmark to compare Catherine McKenna to.
But secondarily, he was the minister during the pandemic.
So most of those things that the liberals tell us we should be doing to save on carbon emissions, like holding Zoom calls, not driving so much, he did because he was prohibited from doing them through the actions of the government, Ontario government too.
He had to hold meetings by Zoom calls.
He couldn't go to be the minister of photo opportunities at the opening of an envelope, as they so often are.
So he had substantially smaller expenses, which only goes to show there are ways, I guess, to be the environment minister and have fewer driving expenses.
Catherine McKenna was just never willing to do it.
Or any minister for that.
Any minister.
Fact of the matter, Sheila, because I think you hit upon a really profound point.
These Zoom and Skype calls, they were all done out of not climate change reduction, but because of the pandemic.
Well, why can't they just maintain it?
I guess, you know, again, to show lead by example, whatever happened to that concept.
You know, it goes to show that they don't think this is an emergency.
Yes.
They keep declaring climate emergencies, crying about climate emergencies, but they don't behave like it's an emergency.
You know, they thought COVID was an emergency.
At least they behaved as though it were an emergency.
They don't do that with climate change.
Again, going back to my theory that it's just a money grab, that they don't sincerely believe that the world's going to end in 12 or 8 or 4, whatever Greta Tunberg says it's going to end.
They don't believe that either.
You know, I wonder what her policy is, Sheila.
I've seen from environmental groups that, you know, in the last two years, the carbon footprint did indeed go down globally because so many people were staying at home, plants shut down, shopping malls, restaurants shut down.
So of course it's going to go down.
And I've seen environmental groups say, you know, kind of like the Olympics, once every four years, we should have a complete COVID-style shutdown.
Where do the likes of McKenna, Suzuki, Gore, and the rest stand on that kind of insanity?
You know, that's the thing about this is when you and I look at the lockdowns of the last two years, we think of the economic devastation, the psychological devastation, the devastation of families, the emotional devastation through isolation.
We look at that.
The environmental left looks at that and says, emissions went down.
And I hate to give them ideas because they will say, you know what?
Locking people down works.
Let's do more of it.
Like you say, every four years.
I worry that they will use this as a template for climate lockdowns.
Unbelievable.
Sheila, looking forward to the future, last word goes to you.
What do you think in terms of especially those who are the environment minister?
Of course, they call it environment and climate change now, which always makes me roll my eyes.
Do you think they're going to modify their behavior, or are they just going to, it's going to be same old, same old?
It's always going to be same old, same old.
Again, because I don't think anything about this has to do with actual climate change.
The only time they limited their behavior, and I guess led by example, although they weren't leading by example, they were forced to behave that way, was when COVID hit.
I think now, next year, and the second half of this year going forward, we're going to see those huge expenses run up with regard to their transportation for sure.
A Meltdown on the Street Corner00:04:19
Unbelievable.
Sheila, thank you so much for joining me here in Toronto.
Great report, as always.
And I got to tell you, folks, on a personal note, Sheila Gunnreed is the most picky passenger I have ever encountered when she's in my Mitsubishi Outlander plug-in hybrid.
I guess it's kind of against her carbon footprint religion.
She doesn't like it.
Really try to win that lottery to buy that performance Batmobile from Fiberglass Frinks.
She can't complain about that.
And wouldn't she look great in a boy wonder suit?
Folks, keep it here.
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after this.
You mean this gathering here?
Is that a convoy?
Please go away.
No more comments.
No more comments.
It just seems to me.
No more comments.
No more comments.
You can't articulate your position.
No more comments.
No more comments.
Have I triggered you?
It's like interviewing a Coke machine when your soda doesn't come out.
Now, folks, maybe I'm mistaken here, but when one stands on a street corner with a sign and a ghetto blaster blaring as part of a counter protest, chances are that such a person has some message that they'd like to convey to passersby.
And should members of the media take interest, isn't that even better when it comes to communicating a message to the masses?
But when asked just a few simple questions, this lady had a meltdown for the ages.
And I'm still not sure why.
In any event, you had plenty to say about Mrs. Malfunction.
Mark O writes, didn't she get crushed by a house during a tornado some while back?
Does she still have her ruby slippers?
No, Mark, I believe that was her sister who endured that accident, actually.
Victoria Misery writes, just about as thoughtful and well-spoken as one might expect a counter-protester to be.
You know, you're right, Victoria.
I mean, usually these types just recite a litany of profanity.
She only dropped one F-bomb during her meltdown.
Bravo.
Rex99T writes, who knew that Halloween in Canada was on April the 30th?
Yes, I was somewhat confused too that she was wearing her costume precisely six months early for All Hallows Eve.
Gee, instead of incessantly saying no more comments, maybe she should have been chanting trick or treat.
Then I could have given her a candy bar or something.
I mean, tucking into a Cadbury Carl Milk bar would have shut her up at least, I think.
Laugh More People writes, Justin has found his new candidate for Ottawa Center.
Well, here's the tragedy in that statement, sir.
She'd likely be a better candidate than Yasser Nakvi, the current MP serving Ottawa Center.
Ralph Riley writes, LOL, what a loony.
And she has a vote.
Think on that.
Her opinion is as valuable as yours when it comes to selecting your leader.
You know, Ralph, you now have me questioning the merits of democracy.
Golly, maybe Justin Trudeau was right some eight years ago when he confessed his admiration for the basic dictatorship of China when it comes to getting things done.
Yikes.
Painful bites writes, did she at least leave her broom well parked?
Well, actually, no, she did not, sir.
You see, Ottawa police declared the downtown area a so-called special event zone in which vehicles would be tagged and towed if they were to stop, even briefly, in areas that used to be completely legal parking spots.
What I'm saying is that had Wichie Pooh brought her broom along, trust me, Ottawa's finest would have impounded it.
Clinton Debunks Fake Video Claims00:00:38
Unless, of course, there's some sort of exemption for loudmouth Wiccans.
Clinton Zenzus writes, this seems like it's fake.
Well, you know, there were a lot of comments along these lines, folks, but listen, Clinton, I swear to you, the interactions were 100% real.
And the fact is, I'm simply not smart enough to cook up a fake video that will go viral.
Well, that wraps up another edition of Rebel Roundup.
Thanks so much for joining us.
See you next week.
And hey, folks, never forget, without risk, there can be no glory.