Ezra Levant exposes Steven Guilbeault’s hypocrisy as Trudeau’s environment minister, funneling $1.5M in government funds to his former lobby group, Equiterre, for an anti-SUV campaign while Canada subsidizes SUV production like Toyota RAV4s. Guilbeault’s 2003 CN Tower arrest—where he paid $1K restitution and called it a success—contrasts with his unrepentant climate activism. The episode also warns of China’s post-20th National Congress unpredictability, Taiwan tensions, and Xi Jinping’s lockdowns to suppress COVID failures, while questioning state overreach in cases like Jim Kerr’s "bubble bus" arrest. Government bailouts for media like The Logic further raise concerns about journalistic integrity under political influence. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I talk about a convicted criminal named Stephen Gilbo who went on to become Trudeau's environment minister.
And today I learned he's steering money back to his old lobby firm.
I can't believe that.
I'll take you through it and you'll be grossed out at what the money is for.
That's on today's show.
But let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
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You get my daily video show.
weekly video shows from four of my colleagues.
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It's half the price of Netflix.
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I appreciate it.
All right, here's the thing.
Tonight, Stephen Gilbeau, Trudeau's environment minister, gives money to Stephen Gilbeau's old lobby group to fight against Canadian SUVs.
It's May 10th, and this is the Ezra Dance Show.
Why should others go to jail when you're the biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you don't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government.
But why?
It's because it's my bloody right to do so.
You know, I believe in second chances.
I really do.
I've had a few in my day.
People can change.
Maybe it doesn't happen often, but they can.
So just because Stephen Gilbo, the convicted criminal seen here, is a convicted criminal doesn't mean that he can't reform himself and become a positive contributor to society.
Except that if you're a convicted criminal like he is, you have to come to terms with that to understand why what you did was wrong and genuinely believe that and genuinely change.
There has to be contrition, maybe some restitution.
I don't know.
Of course, Stephen Gilbo was not contrite.
After his arrest and conviction, he was jubilant.
It was a media stunt for Greenpeace.
It made a ton of money for Greenpeace, his lawbreaking.
And he tricked the judge.
Here's how the Global Mail reported his arrest at the time.
I'll read.
Greenpeace takes Kyoto protests to new heights.
I don't think this cheapens it at all, Mr. Gilbo said before he was rescued.
Our goal was to come here, climb, and get our message out.
And that's what we did.
It was a difficult climb, Mr. Gilbo said.
I've done climbing actions for Greenpeace in the past, but nothing this high.
So he was excited about what he had done.
He was thrilled about his planned crime when he was caught.
He loved it.
And here's the Global Mail continuing the report after he was convicted and sentenced.
CN Tower climbers ordered to pay costs.
Two Greenpeace activists who scaled the CN Tower last summer and unfurled a massive banner in a stunt that drew international media coverage pleaded guilty yesterday to public mischief.
Britain Christopher Holden, 24, and Montrealer Stephen Gilbo, 32, received conditional discharges and agreed to pay $3,000 to the tower's corporate owner as compensation for the security and staff costs it incurred.
Although a prosecutor told an Ontario court judge the two men were remorseful, both expressed jubilation outside court about having drawn public attention to global climate change and the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
Oh, so they lied about remorse, and the prosecutor went along with it?
They literally said what they needed to say to stay out of jail.
Tell the judge whatever he needs to hear.
And once they had fooled the judge, once they tricked him, they reverted to their real selves.
Is that perjury?
I wonder.
Mr. Gilbeau told reporters that the climb helped raise public awareness about climate change, and he believes it influenced Prime Minister Jean-Cretchen's decision to commit Canada to ratifying the Kyoto Accord on Global Warming.
Mr. Gilbo was placed on one year's probation and ordered to perform 100 hours of community service in Montreal, where he works for Greenpeace, and pay $1,000 of the $3,000 restitution.
That's a pretty good deal.
Break the law, no fine, no jail, just pay a few bucks to CN for their costs, 100 hours community service.
I bet he just called his Greenpeace lobbying community service.
I bet he called his crime community service.
I bet that's what he did.
An unrepentant, unreformed criminal who lied to the courts to get an easy sentence, who broke the law with impunity.
Sounds like a Trudeau man.
Well, of course, he's the environment minister now.
And a communist is a communist.
He has not reformed himself.
He's done the opposite.
He's learned how to game the system.
Gilbo actually went on to start his own lobby group called Equitaire, sort of a Quebec version of Greenpeace, but more radical.
Trudeau's Greenpeace Gambit00:05:08
That's what he was doing for a living before he ran for politics for Trudeau.
And being an unethical criminal, it won't surprise you that as environment minister, he steers funding to his old lobby group.
Look at this.
This is Equitaire's website.
Equiterre launches an awareness campaign of the impacts of large vehicles.
It's a campaign against SUVs.
Here's their slogan.
It loses something a bit in English.
The translations are clunky.
But their new campaign is no SUV for me.
The main complaint, of course, is that SUVs consume more gas and therefore have more emissions than smaller cars.
Well, of course, and a car uses more gas than a motorbike, too.
But the war against SUVs is actually just a war against a family.
If you're a single person, a political activist who lives in the downtown of a big city that has public transit, you hate SUVs for political and aesthetic reasons.
But if you are a family who lives in the suburbs where there's no subway and you have children, maybe take the kids to hockey practice or girl guides or maybe you go shopping at Costco and have a lot of stuff to take home and using a bus or a subway isn't even an option.
SUVs are a godsend.
They're really just this generation's version of a minivan, station wagon.
But I want to point out to you this at the bottom.
Scroll down to the bottom of this campaign page.
Look at this.
The No SU for Me campaign is coordinated by Equitaire with financial support from the government of Canada.
What?
So the government of Canada, the Environment Department, presumably, Gilbo's budget, presumably.
They're funding this anti-SUV propaganda.
And other weird supporters, let me read.
Collaborating partners include Access Transport Viable, the Automobile Protective Association, CAA Quebec, the Canada Research Chair and the Mobility of People, the David Suzuki Foundation, the Fondation Québécois d'Éducation Sécurités Route Routière, Hec Montreal, Option Consumiteurs à Piedon Québec.
Sorry, my accent's terrible.
But the CAA, that's the Canadian Automobile Association.
They're against SUVs now.
Is that what they're doing with their members' membership fees?
Attacking their members?
Heck, Montreal, I Googled it.
It's a business school.
So more government money, really.
Canada Research Chair, more government money, really.
So this is a government attack on SUVs, which really means on SUV drivers, families.
Well, I have an idea.
How about Gilbo and the rest of the cabinet?
Lead by example.
Here is a list of ministerial vehicles disclosed by the Trudeau government a few months ago.
They dropped more than a million bucks on cars for cabinet ministers, and of course they each have their limo driver too.
Lots of Toyota Highlanders, Ford Explorers.
Most of the vehicles on this list are SUVs, and not the little ones either.
The people who are chauffeured around in SUVs are telling you not to drive SUVs.
They're probably the same ones feasting on steaks while telling you to eat bugs, living in big mansions while telling you to live in a pod.
Yeah.
I don't know if you saw this story.
Trudeau is contemplating a new tax on trucks.
Of course he is, because it's a vengeance against the truckers who embarrassed him politically.
I bet that was his reasoning.
So he's going to tax trucks.
Not like that won't be passed on.
You know, everyone is, I mean, is there a single thing you buy in a store, whether it's food or clothing or toys or books or even gasoline itself, that hasn't been brought in on a truck?
So yeah, tax trucks.
That'll show them.
Trudeau raises the carbon tax every year already.
Why not tax trucks too?
I mean, it's not like he and his cabinet pay those taxes when they ride in their SUVs paid for by you.
Taxpayers cover those costs.
It's just weird.
It's just weird.
Here's Trudeau making an announcement of $110 million in tax money that he's giving to a Toyota factory to make RAV4s.
I don't know if you know what that is.
That's an SUV.
What were we doing?
You know, Toyota made $20 billion U.S. profit in the last nine months.
So they're on track for what?
Like a $25 billion a year in profit?
And Trudeau thought it was so important that they make SUVs in Canada that he gave him $110 million of your money to make SUVs.
So money to make SUVs, but also tax money to stop SUVs, to attack them?
He really is stupid.
Or maybe Trudeau's not stupid.
Maybe we're the stupid ones.
Abiding Trudeau and his convicted criminal environment minister who's still shoveling money back to his own personal lobby group.
Yeah, I take that back.
Trudeau's not the stupid ones.
China's Nuclear Threats00:15:02
We are.
Stay with us for more.
In recent weeks, there's been a lot of bragging by the Pentagon about Ukrainian military victories over Russia.
Americans took some credit in the media for the sinking of the capital ship the Moskva, which was a disaster for the Russian Navy.
And the Pentagon also took credit for targeting Russian generals for Ukrainian attacks.
A large number of senior-ranking Russian military officials have been killed, and America was taking credit for it, doing a bit of a victory lab.
I'm worried about that, that that will cause an escalation with Mothscout.
It also shows perhaps one of the rationales for America's support for Ukraine is that Russia, thinking it would be a quick victory, as it had in the past in Ukraine and in Georgia, has become trapped again, sort of like it was in Afghanistan.
And the entire Russian military will be worn out, burnt up, that there will be casualties and sinkings and crashes, and a large number of their tanks and planes will be destroyed.
Maybe the American position does make some sense, even if Ukrainians themselves are the cannon fodder for it.
I don't know.
There's so much disinformation going around.
But it's one of the things on my mind when I look at China and its increasingly bellicose language in respect of Taiwan.
Now, it's very different.
It's not a land war.
It would be a sudden shock invasion over the sea and air.
I don't know if Taiwan could hold off the Chinese military in the same way the Ukrainians have been able to.
I don't know if America could restock Taiwan with high-tech weapons systems the way it has been restocking Ukraine.
But I do know that China has been increasingly vocal and dramatic in its threats.
There was a major incursion over Taiwanese airspace in recent days.
I'm very worried about this.
And so it was that I saw this article in Newsweek magazine written by our friend Gordon Ji Cheng.
The subject line of the essay is China now preparing to invade Taiwan.
And of course, Gordon Cheng is one of the leading experts in China in the Western world.
He's the author of the book, The Coming Collapse of China.
You can follow him on Twitter at Gordon G. Cheng, and he joins us now via Skype.
Gordon, it's a pleasure to see you again.
Thanks for making the time for us.
You and I have talked about China's ambitions in Taiwan before.
I think they're at a fever pitch.
I really don't think they've been this aggressive before, both rhetorically and in probing Taiwan's airspace and actually with naval actions too that seem designed to keep Americans out.
Do you think they're actually going to invade?
I think that they will invade at some point, but not now.
This year is a very politically sensitive one for Xi Jinping, the Chinese ruler.
He wants a president-breaking third term as general secretary.
And the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party, if tradition holds, will be held in October or November.
But after that, anything can happen.
Now, Ezra, there are hundreds of reasons why China should not invade Taiwan, but those are like an irrational world.
The Communist Party lives in a different world than we do, different galaxy.
So I'm very concerned that they can take us by surprise.
They've got a number of things going on which we can't see because the political system has become less transparent.
So there is a real possibility that they would make some military move on Taiwan.
You know, one of the big issues in Europe in dealing with Russia is Europe's dependence on Russian oil and even more on Russian natural gas.
And, you know, Germany itself, more than a third of their energy comes from Russia.
So how do you put sanctions on an enemy that supplies you a third of your energy?
I mean, if you put sanctions on them, are you not actually punishing yourself?
Well, Russia is small economically compared to our integration with China.
And it's almost unthinkable if we were even to try to put economic sanctions on China.
I mean, I learned during the pandemic that more than 90% of our medicines are made in China, just for one example.
So much of our technology comes from China, even our food, so much of our logistics.
So I wonder, is China actually immune to some of the economic and political sanctions that are being used against Russia?
Some people in Beijing think that China is in fact immune and that the United States and others would not sanction China for the reasons you talk about.
And that is extremely dangerous.
Now, I think the Chinese are extraordinarily dependent on the U.S. and others because they right now got an export-dependent economy.
They need money because of the debt crisis and they're short of food.
But nonetheless, Chinese arrogance right now is breathtaking.
And I think the gap between China's abilities and what the Chinese actually think they can do is really something that should make us concerned that they would make a grab for Japan, Philippines, India, Taiwan, could be any number of different victims.
How is the military balance?
I mean, the Chinese Navy in particular has had great advances.
They're getting used to using their operational aircraft carrier, and they have more on the way.
I mean, they're replacing their old, you know, Cold War-era fighter jets with modern jets, some of which look like they were just ripped out of the American blueprints.
I mean, I don't think the entire People's Liberation Army is modern and ready to fight, but I think there's a percentage of it that is probably almost on par with the American military.
But the advantage is it's just across the narrow strait from Taiwan.
And like at least Ukraine abuts the rest of Europe.
There's trains, there's trucks.
I mean, Taiwan is so far away from being resupplied.
Biden just said he's going to send another 40 billion or so to Ukraine.
I know how it can get there.
If America were to say we're going to give 40 billion to Taiwan, I actually don't know how it would physically get there.
I'm worried that Taiwan could not stand a lengthy battle with China.
Maybe I'm saying the obvious.
What do you think?
Well, there's a lot there to talk about.
Some of China's weapons are actually better than America's.
So, for instance, they're cruise missiles.
They travel faster.
They got longer range.
And that's critical because that can keep the U.S. Navy away from Taiwan, which goes to your point about can we resupply the island?
And because of that, I think the United States needs to pre-position weapons on Taiwan and actually needs to put troops there as a tripwire.
We were surprised, of course, about Russia invading Ukraine, and we should not be surprised about Taiwan.
You know, the idea of resupplying Ukraine, that's great, but it would have been better if the Biden administration and the Trump administration had actually put more weapons into Ukraine and more training.
So this is something, a mistake we should not make twice.
Now, I don't want this to be partisan because this is something that should concern anyone, Democrat or Republican, or in our country of any party.
I mean, I have such a sympathy for Taiwan.
The democratic reforms it has made, the economic liberty, I just have such a soft spot for it.
I'm worried that it's going to be devoured.
For whatever criticisms there are of Donald Trump, I don't think that some of the world's bad actors had the courage to make a bold move because they had no idea what Trump would do.
In fact, his very impulsiveness was a sort of a deterrent because you just didn't know what Trump would do, but you knew he would do something.
And in the form of Joe Biden, who looks like he's in some cognitive decline, who doesn't look physically or mentally sharp, who uses language of appeasement.
He ran away from Kabul.
You know, I think his weakness was a provocation of sorts to Putin.
I'm worried that Biden himself, who's going to be in office for a couple more years, I'm worried that the Chinese look at him and say, ah, he's not going to do anything.
Yes, that's right.
To your point about Trump, it was his unpredictability that unnerved China.
And I think it also unnerved Putin.
It's no coincidence that Putin went after Crimea in the Obama administration and went after the rest of Ukraine in the Biden administration.
You know, the Chinese, they can deal with hostile American leaders, but the one thing they can't deal with is someone they cannot predict.
And so it is the impulsiveness that was the deterrent.
With Biden, right now, we got to be concerned about one thing, and that is you have Russia, China, and North Korea threatening to use their nuclear weapons, not as deterrents, but as offensive weapons.
And this really means that the whole idea of deterrence is broken down.
As Henry Kissinger said on Saturday, we live in a totally new era.
And that era is not one of the common general peace after the Cold War.
It's one, I believe, of constant turbulence.
So we have hit an historic inflection point.
And it looks like we could transition from the best moment in history to the worst.
Oh, my God.
Let me ask you about Shanghai, a wonderful city, one of the most open-minded Western cities in Western-oriented free-thinking cities, if I may say so, in China, wonderful place.
Absolute lockdowns over COVID.
Like it's just such extreme video.
And I know some of it's disinformation and some of its hoaxes, but the word we're getting back here, even from Western expats in Shanghai, suggests that it's a devastation what's happening.
The lockdowns, that is.
I'm not referring to COVID itself.
Why is China doing that?
Do they believe in COVID-0?
Like, it just seems odd because they really came out of their lockdowns very early.
They were out of their lockdowns by 2020.
It was only the West that had Fauci's, I don't know, double mask and six feet of separate.
Like, it seemed to me that China got out of the lockdowns very early, but now they're back harder than ever.
What's going on?
There are three things.
First of all, China does not have an effective vaccine, even against Delta and the prior variants.
It has no defense against Omicron BA2, the sub-variant that is now ripping through Shanghai, Beijing, and many of the cities on the east of the eastern part of the country.
Second thing is that Xi Jinping, as I mentioned, wants that third term as general secretary.
He's known as the author of the dynamic zero-COVID policy, and he's not allowing any criticism because he believes that any adjustment in the policy would be like giving a dagger to his political opponents, and he's not about to do that.
And the third thing is a general Communist Party consideration.
In the early months of the pandemic, go back to the beginning of 2020, the Communist Party made the point that its control of coronavirus showed that its form of governance was superior to democracy and particularly American democracy.
So every case, every death is basically a threat to Communist Party legitimacy.
And that means that they'll do anything possible, even the most draconian, even the most ridiculous, in order to keep their case numbers down.
And so we're seeing the confluence of those three factors.
Let me ask you one last question.
I'm so grateful for your time.
Now, you've mentioned twice now that Xi Jinping is up for, I'm not going to call it really an election, but it is an election from the party poo-bas.
It's not an election of a billion free citizens casting their vote in a multi-party democracy, but it's the insiders, sort of their politborough, I guess.
And tell me a little more about that and tell me who the rivals are.
If it's not Xi Jinping, is there someone else waiting in the wings?
Are they more authoritarian than him?
Are they more reformist than him?
Give us some Kremlinology, if I can use a Cold War term.
Right now, Xi Jinping, actually for the last five years, even longer, has made sure that there are no rivals who can take over.
The Communist Party has some guidelines as to who can become general secretary.
He's made sure that nobody fits those guidelines.
Now, the answer to your question is anybody could take over.
And, you know, and you look back at two millennia of Chinese history, some of the most unlikely characters have risen up to become emperor.
So the answer to your question, I suppose, is that there's 1.41 billion people who could, you know, any one of them could become the next leader of China.
But it's very dangerous right now because Xi Jinping has fundamentally changed the political system.
He inherited a consensual form of government where every important decision was shared across the Politburo Standing Committee, which is the highest body in the Communist Party, and even across the wider Politburo.
Now he's turned it into a one-person system.
And at the same time, Ezra, he's also increased the cost of losing a political struggle.
So he's got a very low threshold of risk.
And we have seen, for instance, in this last week, dueling statements.
Xi Jinping on Thursday doubling down on zero COVID.
And on Saturday, Li Ka-Chang, the premier, the head of the Chinese central government, actually talking about stabilizing the employment situation.
Well, you can't do both.
And so there is now, even in public, evidence that there is extreme discord at the top of the Communist Party.
Cannot Even Double Down00:04:14
Very interesting, Gordon.
We're in your debt.
Your knowledge is so deep and wide on these subjects.
We're grateful to you.
Let me recommend Gordon's latest piece in Newsweek magazine.
The title is China Now Preparing to Invade Taiwan.
So many facts in there.
And of course, as always, I recommend Gordon's book, The Coming Collapse of China.
And I follow Gordon on Twitter.
And if you're on Twitter, you absolutely must.
If there's one source for China news and views, let it be Gordon G. Chang on Twitter.
Great to see you, my friend.
I'm always grateful when you jam us in your busy schedule.
We learn so much.
Take care and stay safe.
Well, thank you so much, Ezra, and you too.
Thank you.
All right, stay with us.
Your letters to me next.
Hey, welcome back.
Your viewer mail RT says, in current times, business success is based on how much fiat currency access they have, either by affinity to ruling political party because of donations or receipt of stimulus or bailout packages.
You know, I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but here's what I think.
There's a lot of companies in Canada that get bailouts from the government.
Earlier today, I told you about how Trudeau gave $110 million to Toyota, which is one of the richest companies out there.
But if you give $110 million to Toyota, it's not going to change how they make their car.
Their car will be the same.
They're not going to change how they sell their car or the color of the car.
Nothing will change other than taxpayers are on the hook for it.
I think with most businesses, it's that same way.
They're really not going to change what they do just because they got a government grant, like a clothing company or a restaurant.
But of all the industries in the world that will be changed, that must be changed when the government gives them money, journalism is probably the most changeable, and that's why they're giving them money.
If the center of your work as a news journalist is to report on Justin Trudeau and the federal government, and Justin Trudeau and the federal government gives you a bailout, you will change your product more than almost any.
I can't even think of another industry that would change their product more.
Like I say, Toyota is not changing what its RAV4 looks like because Trudeau gave them $110 million.
But you give the National Post or the Globe Mail, the Toronto Star $110 million from Trudeau.
They are absolutely going to change their product.
That's why David Skoke of The Logic is a bit of a fibber.
Erico Chico says, I don't see a problem with him taking a one-time grant from the government.
It's free money to be taken.
It's only a problem if you rely on that cash yearly, like the Toronto Star, et cetera.
I think Ezra needs to get off his high horse and give the guy a break.
Ezra looking is looking more masculine these days.
Is he hitting the gym?
Is that the same letter?
Well, you know what?
I don't want to raise expectations, but I actually am hitting the gym.
You can't even believe it.
What I'm about to say, six times a week.
And so I don't know if it's making any difference, but six days a week I go in at 7.30 in the morning.
Now, I don't know if it's making a difference, but thank you.
But to answer your question, like I say, there is no way that journalism cannot be changed by government giving it money.
But more to the point, none of these grants are one-offs.
They are annual.
And in that video I referred to yesterday, David Skoke was arguing for more money.
Because when you start to be a grantrepreneur instead of an entrepreneur, when you start to change your whole thinking to what can I get for free?
What can I beg from government?
You're on an endless conveyor belt of begging and then giving and begging and giving.
And pretty soon you're merged and you're a government man.
JR says Russia has already stated both Canada and Finland are next on their hit list.
Well, I don't know who in Russia stated that, but it does worry me.
You know, the Pentagon has bragged about helping to sink that Russian major ship called the Moskva.
And the Pentagon has bragged about killing Russian generals.
Bubbles and Arrests00:06:42
That's sticking your, you know, that's poking them in the eye with a stick.
That is flaunting and taunting.
And I don't know if Vladimir Putin makes decisions emotionally and impulsively or even just in a tit-for-tat way.
But if you've got Americans and Canadians being deeply involved in military affairs against Russia, do not be shocked if they retaliate.
I am nervous about it.
That's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at 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, our friend David Manzies.
Ottawa police arrest a demonstrator and tow his bus twice from a private parking stall for blowing bubbles?
Sounds like a perfect David Manzies story.
So I'll leave with that.
I'll see you tomorrow.
Bye-bye.
Hopefully I'm with freedom fighter Jim Kerr.
And we've interviewed Jim on several occasions, but he had a very rude welcoming to Ottawa going back to Friday.
Jim had his famous bubble bus towed not once, but twice.
Right now, I think, I think it is safe in a church parking lot, but these days in Ottawa, who knows?
Jim, why in the world that Ottawa police tow your vehicle is blowing bubbles illegal in Justin Trudeau's Ottawa these days?
I'm quite confident that he does not like bubbles.
First day on Ottawa Insight, we were at Metcalf and Slater, the same place where we were for half of the Ottawa thing in January.
The police came in, there was about a dozen police.
Three of the owners of the lot came down and said, yes, police, we would like you.
We're not going to open the lot this weekend.
We want everybody out.
Now, this is after we had already paid for the parking at Metcalf.
So if you paid for parking on a private parking lot, you were not on a no-stopping street, correct?
Correct, yeah.
We were inside the parking lot with a couple of other trucks who had paid for parking.
And then the cops said, well, you're going to have to move.
I said, we paid for parking.
They said, well, no, because the owners here want you to move.
It's private property.
They want you to move.
Yeah.
They took your money.
Why do they want you to move?
You'll have to ask them.
I don't really, I don't, I don't really.
No, honestly.
But Jim, that sounds like fraud to me if there's any policing if you pay for a parking spot and then they say leave and they don't give your money back.
In all fairness, I did speak with the owner of the thing and she reassured me that she was going back to the office and if you emailed them that they would get you their money.
You got it yet?
Oh, dude, I haven't had two seconds to breathe.
I was up at Parliament Hill.
We were a couple of blocks down another private lot.
This time I did not pay for parking.
Nobody comes up and goes, there's dozen people around the bubble bus.
Man, I'm freaking out.
So I ran.
I started the live and I went live for like two hours yesterday.
I just started my phone.
I heard there's a dozen cops down by the bus.
I'm beginning to think that you gentlemen might have a problem with bubbles.
Everywhere the bubbles go, evidently the suits show up.
I'm wondering why.
Could you maybe let me know that?
I go running up and the 12 cops that had already kicked us out over there are now 15 or 16 along with a couple of bylaw outside of the bus and there's not really anybody else there.
Does it actually require one, two, three, four, eight, ten, fourteen officers to issue a ticket?
Is that an effective use of city resources?
I can't take it seriously.
You're not supposed to.
I'm a church of bubbles, man.
I blow bubbles.
I want to make better, things better for all of humanity.
Every single one of us here.
I'm trying to communicate with these people.
Here's the problem.
All I want to do is have a conversation with somebody who can give me an answer that makes sense.
That's all.
Yeah, we've been down this road a lot of times, gentlemen.
This will be interesting.
Okay, I'll turn off the vehicle.
You got to turn it off.
We got to throw your vehicle.
I got right here.
No problem.
I'll turn off the vehicle.
Let's go.
Tell me how I'm literally breaking the law or doing something that is illegal or is going to hurt someone.
Tell me that and I will respond.
I don't need force in order to respond.
Show me already.
Why?
We'll throw your vehicle.
What crime have I committed?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Great, good.
Great, great.
Are you guys going to beat it now?
Thanks so much.
They threatened to charge me with mischief when I was in the car and then when I was in the second cop car, they ended up charging me with trespassing.
Don't resist.
You're under arrest.
Let's go.
You said you told the truth.
You got lots of time.
I'm trying to get out of here, right?
Let's go.
This guy tries to resist.
Don't resist.
Sir, you're under arrest.
Come on, let's go.
Unbelievable for blowing bubbles.
You're under risk for trespassing right now.
Okay, we'll deal with this.
I'm gonna be interested in those cycles, but I can't let it go.
The treatment do you still get about doing it?
It's not about that right now.
Again, if we speak different, I'm not gonna talk about good or bad or anything else.
It's part of the job that is great.
Laws are being broken right now.
That's what we do.
I think it's an egregious injustice.
That's not the end of it.
No, no, no, God, dude.
I'm just getting started.
They eventually towed the bus, arrested me, let me go in a parking lot.
And then the next day, as I was pulling into Confederation Park, the cops pulled me over.
He didn't give me any explanation why I was pulling over.
They just said, ID, ID, ID.
I ended up producing the ID.
They brought in the MTO.
The MTO helped me to figure out how you break an emergency brake line.
If you've got an older vehicle, you haven't used your brake line.
If you press it all the way to the foot, it breaks.
Well, guess what?
I did that.
The brake line popped.
I said, dude, something just snapped.
He says, oh, don't worry about that.
Apply your foot on the other brake and release it slowly.
I rolled forward and he went, oh, guess what?
You're off the road.
You have no emergency brake.
Unbelievable.
Jim, do you think we're living in a police state now?
Forget to go through that by that look on your face, man.
I'm concerned.
Sorry to hear a genuine, nice guy like you, you know, attract all this petty policing, shutting you down for no reason, giving you tickets.
If you come, listen to me.
If you come back, you're going to be arrested.
Back where?
For trespassing.
Okay, here.
For no reason.
It's a disgrace.
I hope you fight them and I hope you get some justice because this is just egregious, Jim.
So thank you again for your time.
No problem, dude.
Don't feel bad.
It's all good.
All worked out well.
Everybody's safe.
It's a couple of bucks in fines.
And it was a great weekend with great people.
I can't be happier.
Honestly, it was a bit of trouble, but it's not too much.