Excited about the possibility that Alberta is going to drop the prosecutions of lockdown tickets.
Very excited.
But holy moly, are there people who don't want that to happen?
No surprise.
I'll take you through the legal and political arguments for why it should happen.
And I'll show you a Trudeau newspaper saying it shouldn't.
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All right.
Here's today's show.
Tonight, if one politician can order the prosecution of pastors and small businessmen, can another politician order those prosecutions to stop?
It's October 26th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious thug.
This is Arthur Pavlovsky as As you know, this was a political arrest.
Police don't need a dozen police SWAT teen-style public takedown on a peaceful Christian pastor on the side of a busy highway for a provincial offense.
It's really a glorified traffic ticket.
Political Decisions Made00:15:21
That was a political decision made by politicians.
So were the decisions to put him in jail for 49 days.
This was the Grace Life Church in Edmonton.
100 police seized it, nationalized it, really, put latrines right on the front depths of the church.
Try that on a mask, on a mosque, see how far you get.
They set up a little police bunker there.
They really put a big fence around it.
It was like an outpost in Afghanistan or something because they opened their doors during the pandemic.
Again, not a crime, a health infraction like finding mice in a restaurant.
That was a political decision made by politicians.
That was not real policing.
Same thing with all of them.
Do you think the jailing and arrest of Tamara Leach was not political?
The reason I tell you that and show you those two Alberta examples of the churches is that the politician who made those atrocious decisions, Jason Kenney, is gone in large part because of those atrocious decisions.
And you saw last weekend that the new premier, Danielle Smith, who ran on an explicitly anti-lockdown platform, you saw that she fulfilled a campaign promise already by apologizing to the unvaccinated for their unfair treatment.
The community that faced the most restrictions on their freedoms in the last year were those who made a choice not to be vaccinated.
I don't think I've ever experienced a situation in my lifetime where a person was fired from their job or not allowed to watch their kids play hockey or not allowed to go visit a loved one in long-term care or hospital or not allowed to go get on a plane to either go across the country to see family or even travel across the border.
So they have been the most discriminated against group that I've ever witnessed in my lifetime.
That's a pretty extreme level of discrimination that we have seen.
I don't take away any of the discrimination that I've seen in those other groups that you mentioned, but this has been an extraordinary time in the last year in particular.
And I want people to know that I find that unacceptable, that we are not going to create a segregated society on the basis of a medical choice.
She had said similar things before.
Here she was a few days earlier in Edmonton talking about adding the unvaccinated to the list of people you can't discriminate against under the Human Rights Code.
So one of the things that we'll be coming through with in the fall as well is a change to the Human Rights Code to make it illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their COVID vaccination status.
Now, I recognize that there are still some organizations and some businesses in Alberta that is doing that.
And I just want to sort of give you fair warning that we are going to be making a serious pivot in that regard.
And I would just ask if you would work with us to align your policies with the direction that we want to go in Alberta.
Because we want to send the message to the community and to the world community and to the investment markets that this is a place that is open for business, that this is a place that believes in freedom.
This is a place that believes in free enterprise.
And this is a place where we're not going to be making arbitrary decisions that are going to disproportionately impact the small and medium businesses in this province.
The most interesting part I thought was when our reporter Celine Galas asked Premier Smith if she would stop prosecuting those old tickets and charges made under Jason Kenney's regime.
Selene Galice incredible is.
During your campaign you said that not only would you issue an apology to those prosecuted during COVID restrictions, but you would also grant them amnesty.
When can we expect those apologies?
I can apologize right now.
I'm deeply sorry for anyone who was inappropriately subjected to discrimination as a result of their vaccine status.
I'm deeply sorry for any government employee that was fired from their job because of their vaccine status.
And I welcome them back if they want to come back.
As for the amnesty, I have to get some legal advice on that.
And so I've already asked my staff to request that advice so I can see how we would be able to proceed on that.
My view has been that these were political decisions that were made.
And so I think that they could be political decisions to offer a reversal.
But I do want to get some legal advice on that first.
Would that also have to do with the timeline for the proposed amnesties?
I would have to see if, you know, if I can do it, I will do it at the earliest opportunity.
So I'm hoping within the next week, I'll get that legal advice.
Interesting.
And really, why not?
If they were political decisions to start them, as in not legitimate law enforcement priorities, not normal law enforcement tactics, why can't the next leader change things back to normal?
Especially since she campaigned on doing so.
I don't know if you saw, I mentioned it briefly.
Just this week, New York Supreme Court ruled that firing unvaccinated employees was illegal.
And not only do they get, do they all get their jobs back, they get back paid too.
Interestingly, the court said the whole justification for vaccine mandates was a lie because vaccines do not stop the transmission of the virus.
So the claim that you need to do it to protect others wasn't true.
Isn't that amazing?
New York.
The pendulum is swinging back.
Even Charlie Christ, a lockdown Democrat in Florida, he was campaigning, was debating against Rhonda Sanders, and the Democrat was claiming to be an anti-locker downer.
Take a look at this.
You're the only governor in the history of Florida that's ever shut down our schools.
You're the only governor in the history of Florida that shut down our businesses.
I never did that as governor.
You're the one who's the shutdown guy.
We need to have somebody who is at the helm that understands it's important to listen to science, to do what's right, to utilize common sense.
You don't just shut down at the outset, and then when it's politically convenient for you, you want to open back up the store political problem.
Look, everyone has moved on.
I showed you that major poll in the New York Times the other day, and less than 0.5% of Americans think the coronavirus is a top priority.
It's a tiny fringe minority.
You can see how small that club is just by going out in the public these days.
There are still some people wearing masks out there, but it's a tiny number.
Everyone else is living normally again now that the forced masking laws are gone.
It was madness.
It was a madness that lasted two years, but it's over.
So why is that madness persisting in the government, still prosecuting people like Arthur Pavlovsky and hundreds, maybe thousands of others in Alberta alone?
Well, luckily, I have the largest recipient of Trudeau's newspaper bailout money to explain to me.
Post media, which owns the Calgary Herald, they have the Trudeau answer to the question.
And here's the Calgary Herald story about it.
Smith's proposal on COVID-19 fine amnesty raises political interference concerns.
Her language suggests that perhaps her intention is to actually interfere with those that are working their way through the system.
Oh, really?
So it was not political interference to start, but it is political interference to stop.
Got it.
Let me read a bit.
Premier Danielle Smith's proposal to grant amnesty to those fined for violating COVID-19 public health orders could amount to political interference in the justice system, a University of Calgary health law expert says.
Oh, so a health law expert says you can't stop a prosecution.
Is there anyone more discredited as a class these past years than health law experts?
Published in a Trudeau newspaper.
On Saturday, Smith told reporters at her United Conservative Party's annual convention and general meeting that she's seeking legal advice on forgiveness for those being prosecuted in relation to laws introduced to help stem the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic.
And she won her leadership race.
She won, but a health law expert says she cannot keep that promise.
Who is this health law expert, by the way?
What Smith is describing doesn't quite align with the idea of a legal pardon, said Lorian Hardcastle, an associate professor at the U of C's law and medicine faculties.
That's because Smith's comments specify outstanding fines.
Well, pardons would apply to those who have already been convicted.
Now, let me stop you right there.
Who mentioned a pardon?
A health law expert, apparently.
Danielle Smith didn't mention a pardon.
A health law expert, if she really was an expert, would probably know that provincial premiers do not have the power to grant a pardon.
That's a federal matter.
And the issues in question are not criminal offenses.
They're not federal.
They're provincial tickets, really.
But hey, don't let me stop you calling her a health law expert.
Here's what Lorian Hardcastle said about the obvious way to stop prosecutions, which is just to stop the prosecutions.
Her language suggests that perhaps her intention is to actually interfere with those that are working their way through the system, she said.
We, for good reason, generally allow prosecutorial discretion to lay charges and prosecute individuals under validly enacted laws, and we generally frown upon, for good reason, politicians interfering with the process by politicizing it, which is what she seems to be doing.
Again, we've got someone calling herself a health law expert, but she says they were validly enacted laws.
But no, actually, they weren't laws.
Laws are passed by the legislature after debates and hearings and votes.
These were extreme public health orders that were issued by bureaucrats who have never been elected or subjected to scrutiny.
And these were orders that they wrote.
They weren't laws.
But even if they were actual laws, we have a new premier who campaigned on changing them.
Again, how is it interference to stop it, but it wasn't interference to start it?
Where was our health law expert then?
I'll give you an answer in a moment that actually a real health law expert would say.
But first, let me tell you who this health law expert talking to the Trudeau media is.
I mean, is she a neutral scholarly professor?
Is she really an expert?
I took 30 seconds and checked out her Twitter feed.
I found it immediately.
What is this nonsense?
If you are so concerned with COVID, which I suspect you aren't, I suspect you are just looking for an opportunity to slag on Trudeau.
Why don't you phone up your pal Kenny and talk to him about his total failure of leadership?
Where is Kenny?
Now, look, I'm no fan of Kenny either these days, but let's not pretend we're talking to a health law expert.
We're talking to a slightly crazed partisan activist who shouts on Twitter.
Here's another one.
This government is determined not to let anyone have public health protections.
First, Kenny said he's looking into stopping municipalities from having vaccine passports.
Then, LAG told schools they can't have restrictions.
That's the education minister.
Here's another one.
This, except replace Trump throwing paper towels with Kenny throwing cloth masks at kids in schools.
I don't even understand that, but there it is.
We're all going to catch Omicron, so why even try?
Kenny doesn't seem to care how many of us die.
He's too busy enjoying Jameson in the sky.
She's a poet, maybe, but I wouldn't call her health law expert.
That's not the first thing that comes to mind.
I'll just show you one more.
Mo, that's the Premier of Saskatchewan.
Mo and Kenny are two peas in the same rotten pod.
I hate seeing this happen in Alberta, where I am now.
And I hate seeing it happen in Saskatchewan, where I grew up.
They both need to go.
Like I say, I found that immediately on Google.
It's unthinkable.
It really is unbelievable that the Trudeau newspaper didn't know who this health law expert was.
But it's better to call her a health law expert for propaganda reasons than to call her a political activist who hates conservatives and gets a little crazy on Twitter, isn't it?
But let me give you a little bit of law, which this health law expert didn't do.
Here's a ruling from a little thing we call the Supreme Court of Canada, something that a health law expert could have found in a moment.
It's a leading case called Krieger versus Law Society of Alberta.
I'm going to quote paragraph 47.
It's a little bit illegalese, but I think you can get it.
What is common to the various elements of prosecutorial discretion is that they involve the ultimate decisions as to whether a prosecution should be brought, continued, or ceased, and what the prosecution ought to be for.
Put differently, prosecutorial discretion refers to decisions regarding the nature and extent of the prosecution and the attorney general's participation in it.
Decisions that do not go to the nature and extent of the prosecution, i.e. the decisions that govern a crown prosecutor's tactics or conduct before the court, do not fall within the scope of prosecutorial discretion.
Rather, such decisions are governed by the inherent jurisdiction of the court to control its own processes once the attorney general has elected to enter into that form.
So let me translate.
If the attorney general is involved, if a prosecutor is involved at all, they can drop the case at any time.
They can start it.
They can stop it.
They often do stop it.
Just the other week, a prosecutor dropped two out of three charges against Arthur Pavlovsky literally the morning of the trial because it wasn't in the public interest to proceed.
The test for prosecutions is twofold.
A health law expert might have said this.
Is it in the public interest to proceed?
And is there a reasonable likelihood of conviction?
Now, let me compare this to, say, to Justin Trudeau trying to call off the prosecution of SNC Lavland.
Remember that Quebec company, very corrupt, very liberal?
They had admitted to massive bribe paying.
Like, they're just really a dirty company.
And that's the kind of crime that needs a public rebuke.
You want a big, noisy trial to show the world we do not accept corruption here.
A conviction was almost a certainty because they admitted it all.
Trudeau tried to get that trial scuppered, but lockdown cases against ordinary moms and dads, how is that in the public interest?
These are protesters who were massively overcharged and overprosecuted.
And partly for that reason, the courts are throwing charges out.
Arthur Pavlovsky, for example, has won his last two court cases overwhelmingly, including a unanimous ruling by the Court of Appeal.
Couldn't be more different.
The SNC Lavaland case was a serious crime, and the details were so blatant, any prosecutor could obviously say that's got to go to trial.
Compare that to Pastor Arthur being the, I don't know if you know this, but Alberta introduced an ecoterrorism law called the Critical Infrastructure Defense Act.
It was a law designed really to stop eco-terrorists from vandalizing pipelines, etc.
All he did was give a pep talk to some of the truckers in coups.
He didn't protest with him and give him a pep talk, and he's being charged under this law.
There's no public interest.
There's no chance of conviction.
Maybe post-media's health law expert might take a break from tweeting against conservatives to study some law.
Do you really think that prosecution of Arthur Pavlovsky for ecoterrorism should continue?
One more thing about the Trudeau SNC Lavaland case, which I think is an important distinction.
Trudeau secretly pressured his justice minister, Jody Wilson-Rabel, to drop the case against his friends at SNC Lavland.
Marijuana Possession Charges00:05:34
And when she wouldn't, he undermined her, and finally he fired her, and then he lied about it all when asked by the Globe and Mail.
The fact that he kept it a secret and tried to get her to keep it a secret showed that he knew it was improper.
The fact that the liberals shut down the investigation, by contrast, Danielle Smith couldn't be more public about this.
She has publicly and repeatedly talked about this change being made to Alberta politics in good faith.
This isn't a private favor to get a rich and powerful friend out of trouble.
It's a conscious political decision to move beyond the lockdown and the extreme policing and prosecutions that came from it.
There's another obvious difference with SNC Lavalin.
These peaceful protests and civil disobedience, they're political, they're even religious, couldn't be more different from a real crime.
These aren't crimes at all, actually.
Arthur Pavlovsky's not charged with a crime.
Keeping your church open isn't a crime.
It violated some health order.
Other than the handful of cases involving firearms, every lockdown prosecution in Alberta has a civil liberties element to it.
I don't know if you know Alberta's motto is strong and free.
It ought to be the freest province in Alberta where you can disagree with the government peacefully.
Especially, like I say, since these lockdown orders were not even debated or passed by the legislature, they were all issued by these unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats, Dina Hinshaw, the Teresa Tam of Alberta.
The Court of Appeal in Alberta recently sided with Arthur Pavlovsky unanimously because of the violations to his civil liberties.
I am 100% sure that if they try and prosecute Arthur Pavlovsky under the ecoterrorism law, that will fail and the law might actually be struck down.
I don't know.
Maybe Alberta needs a black eye delivered to them by the Court of Appeal, but why would Danielle Smith and the new government carry Jason Kenney's water?
Why would she perpetuate these out-of-control prosecutions?
The SNC Lavalan prosecution was purely about graft and fraud.
It was a serious crime.
You think these moms and dads going to church are a serious crime?
Now, of course, the locker downers will hate this staying the prosecutions because they love the lockdown.
They love the power.
They love bullying people.
They love being in the upper caste in society.
They never lost a day's pay.
And any denunciations of their lockdowns as authoritarian, well, they'll take it as an insult.
It punctures their self-image of being righteous saints.
It shows that maybe history won't regard them as the heroes they think they are.
Oh, you're going to hear squawking if these lockdown prosecutions are stopped.
In Ottawa, we're seeing right now, this whole trucker commission is showing us that when Trudeau invoked martial law, it was purely a political move.
They had no legal or factual basis.
It was just a way for the liberals to safe face and embarrass the truckers.
Same thing in Alberta now.
Let me give you one more Trudeau analogy.
I wonder if post-media's health law expert might have thought of this one.
Marijuana laws.
For many years, police across Canada, including in Alberta, simply declined to charge or prosecute any cases of simple marijuana possession.
If you had a joint on you, they'd probably throw it on the ground, but they wouldn't charge you with it.
They might add possession of marijuana on top of a bunch of other charges someone was facing, but they would almost never charge someone just for having a joint.
This was a political decision by police chiefs, a discretion by beat cops.
It was approved by prosecutors and attorneys general.
No one in Canada was prosecuting marijuana possession laws.
No one was.
And then Justin Trudeau campaigned on legalizing marijuana.
He tested that idea in public and he ran an election on it.
You can agree or disagree.
But my point is, for years, police and prosecutors just used their discretion.
They decided it was not in the public interest to pursue a marijuana possession charge.
And then Trudeau used his political capital to change it.
And you have to admit, he said he was going to do it.
Like criminal laws against marijuana possession, these old lockdown laws are out of sync with the spirit of the times.
The courts are starting to wake up and turn against these lockdown laws.
The people have moved on.
And the over enforcement of lockdown laws is one of the reasons why Jason Kenyon is no longer premier, is he?
And you know what?
Let the opposition bray about this.
Let them gnash their teeth.
If Rachel Notley and the NDP want to remind people how much they loved lockdowns and closing schools and masking children and shutting down mom and pop stores, but keeping Amazon and Walmart open, shutting down restaurants and gyms, absolutely.
They want to relitigate that.
They want to relive that.
Let Rachel Notley and the NDP run in the next election on locking down friends and neighbors.
Let them.
You know, in politics, there will be controversies.
In the upcoming Alberta election, there will be controversies.
Sometimes you get to choose your own controversies in politics.
Sometimes they are thrust upon you by your opponents.
It is better to choose your own controversies, choose your own battleground, your own playing field.
I think siding with freedom, making your opponents reveal themselves to be locked down bullies, I think that's a good controversy to choose.
And when Justin Trudeau's Calgary newspaper complains about it with a whackadoodle Twitter lawyer, you know you're on the right track.
Hey, do you agree with me on this?
If so, please sign our petition at lockdownamnesty.com.
We've already got more than 21,000 signatures on it.
And we just set up a billboard along the highway promoting it.
We've got a few more moves on this file, too.
I'll let you know when we're ready to announce them.
But this is important.
Choosing Controversies Wisely00:04:38
Look, it's a government taking responsibility for a terrible time.
We can't let the Trudeau Palace Guard and academics and the media try and stop this.
Stay with us for more.
Hey, welcome back.
Well, one of the most important things we've ever done in the nearly eight years Rebel News has been around was covering the trucker convoy.
We covered it before it even arrived in Ottawa.
We were embedded in it, in fact.
We covered it in other cities too, down at the Coots border crossing between Alberta and Montana at the Windsor Ambassador Bridge between Windsor and Detroit.
But of course, the beating heart of the center of that convoy was in our nation's capital of Ottawa, where it was camped out for weeks.
We had reporters who worked almost a month straight without a day off, covering every inch of it.
It's really what we were built for, telling the other side of the story, citizen journalism, independent from government funding.
I think that was so key.
That's why we were able to tell you the other side of the story.
Well, we covered that, and I think we helped tip the balance in the court of public opinion.
Trudeau wanted that trucker convoy to be his January 6th insurrection moment where he could demonize all his critics as terrorists and violent MAGA supporters, racist, misogynists, transphobes.
You heard him.
He said it all.
But the fact that we were there documenting how it really was, man, he couldn't get away with that.
And of course, Trudeau had a terrible unforced error.
He invoked martial law.
Now, he might not even call that an error because he's always had an admiration, as he says, for basic dictatorships.
Remember this, what he said about China.
I'll never forget it.
There's a level of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say, we need to go green as fast as we need to start investing in solar.
Yeah, the basic dictatorship lets him make decisions really quickly, like he did once he invoked martial law.
A decision, for example, to deploy riot police, a decision to seize the bank accounts of 200 of his political enemies and jail his political opponents, peaceful as they were, like Tamara Leach.
He's which?
He's out here for a second.
Oh boy.
So you're a new place to be.
Let's ask you back.
Just back up, please.
Just back up, guys.
Thank you.
Thank you.
And me as well.
Okay, my name is John Biden.
Well, the martial law provisions of the Emergencies Act carry with them a sort of, I don't know, a second look moment where a judge must inquire into the circumstances giving rise to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
And by the way, it's not loosey-goosey.
It's quite clear.
I've shown you these before.
It has to either be a grave danger to Canadians or a grave danger to the sovereignty of the country itself.
The kind of thing that maybe would happen if there was a, God forbid, a nuclear attack or a genuine terrorist uprising.
And there's even that is not enough because the Emergencies Act said one of those extremely grave things must happen and not or and existing laws are not enough to deal with it.
Well, for the last two weeks, we have seen that there was no danger to Canadians at all.
There was no danger to Canadian sovereignty at all, let alone one that needed the Emergencies Act.
And whatever issues there may have been could easily have been resolved with existing laws.
And in fact, that was the testimony of several police departments.
What's been so fascinating is that the Liberals have obviously been trying to shift the conversation.
They're not even trying to justify this on a legal basis.
They're now talking about microaggressions and feelings.
Perhaps the largest disgrace so far was acting police chief Steve Bell saying, no, he didn't see any assaults, but he saw assaultive behavior.
What?
What's that?
That's not a real thing.
I had a low opinion of many of these authoritarian police beforehand, but now that we see them revealed, this is a very interesting inquiry.
Evidence Shows Willingness00:06:56
I think we're learning a lot more than I ever thought we would.
And we haven't even got to the key decision makers yet, like Justin Trudeau and other cabinet ministers.
Well, joining me, you can see he's on standby here, is my friend William Diaz Berthium, who has been a real star of our coverage of the Trucker Commission.
He is based in Ottawa, our nation's capital.
He's made a name for himself, scrumming MPs and cabinet ministers outside parliament.
And he is now covering the Trucker Commission every day.
William, it's great to see you, and congratulations on your good work.
Yeah, thank you, Ezra.
Nice to see you again as well.
You know, I just want to tell our viewers, if they don't know, besides live streaming the entire proceedings, every night at 6 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m. Mountain Time, we have our own live stream where we chew over the events of the day.
William is often on there, our friend Sheila Gunread.
We have other guests, sometimes, for example, Keith Wilson, the lawyer for Tamara Leech and the Truckers.
So we've had a really great cover, just like we covered the Trucker Convoy itself so well.
And if you're wondering where to find this stuff, it's all on our compilation page called truckercommission.com.
All right, enough throat clearing from me.
William, let's go straight to you.
You're the guy with the news.
I'm in your hands.
Tell our viewers about some of the more interesting things coming out of the commission, not just today, but yesterday and earlier in the week.
Take it away.
You're the guy who knows the interesting things.
Tell us about it.
Well, you know, Ezra, I think the main takeaway of the commission is chaos.
Most the Ottawa police throughout the whole convoy was chaos.
We saw a lack of communication between the different branches within the Ottawa, the Ottawa Police Force.
We saw a lack of communication between the OPP and the OPS.
We saw a disregard for important intel that was given by the OPP to the OPS that the OPS decided not to act on.
OPS is the Ottawa Police.
Sorry to interrupt.
OPS, that's the Ottawa Police Service.
So OPP, that's the Ontario Provincial Police.
That's the sort of, we don't have that in every province, but Ontario has a provincial police force.
OPS is the Ottawa Police Service.
They have some different jurisdictions and different powers, but both of them were on the battle against the truckers.
I just want to interrupt to explain what those acronyms meant.
Back to you, William.
Yeah, sure.
No, 100%.
OPS is Ottawa Police Services, OPP, Ontario Provincial Police.
Obviously, some important acronyms, but when you're embedded in that, you forget to mention them.
So, you know, the OPP knew they had intel showing that the protesters were here for the long run.
They weren't here for just one weekend as the Ottawa police services were trying to say that they were coming for.
They were here for the long run.
And the Ottawa Police Service decided to ignore that intel multiple times, which is one of the reasons why this whole situation within the OPS was so chaotic.
They decided to ignore important intel.
And not only that, the chaos also came from a lack of communication between a lot actually an unwillingness to communicate from the federal government, from the political side of things with the Freedom Convoy organizers.
We saw them willing to communicate, but the federal government was unwilling to communicate with them.
Steve Bell said that they were irrational people.
It might have been Jim Watson, actually.
Jim Watson, I believe he said those people were irrational people, unwilling to communicate.
And the evidence shows otherwise.
The evidence shows that Keith Wilson had discussions with the city of Ottawa multiple times to try to move the trucks, try to find ways to negotiate deals between the protesters and the city as well.
And Tom Razzo, who's been a consistent guest on our live stream, also said the same thing that the Freedom Convoy organizers had a willingness to negotiate with the city and with the federal government.
So it's a lot of lies.
It's a lot of hearsay.
It's a lot of chaos that we see coming from the political branch and the OPS as well.
Another thing that was very surprising yesterday, and that's something that really picked my mind a lot.
The evidence shows that the truckers had a willingness to engage with the police.
The evidence shows that.
But yesterday we saw through an email exchange between people from the OPS and the city or the federal government, I believe it was the people within the OPS and the federal government.
We saw them talking about how they saw the protesters and even their editorialized view of the protesters was that they were willing to engage.
So not only does the evidence show that the protesters were rational, were willing to negotiate, were here peacefully, but the editorialized version, the version of events from the eyes of the OPP and the parliament, the politics, the government, were also that the protesters were here peacefully and were willing to negotiate.
So yesterday was a very revealing day.
And if you want me to talk about today, I can also do that later on as well.
Sure.
I just want to unpack what you're saying, negotiate.
Some of our viewers might be saying, negotiate what?
Well, it was practical matters like moving the trucks away from residential areas towards the parliament offices, clearing a lane, making sure that there were clear lanes, moving from this area to that area.
So they were very flexible.
They were very engaging.
Keith Wilson, the lawyer I mentioned earlier, he was a point person.
And what's fascinating is every single police or political person who's been asked, I mean, listen, you've been covering it closer than me.
They've been saying, well, were the truckers negotiating in good faith?
Were they keeping their word?
And the answer has been yes.
So that's not a dangerous violence to citizens.
That's not an insurrection against the sovereignty of the country.
These are peaceful protesters who, when the city said, hey, can you move away from the apartments and move closer to Ottawa buildings?
They said, sure.
Hey, can you just make sure we keep the lanes open for emergency vehicles?
Absolutely.
So that's what they mean by negotiations.
And the idea that you needed martial law when there wasn't a grave danger to the country or its sovereignty to begin with.
And again, that's another thing we've heard time and again is that regular police tools were enough.
And by the way, I don't know if you know this, William, but our current criminal code, going from memory, I think it might be section 129.
I'll have to Google it, gives police the power to commandeer tow trucks anyways.
But one of the things we've learned is that there were plenty of tow trucks willing to tow the trucks.
I mentioned that because that's the only thing I've heard people say, well, we needed to put the whole country under martial law because we needed some tow trucks.
Because of tow trucks.
You don't need to put the whole country under martial law for tow trucks.
The existing criminal law lets police commandeer them.
All right, enough commentary from me.
Arrests And Protester Beatings00:04:42
William, why don't you throw to some video clips?
Because one of the things I like about how Rebel News is covering the Trucker Commission is we're not just tweeting about it and having the evening digest about it.
We're cutting actual raw clips showing testimony.
You've been following this more closely than me the past few days.
Why don't you introduce a couple of quick clips and throw to them and we'll show our people the clips?
Yeah, and just before I do that, I just want to remind everyone, you know, there's so much to unpack for the Commission.
We cannot do that in a simple ELS show.
So if you want to make sure that you follow everything extremely closely, you can always watch our evening live streams where me and Sheila and interesting guests and Alexa Lavois, we also always discuss the events of the day.
But if we want to see one clip that came out today, a very powerful clip, it was the cross-examination done by one of the Freedom Convoy lawyers, Bath Sheba.
I know that's not her last name.
That's her first name, yeah.
I think that's Sheba Vandenberg, I think, is her name.
Yeah, exactly.
She cross-examined Superintendent Bernie from the OPS, and she showed a clip that was taken by protesters in February, where we see an officer beating down a protester with his rifle.
And the only single thing the Superintendent Bernie had to say was that the video was unclear, and he wasn't capable of actually making something of it.
What did you think the officer was doing?
Shoveling snow?
Did you think he was talking to the protester?
No, he was beating him up with his rifle.
We can take a look at the clip right now.
All right.
So do you agree that the OPS officer in this video in the back behind the ranks, the line is using what is actually the muzzle and not the butt of what looks like a 40 millimeter chemical munition launched to beat a protester with?
Not enough for me to see what exactly is going on.
But you can see that there is a police officer in the back beating a protester with a rifle.
There is not enough for me to see what is actually happening behind the video, please.
Absolutely shocking.
It makes me angry.
The fact that the policeman says, oh, I don't see anything.
No, I don't see anything.
You know, I absolutely believe that that was commonplace.
Our own reporter, Alexa Lavoie, was shot in the leg with some riot gun.
We heard that police were taking peaceful protesters, not charging them, just taking them in a vehicle, driving them outside the city and dumping them on the side of the road.
And by the way, it was minus 20 out there.
Now, I want to ask you about the arrests.
With regards to the arrest and processing plans and the POU tactical operational plans, there's nothing that states that after police arrested protesters and told them that they were not being charged, that the police were to drive the protesters outside of the city core in the dead of winter, the biggest snowstorm in a while, as you described today, without access to shelter or transportation and telecommunications, and leave them in parking lots or other areas, correct?
Not the way I would explain it.
Are you aware that that happened?
The plans that were put in place, which involved the ability to remove protesters who were arrested, detained to a secondary processing site, there were two that were identified.
One was approximately less than 10 minutes away from the arrest zone.
The other one was approximately 15 to 20 minutes away from the arrest zone, where there were a full infrastructure of investigators in order to properly process, run, allow phone calls to lawyers, and where they were advised exactly of the next steps of what was going to take place.
They were located in close proximity to, and when I say close proximity, maybe 200 meters from public transit and even restaurants and gas stations to be able to find their way back to where they need to go.
That is infuriating.
And I think that the police need to be sued.
We are suing the police for their shooting of Alexa.
If you want to see the video of that, you can go to standwithal.com.
These are just outrageous things.
Invoking Emergencies Act00:11:25
I have to say, William, I think this Trucker Commission of Inquiry is more revealing and more interesting than I thought it would be.
I thought that the government would be commandeering it more than they are.
I mean, listen, the government certainly has their friendly witnesses there, but I think that they're useless because what can they say?
There is no legal, factual case for martial law.
So you hear policemen muttering about microaggressions.
It's quite revealing.
Yeah, well, you know, the commission is an independent commission.
It is not related to the government whatsoever.
Even though we heard that the judge might have been a Trudeau-appointed judge, the Commission is still independent.
I have faith in the judge that he's going to, the commissioner, who is also a judge, that's why I call him a judge.
I have faith in the commissioner that he's going to do the right thing.
We see him engage with the witnesses.
So I do have faith in the commission, but I think the commission is extremely revealing.
As you said, I 100% agree.
And I think it also goes to public opinion.
You know, the people that are watching this, that heard the lies from the police, that heard the lies from mainstream media from the beginning, always believe those lies.
But now we are seeing those lies being dismantled in front of a commissioner in real time.
And that's what's important about the commission.
And I think there will be impacts inside parliament, inside House of Commons, before we have to table the budget once the commission is ended.
So I do have faith in the commission.
Well, that's very exciting.
Leave us with one more clip.
I know that our rebel news team, and you're there in, by the way, people may be wondering, where is William right now?
That is the Airbnb that we rented for a month and a half.
It's very close to the Commission inquiry.
It's so close, it's faster to walk than to call a cab and take it.
Like I was there in the early days.
I'm going to try and get back out there.
It's fun.
We've got a team there.
We've got this little homemade studio in the kitchen, as you can see.
And we have guests coming by.
That's where we do our live stream, but it's our base of operations.
It's not cheap booking an Airbnb that big.
It's got four bedrooms, so our rebel people can sleep there.
I should tell you that it costs about 15 grand to rent that thing.
And people might be saying, that's shocking.
That's crazy.
Well, it's cheaper than getting a bunch of hotel rooms.
And we had the place to ourselves so we can use the internet to have a sort of homemade studio and it's private and it's quiet.
I think it really is working well.
I'm proud of our team.
William, you're really doing a great job.
And I know Sheila is covering well.
And Alexa is with you today.
And Efron and Key and Simoni.
And I think Sid was out there.
So we got a lot of behind the scenes folks.
I know I'm missing a few.
Forgive me.
We're cycling through, I think, 13 or 15 Rebel News reporters over the course of the month and a half.
So we really are trying to cover it as intensively as we covered the convoy itself back in January, February.
Leave us with one more clip.
It doesn't have to be today or yesterday.
Is there one clip that you thought was really revealing or maybe a police officer made an admission that was surprising in a good way?
Or was there a politician who was caught in a lie?
Or was there just a wonderful moment with a lawyer just showing the truth?
Throw the one last clip that you think our viewers will get a kick out of.
You know, I'll leave you with one clip and one name.
Brendan Miller, lawyer for the Freedom Convoy.
Yesterday, Brandon Miller spoke with, I believe it was the OPP's Marcel Baudin.
And it was something very shocking that we heard.
The Parliament of Canada, Trudeau's cabinet, received a plan from the EPP to end the protest or to handle the protests.
Peacefully, Marcel Baudin submitted a peaceful plan to negotiate with the protesters.
Trudeau received it in his cabinet meeting.
They read the plan.
A few minutes later, they invoked the Emergencies Act.
Let's take a look at that.
I understand this is an email from the Deputy Minister of Public Safety, Rob Stewart, to you, right?
Yes.
Okay.
And in the third sentence on the top paragraph, it says, we have a big meeting this afternoon.
Well, this will be discussed.
So I really need your input, right?
Yes.
All right.
Did you know that that meeting was at 3.30 p.m. and that it was with cabinet and it was the incident response group of the political executive meeting and that your proposal was provided to them?
No.
Okay.
It was.
I can tell you that.
And then they invoked the Emergencies Act.
Wow.
I mean, absolute proof that the Emergencies Act had no legal or factual basis.
It was all a tactic by Trudeau.
Outrageous.
That Brendan Miller has been a real star.
He's so good.
He's with the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms, representing the Truckers.
Justice Center is great.
By the way, the Democracy Fund has a lawyer there too, Alan Honor.
But I have to tip my hat to the JCCF, who have so many lawyers, and they're so well prepared.
They've deeply immersed themselves in this, and it's just really a pleasure to see.
Well, William, you're doing great too, and congrats to the whole team.
Please give my thanks to them and keep it up, my friend.
Thank you.
All right, William Diaz-Berthiome is there every day.
He lives in Ottawa, so he's not staying at the Airbnb, but our out-of-towners are.
You can follow the proceedings at truckercommission.com.
You can follow them throughout the day.
We have the live stream, the actual feed from the hearing itself.
Sheila Gunreed and others are live tweeting, and we compile those.
We make little short video clips if we think there's something in particular that's interesting.
And every night at 6 p.m., we have a recap that we call our own live stream.
So please go to truckercommission.com.
Stay with us.
More ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
Real Willie C. says, I guess I'm a Russian agent because I don't trust Trudeau either.
That's so crazy.
I mean, if there was someone who said, I support Putin, I support Russia, I support the invasion of Ukraine, okay, then you can probably say, well, maybe he's a propagandist or a Putin agent, but I don't think there's a lot of people in Canada who say that.
So this disinformation czar literally changed how it would be like setting his metal detector to detect something other than metal.
If you undermine trust in Trudeau, you're a Russian agent.
No, you're not, mate.
You're one of 68% of Canadians who are sort of sick of the lad.
That's not even science.
It was not a peer-reviewed study.
Wisconsin Freedom Fighter said, wait, a politician lied?
Breaking news, laugh out loud.
Keep out the good work.
My northern neighbors.
Rebel News is one of the most reliable and trustworthy media outlets, period.
Well, thank you for that.
We don't always get it 100% right.
No one does.
But we try to get it right.
We reach out to the other side.
And when we get it wrong, we admit it.
Sleeping Giant Sister says, Rebel News is the only news source I know that regularly applies for freedom of information requests.
Rebel News has actively influenced changes to our government.
No one else has exposed government corruption in Canada and other countries around the world.
Thank you, Ezra, and all the good people who work for Rebel News.
I appreciate that.
There are other newspapers who do it.
I won't pretend we're the only ones, but we have a full-time fella who does it.
And Sheila and so many of our other reporters, like every week, we've got another access to information document.
It's a very useful tool.
JJNS says, since you're not saying what Rebel is suing for, I'll assume it's for small dollars or just a retraction.
In my opinion, it needs to be in the millions and announce the dollar amount publicly so various news organizations around the world will pick up the story.
More embarrassment for Trudeau is the best way to hit back with the vengeance.
Well, you can see the lawsuit for yourself at saverebelnews.com.
Feel free to click on over there and the PDF documents should be there.
I honestly can't remember the exact dollar amount, so forgive me.
I think you just have to stop a government-funded smear merchant who claims to be fighting disinformation but is actually spreading it.
I just don't think you can allow someone saying you are a Russian agent, even when his own study doesn't prove it.
That's what's so crazy.
I showed you his top 10 list of enemies.
Rebel News is not on there.
I mean, listen, you watch our show every day.
Not every day, but you watch it.
I mention Ukraine and Russia, but not a lot.
We're focused on other things.
It's crazy to say Rebel News is a Russian agent.
It just doesn't make any sense.
By their own study, it's not true.
You can read the whole lawsuit at sayrebelnews.com.
All right, that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters, the U at Home, good night.
Keep fighting for freedom.
Angelika Toy for Rebel News in Ottawa.
Today marks the ninth day of the testimony in the Public Order Emergencies Commission.
The inquiry is aimed to examine whether the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act to end the Ottawa Freedom Convoy.
The protest convoy converged on Ottawa at the end of January from across the country to demonstrate against COVID restrictions until nearly four weeks later, the Trudeau Liberals used the counterterrorism law to give police extraordinary powers of search, seizure, and arrest normally used for wartime events.
Officer Marcel Bowdoin on the Ontario Provincial Police, an inspector and head of the police liaison team, was on the ground in the nation's capital during the convoy.
Bowdoin, however, dodged questions about if he thought the invocation of the Emergencies Act damaged ongoing negotiations to end the so-called convoy occupation.
You were part of the team that cleared up protest sites during the negotiation.
Do you think that the actions of the federal government invoking the Emergencies Act ended that ability?
Once again, you were part of a team that cleared up protest sites through negotiation.
Do you think that the actions of the federal government invoking the Emergencies Act ended that ability?
I know there's an OPP media person that you could probably reach out to if you reach out to Bill Dixon.
Okay, thank you.
Bowdoin had been part of the team that successfully cleared out protest sites in the lead up to use the Emergencies Act.
I understand this is an email from the Deputy Minister of Public Safety Rob Stewart to you, right?
Yes.
Okay, and in the third sentence on the top paragraph, it says, we have a big meeting this afternoon.
Well, this will be discussed, so I really need your input, right?
Yes.
All right.
Did you know that that meeting was at 3.30 p.m. and that it was with cabinet and it was the incident response group of the political executive meeting and that your proposal was provided to them?
No.
Okay.
It was.
I can tell you that.
And then they invoked the Emergencies Act.
Thank you.
Okay, thank you.
Rebel News is in Ottawa for the duration of the Public Order Emergencies Commission, holding decision makers accountable in a way that you cannot trust the mainstream media Trudeau funded to do.
To support our independent journalism and steer reports, visit truckercommission.com and make a donation today.