Keith Wilson, lawyer for Freedom Convoy organizers, scrutinizes the Trucker Commission’s Emergencies Act Inquiry, where witnesses like OPP Deputy Chief Dana Ehrley contradicted claims of bomb threats or child endangerment, affirming police actions were unnecessary. Protesters in Alberta’s 18-day Coutts blockade (Jan 25–Feb 13) faced 13 arrests—some on dubious charges—while Premier Jason Kenny eased restrictions under pressure, unlike Danielle Smith’s apology for past legal overreach. Legal battles continue for protesters like Marco Van Hugenball and Tamara Leach, with potential 10-year sentences for mischief over $5,000, as Williamson Law fights back via crowdfunding. The episode reveals systemic efforts to suppress dissent, from Navigator PR’s false narratives to Trudeau’s dismissive remarks, exposing a broader crackdown on free speech under pandemic policies. [Automatically generated summary]
At Rebel News, we're not afraid to have dangerous discussions and we want to have them with you at our upcoming Rebel Live events first in Toronto, November 19th, and again in Calgary, Saturday, November 26th.
Just go to rebelnewslive.com to get your tickets today.
Well, good evening, everyone.
Good evening, everyone at home watching us.
This is William here.
I'm with my colleague, Celine, my colleague, Celine Gallus.
Celine, how are you doing?
Forgot my name.
I'm doing great.
How are you doing tonight, William?
I'm great.
A little bit tired, but I'm amazing.
And I'm also here with King's Counsel, Keith Wilson, lawyer for Freedom Convoy Organizers.
Keith, how are you doing?
Good.
Fatigues catching up to all of us, but we're going to keep pushing through until we get this.
Yeah, you know, I think after four weeks of being here in Ottawa and the great corrupt city of Ottawa, it's a beautiful looking city.
It's a gorgeous city, but I think we are all getting a little bit tired in terms of the fatigue that's settling in.
Yeah, so just before we get started, everyone needs to remind you once again that we have a Rebel News live event coming up in Toronto on November 19th and in Calgary on November 25th.
I think Celine, you memorized all the names by heart last time that we were here.
So can you tell us a little bit more about who is going to be there at those events?
Yeah, absolutely.
So from Rebel News, we have faces like Ezra Levant, Sheila Gunreed.
I know that William and myself will also be attending to mingle with the guests, but we also have people like Derek Fildebrandt from the Western Standard and some other really amazing speakers.
We have Tamara Leach coming as well.
So go get yourself a ticket.
You can still attend.
And yeah.
Yeah, I was wondering if you're going to forget Tamara Leach herself, the main speaker for everything.
If you want to get your tickets, go to rebelnewslife.com.
Where do we have to go to get our tickets, Keith?
RebelNewsLive.com.
You see, even Keith, even a lawyer can remember.
All right.
So let's get to it.
So today at the Trucker Commission, the Emergencies Act Inquiry, we had three witnesses today.
It's been a while since we got the three witnesses.
Well, if we take apart last week's testimonies, today we had the OPP, I believe OPP, right?
OPP.
Yeah, Deputy Chief.
Exactly.
OPP Deputy Chief Dana Ehrley.
We also had protester who was at the Windsor protest.
I'm never able to pronounce his name properly, Paul.
Let's call him protester Paul.
Lashid, I believe it was.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Protester at the Windsor blockade that was at the Ambassador Bridge.
Exactly, Paul.
And we also had Marco from the Coups, the Coups protest, a spokesperson for the Coups protest that took place in Alberta.
So definitely some interesting testimonies that we heard today.
We heard a lot of great things.
Selena, what are your main takeaways from today's testimonies?
Well, that's a lot to break down because we did have three witnesses today.
So for Dana, the deputy chief police from the OPP, that was really interesting because we got to see how her testimony directly correlated with Jason Crowley, the Windsor deputy police chief and his testimony.
Yeah.
So in regards to that, the biggest takeaways I would say were definitely primarily the fact that there was a lot of reporting that Dana reported on supposed alleged bomb threats, multiple.
In fact, that to my knowledge, this was the first time that I heard of three to four separate bombing threats allegedly from within the convoy.
None of those transpired or took place if you weren't watching the Truckers Commission or the inquiry live today.
And then we have Paul Paul.
We've got Paul.
Protester Paul.
Yes.
Yeah.
So, kind of there to counter the narrative from the deputy police chief Dana from the OPP in regards to the Windsor blockade along Ambassador Bridge.
So, what we saw there was that there weren't, again, a large stretch from the mainstream media in regards to the amount of truckers that were there and protesters, as well as some of the police tactics that were or weren't used.
A big thing that we saw yesterday was testimonies from Chief Deputy Police Jason Crowley in regards to children being used as human shields.
That's right.
That was brought up today twice through Dana's testimony as well as Paul's testimony.
And Paul said that there were almost no children during the night, none at all.
In fact, it was teenagers, and majority of the day they would be there.
There was just a small amount of time that was his reportings as a protester there on the ground.
And then we have Marco Van Hugenball.
So he was a spokesperson for the Kutz blockade, and he had a lot of interactions.
And in fact, he does speak about his interactions with the RSCMP as being very friendly and having a very good relationship with them.
So there's lots to go over today.
Oh, definitely.
Lots to go over.
Yeah.
So we have a lawyer here.
Keith, how much of today's testimony is this you take a look at?
I tried to get in as much as I could, but as is typical, I was in and out of meetings and dealing with urgent phone calls.
As I've explained before, the hearing for us secures in overlapping phases because we're now preparing to cross-examine some of the federal government witnesses and we have to file our document list three days ahead of time.
And the document disclosure process is ongoing.
And today we received a new document dump from the federal government comprising over a thousand records in addition to the many, many, several thousand we've already received.
So we're aggressively going through those documents.
The practice of governments, myself having sued them many times, is that they bombard you with documents and they try and hide the good stuff within fluff.
So you really have to cut through it all to find the good stuff.
Using Dialogue to Educate00:15:31
And I can assure you, we will find it.
Yeah, well, thank you for always pointing the show.
And we asked you, even though you're super busy, I hope you're not going to start charging us.
What?
I'm not getting paid.
Yeah, exactly.
I hope that you don't start charging us your retainer.
Like we learned a little bit, a little bit earlier.
All right.
Well, to start to start the whole evening, let's take a look at clip number one from OPP Deputy Chief Dana Ehrlay.
Let's take a look at what she had to say.
I want to ask you specifically to explain about this concept of addressing events at the lowest competent level in the context of a kind of letter or escalation.
What does that mean?
The lowest competent level?
The less invasive, the less so lowest competent level would be, the prime example would be our provincial liaison team, being able to discuss the removal of protesters for them to leave on their own would be ideal.
So that's what you would try first?
Absolutely.
And then if that did not meet with success, then you escalate.
Yes.
What would be the next ladder or the next step up the ladder?
I think jointly along with PLT, we are also using a media strategy to make sure that we were educating everybody in regards to that it was unlawful to be there, that there was other options that they could express their freedom of speech.
So there was the media attached at the same time as provincial liaison teams were trying to develop rapport with the protesters.
It's very interesting to listen to all of these stages of de-escalation instead of having to go straight ahead to the nuclear option, which is the Emergencies Act.
So what do you make of her comments with strategies?
Yeah, no, it's exactly what you said.
I think that there is a lot of different levels that this could have been approached at and it didn't immediately have to go to, it's explained almost as if they took all of these steps from A to Z and it was just such a last resort to invoke the Emergencies Act and it was totally necessary.
Actually wasn't.
And actually multiple people have testified, multiple city officials have testified that it was not indeed necessary, regardless of what they were seeing from the protesters and the convoy from within the convoy.
So yeah, something I was a little bit curious to hear about was her social media strategy.
So I don't know if you know a little bit what that is.
I'm not too familiar with what she meant by that.
So can you explain to us?
Well, I didn't really follow the whole social media strategy aspect that they were focused on.
I mean, it's important that they were using all different strategies.
The piece of testimony that really struck me was the OPP explaining that there was a letter coming from the government at a high level extending an offer to open up direct negotiations with the protesters at Windsor.
That's right.
But the OPP was concerned about the absence of a similar letter going to the Ottawa protesters and what implications that might have had.
And I think that shines a light on a broader theme and problem here, which is it's become so clear from the evidence that the prime minister and the prime minister's office was, you know,
furious about the protests of average Canadians of all ethnic backgrounds coming together in Ottawa, that there was no circumstance under which you could see that the prime minister was prepared to engage in a dialogue with the Canadians he purports to be the leader of, the leader of our country.
So, and the fact that that was so glaringly obvious to the OPP that it actually put them into an operational pause that they were, they had a sequence planned to carry out, and they actually put it on hold because they're like, wait a minute, if word gets out in Windsor that we're proposing to have direct, the government's proposing to have direct dialogue and there's no similar gesture to Ottawa, what's the ramifications from that?
So that was very revealing to me.
And I think where we saw the comments that you're just talking about, it was in the transcript of the phone call between Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau.
Yes.
Where I believe Doug Ford, it might have been Doug Ford or Justin Trudeau, but I think it was Justin Trudeau who said, and I quote, I always wonder if they are not very smart people trying to think about shaming Canada in all sorts of ways and hurting the economy and getting jobs back to the U.S. We've got to respond quickly to this thing.
This is a vocabulary used by someone who's willing to engage in a discussion, a dialogue in negotiations, basically.
Absolutely.
It just really, again, shows the prime minister's pettiness, his vindictiveness.
And this is not new.
We've heard that from former cabinet ministers that have fallen out of grace and how he is so petty in his interpersonal dealings with people that challenge him.
And here, Canadians, hardworking blue-collar Canadians challenged him on a grand scale and he was going to have no part of it.
And everybody's been reacting to that reality that we see it translate right down to the police pausing some of their implemented steps because of what they could see the prime minister was doing, which was refusing to have any dialogue with the protesters here in Ottawa.
Yeah.
Do you have anything to add to that?
You guys pretty much summed it up.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
So, well, we see right here, if we can zoom in on the picture, that's part of the transcript of the phone call between Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, both liberals, in my opinion.
So, it starts well, but then if you actually take the time to read everything under, you see some derogatory comments by Justin Schuen, by Premier Doug Ford in regards to the protester where Justin Trudeau basically implies that there are less than stupid, not very smart people, and talks about how they can deal with those individuals.
So, definitely a very odd, a very odd phone call between those two that seem to be campaigning together all the time.
They seem to have the same views on speech and everything.
And that brings me on to my next point: freedom of speech.
We heard Dana Early speak about freedom of speech, and this might take a little while to explain.
But what are the acceptable restrictions on freedom of speech when it comes to protests?
Well, we have a very fundamental right of free speech in Canada, and that's been recognized by our Supreme Court of Canada in many cases.
And it includes making speech that other people don't like.
That's how we live in a free society.
That's how we test ideas.
That's how we improve ideas.
That's how we figure out which ideas are bad, is by being able to talk freely about them.
Yeah, I think that goes with something that Jordan Peterson is famous for saying, you know, when he talks about freedom of speech, he says that free speech is the foundation of Western society.
That's how you make your opinion.
That's how you settle your opinion in a civil society.
I remember him saying the exact line at his free speech rally in Toronto.
And I think without freedom of speech, we can't flourish in actual society.
Absolutely agreed.
That's very true.
And those are all points that this revolves around.
And if we don't have free speech, then what do we really have at the end of the day?
100%.
All right, let's move on to the second clip from once again, deputy chief of the OPP, Dana Early.
Let's take a look at that.
We've also heard yesterday about the presence of children during the blockade.
And how did intelligence inform your planning about this aspect?
Obviously, that was a concern of mine that if we had to use the plan of action, that I wanted the lowest amount of children to be there, intelligence was able to provide me with areas that they had detected where the children were hanging out or were present in the protest.
They were also able to tell me that because of their intelligence and because of their overwatch, that the majority of the children went home at night and very little of them stayed overnight.
And so that led me to obviously looking at the option of going first thing in the morning with any plan of operation if needed.
Was that the plan to have the action begin early in the morning?
Yes.
And what considerations led you to that decision?
Knowing from Intel that they had not observed any children overnight and that when children were present, it was usually not till later in the day.
Is that what you were talking about earlier?
Yes.
So this is when I would have liked to like be a lawyer and then jump on the stand and be like, so then why does your testimony directly correlate or not correlate and contrast so much with Jason Crowley's testimony from yesterday, where he said the total opposite.
And in fact, just seeing a picture of like children holding hands was enough evidence for him to suggest that they were then being used as human shields.
I'm just not sure how much clearer it can be.
And she says intelligence.
And also Jason Crowley mentioned that a lot of the intelligence that he gathered was from mainstream media.
It sounds like her intelligence sources were actually of real intelligence, if you know what I mean.
So just go back on your comments from last live stream.
You know, you said we always repeat ourselves because this is repeating.
It is true.
The evidence of one person does not corroborate the evidence of another person.
The evidence show and the testimony given by one individual does not corroborate the testimony given by a person prior to that same person who testified.
It's a huge pattern and it's very strange to me.
I mean, I mean, is it really that strange?
Like, I'm not sure what I was expecting from any of this, but to have two people who were in charge of dealing and creating a solution with the blockade at Ambassador Bridge, pardon me, at the Windsor in Windsor, and to have them not be able to agree on simple things like that.
Their intelligence should have been close to the same thing because they shared resources, because they were in so-called constant, they were always working with each other.
So I'm not sure how that's possible at all.
Yeah, that's how it should have been if you had a functioning police service, functional OPP and everything.
I think so.
From your lawyer with high retainer fee eyes, what do you make of this?
What did you make of this clip?
Well, what I make of it is the theme from this evidence today and yesterday about children and the evidence that we had in the previous weeks from the Ottawa Police Service when we discovered that they had spent over $200,000 hiring the public relations firm Navigator.
And one of the strategies that Navigator recommended the police use was to focus on the children and create this false narrative that children would be taken away from their families.
What's clear when you look at the testimony today and yesterday from Windsor and put that up against the testimony from what happened in Ottawa, that the government and the police forces in their desperate attempt to vilify lawful Canadians exercising protest rights are trying to use children as a pawn.
And that's not a good thing.
That's a pretty low way to go.
And you mentioned Navigator in what you just said.
For those viewers that only tuned in last week or today, can you walk us through what was the whole issue?
What was the whole situation with the police using Navigator and what is Navigator for those who talked?
Well, Navigator is a public relations, government relations firm, an issues management firm, a lobbyist firm.
And they were brought in by the Ottawa Police Service to help them.
And they are the ones that created some false narratives about children going to be taken away.
And the Children's Aid Society was very troubled about this nonsense story.
They also knew that a lot of the truckers had their pets with them, which many truckers have dogs and small dogs that they travel with for companionship, that they were going to bring in the Humane Society and take them away too.
It just showed the extent to which they were prepared to go and the fact that they were prepared to spend so many taxpayer dollars from citizens of Ottawa on this Navigator outfit was remarkable.
And how the simplest and the most Canadian thing to have happened would have been for the prime minister or some of his cabinet ministers to say, hey, can we have a dialogue about this?
Can you share with us your concerns as to what brought you to Ottawa and what you think we've got wrong as a government?
And we can explain to you why we did what we did and why we think we got it right.
That's what we normally do in Canada, but not under Trudeau's Canada.
No, I think that it's totally outrageous.
I mean, you think about all the city officials and members in government that are now talking about this, like they're like they're so surprised that after two years of them being silent and not listening to the public outcry of all of these restrictions being put into place, that something actually came out of it.
It wasn't what they wanted.
And so now they're crying about it.
And I think that it's ridiculous that they didn't think at some point that something wouldn't be done, that people wouldn't stand up for their rights and freedoms, that they would say no more.
When I listened to the testimony of the two non-police witnesses today, the protesters, the protester, representative protester from Windsor and then from Coutz, is they both talk about how incredibly harmful the government restrictions were, not just the federal, but the provincial and the municipal ones as well.
And anytime one of the witnesses, and think about you both observing this either virtually or in the room, I find whenever a witness brings that up, there's this instant awkwardness and tension by the commissioner and the commission council.
It's just like they want the harms that the government did to tens of millions of Canadians to be whitewashed away from history and never spoken about again.
And that is not how we heal.
And that is not how we prevent this from happening again.
Crowd Energy Shifts00:02:27
We have to talk about these things.
And this is why they're trying so hard also to object to any evidence that's being brought forward that would highlight the brutalities from the police and from the government officials themselves.
It's so obvious what's going on.
And I totally agree with you.
There's this weird silence in the room and like uncomfortable shifting where they're just kind of holding their breath, hoping that they don't see something that is, well, true, but something that is so true that, you know, I'm just hoping that someone comes forward, that they're not counting on coming forward and just being like, actually, this is what happened.
And then that's it.
You know, I totally agree.
And I think that we can all notice it when you're actually in the room.
You can see even the people in the crowd, like they respond to what is being said.
When it's something they disagree with, you can see the crowd energy switch.
When it's something they agree with, you can notice the crowd energy switch.
And when someone like Tamara Alish who talks about the fact that people in her community were committing suicide so much that the community, yeah, the community of medicine had decided to stop reporting the suicide.
When you hear Tamara Alish speak about her experience traveling across Canada and coming across families and people that jump in her arms crying because they thought about committing suicide, when you hear all these stories, the crowd energy switches.
And I think that people at home can actually notice the honesty.
And once again, I don't think this would happen.
I hope this wouldn't be happening.
And I don't believe it would in a country where we have someone else as Justin Trudeau, someone else and Justin Trudeau as our prime minister, someone who doesn't do go on a drag queen show.
I saw that today.
Guys, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go to Canada's drag race.
Just write it on Twitter after the live stream.
But yeah, I think that if we had a different prime minister and Justin Trudeau, that wouldn't be the case.
And unfortunately, he's the one that we're stuck with.
I wanted to make a little point on that too.
I just think it's very interesting that we have like one of the biggest things in Canadian history happening right now, at least it will be in my lifetime, fingers crossed, that nothing crazier happens than this, really.
But instead of focusing on this and actually putting towards some sort of effort to, you know, put into the minds of the people that are tuning into this every single day or the people that are testifying that he will have some sort of greater part in this, you know, that he's called to testify as well and that he'll be there.
Instead, you just see all of the headlines are Justin Trudeau is going to be on a drag show.
He's going to be, he's going to have some sort of my brain.
Watching the Inquiry Matters00:03:49
No, it's these things.
Going on a drag queen show than negotiating with protesters.
Anyway, I won't spend too much time on Justin Trudeau's drag queen experience.
Let's take a look at clip number four from where we see Alan Honor, a good friend from the Democracy Fund, cross-examine OPP Deputy Chief Ehrlich.
Superintendent Early, you can tell me, though, that, and to the credit of you and your team, that you managed to get this blockade at the Ambassador Bridge cleared within two days of your appointment as CIC.
Yes.
And you would agree with me then that you and your team managed to resolve one of the most urgent priorities in the country without the benefit of the Emergencies Act.
Correct.
Thank you.
Point blank.
That's all I have to say.
Point blank when asked.
There was no, well, I'm not sure it was.
Yes, that's right.
Yes, exactly.
You know, to our point.
I wrote an article recently for Rebel News about how the liberals tried to create an emergency, control the narrative out of the information they had during the Freedom Convoy in order to enact the Emergencies Act.
And I got a bunch of response of people saying, Are you actually watching the inquiry?
Are you actually watching the inquiry?
Everyone says that it was necessary.
You can see how necessary it was.
It's unbelievable.
I don't think that people are actually listening to the inquiry because just now, once again, helpful but not necessary.
And she didn't even say helpful.
She just said it wasn't necessary.
How many times have you been hearing this?
Consistently, there's been all of the witnesses when the questions are narrowly framed to be clear and to stop this obfuscation and measling out stuff.
They've always said, yeah, that we didn't need it.
We didn't need it.
We didn't ask for it.
It wasn't necessary.
We did what we did without it.
It provided no difference.
There's no hope left for the government now.
The evidence from all of the people who would be in the know as to whether the criteria to invoke the Emergencies Act were present have testified under oath with great clarity that none of the conditions were present as we just saw in that clip.
The way that that police official responded and the tone in which she said correct, she obviously, she also added by her body language, isn't it obvious?
Yeah.
Right.
It's like obviously correct.
We didn't need it.
No, for sure.
Didn't need it.
Didn't use it.
I think as you just mentioned, any straightforward, clear, and concise lawyer like Millertime from like Brendan Miller, like Beth Sheva van den Berg, like Alan Honor, like Artuan from JCCF.
I think whenever these lawyers ask her question, it shows that the government was wrong.
It shows that they were not in the rights to invoke the emergencies because correct me if I'm wrong, but I think for the emergencies act for the EA to be invoked, it needs to be necessary.
Am I wrong?
Absolutely.
I mean, this used to be called the War Measures Act.
This is this is we've invoked it three other times.
One was World War I. Can you guess the second time?
World War II.
And the third time was the FLQ crisis when they'd assassinated a politician and kidnapped an ambassador.
And they were blowing things up.
Diverse Communities Embrace00:02:40
And then here we had hardworking non-laptop class Canadians of every ethnic and religious background.
Uh, peacefully protesting, cleaning and snow removal in the streets, feeding the homeless, um uh, Quebeckers and Albertans embracing one another, which is rare.
Yes yes uh um, and and saying enough, we need our Canada back.
So for the prime minister to do it, it's obvious, you know petulant child temper tantrum I mentioned the other day.
There's a reason there's nothing on his desk.
It's for the staff's safety, because we know he probably throw things when they come in and give them bad stuff around.
Yeah, I think that she forgot costume loving.
He loves to wear, to wear different types of costumes.
That might be the reason why he hated convoy so much.
He was sad he wasn't invited to go in front of them and wear a Sikh costume or wear a blackface costume.
I was gonna say it's probably because he would turn up in blackface and really no one would like that.
So yeah, exactly with this diverse crowd just mentioned that the crowd was diverse, that Albertans surprisingly, were able to get along with Quebecers, which is rare.
We're seeing it here.
Well, there you have it, Justin Trudeau.
That's incredible.
It truly is.
Wow.
Like it's, there's no effort into any of these looks.
You can tell.
He just takes them on.
See that one where he's posing like as Hitler?
Well, that was a lot of artists come after us.
Some of them are Photoshop and we are aware of it.
But you mentioned the dynamic of the crowd in Ottawa, that Albertans were hugging Quebecers, which is very rare in my opinion, that you saw diverse communities all coming across together.
Can you tell us more about that?
Well, I mean, you know, you heard Tamara Leech's testimony that in her history is one where she had lost hope on Canada as a federation or a confederation and wanted to support the independence of Alberta.
And her experience in Ottawa and since has restored her hope in Canada as a unified nation.
And she testified to this, but I knew of it before, that she's already taken, started to learn how to speak French.
And she has spent a tremendous amount of time when she's been able to in Quebec with all of her new Quebec friends.
Yeah, you know, I truly look forward to having discussion with Tamara Leech in French.
Consequences of Past Suffering00:03:20
That'll be a nice discussion.
So how far is she into learning French?
I don't know.
I guess you're going to get to test her.
You're going to see when she's allowed to speak to the people.
Yeah, when you get your exclusive.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Coming soon, guys.
Stay tuned for that.
That'll be great.
All right.
Well, thank you so much for coming on, Keith.
It's already past three minutes past the time we're supposed to be on.
Thanks so much.
And until next time, I guess.
Thank you both.
Of course.
All right, let's take a quick break.
And when we come back, we'll have Sydney Fizard, another rebel news contributor, to talk to us about Alberta, Couds, and a lot more.
so stay tuned for that guys.
Freedom in 2022 is certainly about being able to make free choices for ourselves and for our family who we believe are the best.
We have seen so much suffering over the last two years.
People who die alone in terrible conditions.
People losing dream jobs, polarized families, and a society that insults and yell at each other for making a different medical choice.
But people have risen, and it will be through them that the future will have an important meaning for all of you, but especially for the next generation.
Rebend News has been present at every step of this great challenge.
But so many other pioneers who you could meet and hear at our great conference about freedom for our beautiful country, which is Canada.
This conference, which will be held in Calgary and Toronto, will show you the faces of the influence of freedom that you have seen over the past two years.
You don't want to miss this.
So get your ticket now at RibbennewsLive.com.
And it will be a pleasure to see you there and meet you in large numbers.
It's time to drop these masks and let the truth shine.
We must redouble our efforts.
Mayor Khan, I was hoping that you would answer my question.
What consequences are there going to be for people that don't abide by the climate green transition?
It's not an interview.
What are the consequences going to be?
Mr. Adler, you flew over 5,000 miles to be here to attend a summit that is promoting the elimination of fossil fuels.
Isn't that hypocritical?
And the decision I made was that it was better for me to physically be here than to not be here.
They are doing like in here to make a statement that they care about the South governments, the South countries of the Global Tao, but I don't think that that's not happening.
Here with Sidney Fezzard from Alberta in the studio.
Coup Border Blockade Tensions00:15:11
Sydney, how are you doing?
I'm doing all right.
It's been a long day at the Commission.
I'm glad to be joining everyone.
Great.
So Sydney is our Coups Border Situation Specialist who's going to be talking to us a little bit more about what went on at the Coups border blockade back in February, right?
Yep.
Yeah, back in February, in the beginning, the tail end of January, I should say.
And I should also say to my left is Kian Simone, who's also there for a very extended amount of time.
We suffered through the conditions that they did as well.
All the protesters down there, negative 30 felt like 40, 30 kilometer winds.
It was brutal, but their determination was like nothing you'd ever seen.
Yeah, so we'll get to that shortly, but just before that, just to make management happy, we have our Rebel News Live events in Toronto and Calgary, Toronto on November 19th.
And Calgary on November 25th, if you want your tickets, you can go ahead and visit rebelnewslive.com and there you will be able to meet some interesting guests.
It's Mara Leish, Drea Humphrey, Ezra Levan is going to be there.
Sheila Gunnery as well.
We're going to be there as well.
So that'll be great.
All right.
Sydney, do you want to give us a quick rundown?
I know it took a long time for you saying it coups with Kian and everything.
Can you give us a quick rundown of what exactly went on there?
Oh, at the blockade or today?
Yeah, so yeah.
Well, the rough summary is it?
Pardon me.
The rough summary was that at the time of the Coups blockade and as the slow roll was arriving in the area, it was the same time roughly that the convoy to Ottawa was arriving in Ottawa and consequently the weeks that it stayed.
So that's a place that was a little closer to home for many Albertans who couldn't make the trek across the country, but still wanted to show their support.
And they did.
And thousands upon thousands of Albertans came out to show how unhappy they were, not only with the federal restrictions around COVID and a lot of the mandates that have been put forward, but as well most of the Alberta specific, the provincial restrictions that we saw.
So they took part in this blockade that ultimately started as a slow roll.
And then I guess most of the people decided, well, you know what?
I think we're all here.
Why are we going to leave?
We want to make our voices heard and we feel like it hasn't been done for the last two years.
And that's exactly what they did.
And Marco said today, you know, they were there for 18 days, a lot of them.
And I covered 16 of that.
And it was all the while it was entirely peaceful.
You know, at the end, Marco mentioned that to his knowledge, there was only 13 individuals that were arrested.
And that is from the execution of warrants that happened on February 13th and 14th.
And the RCMP moved in, they arrested a bunch of people.
A couple of those individuals got the charges stayed.
A couple of individuals have more serious charges and have been denied bail.
I can't speak to the validity of those charges, but nonetheless, they remain behind bars.
And ultimately, that moment near the end was the moment where the protesters and Marco mentioned this.
They saw the news that was coming out.
They saw the representation on the 13th and 14th of the Coots blockade and the way the media was portraying it.
And it was all, you know, guns, guns, guns, weapons seized, weapons seized.
And that wasn't the message that they were trying to convey.
This event that took place blocks and blocks away.
It might not sound like much in a city, but in a small town where you can literally see the other end of the town, it's, I guess some people would bring that proximity up and they got labeled with Coots.
And all of a sudden, the media was reporting on the Coutz blockade as a Coutz weapons seized yada yada.
And they decided that their message had been heard.
They don't want to be affiliated with any extremism that was possibly present.
Again, I can't speak to the validity of these charges, but that was the moment when they decided to back up.
I feel like there's probably a bunch of stuff I'm going to say.
Oh, well, that was great, Brenda.
I understood everything that went on.
Generally speaking, I think that you, I think we both got a sense of what Coots was like.
Yeah, I went there for, I think I went there twice, but you, yeah, you're, you know what's you know what's going on 100%.
Yeah.
Well, I like to think so.
But I don't think, I mean, even today, I don't think the RCB had much of a clue and you'd think that they'd be.
Well, there you go.
That's a great, that's a great example.
Well, you know, and maybe I don't want to cast blame too quickly, but they talk one of the important things that Marco mentioned today was Arctur Pulowski, who spent, I believe it was 51 days behind bars for his alleged, I don't know how you would call it.
He gave a sermon.
Yeah, he gave a preacher.
He's a preacher.
Preachers preach.
The issue that was proposed out of that was that he had somehow incited them to stay at the border blockade and whatnot.
And Marco mentioned before Archer Pulowski even made his speech that got in 51 days in prison for keeping the truckers at the border, the truckers had already decided that they were going to stay at the border.
So honestly, that says a lot.
Yeah, exactly.
And it was already revealed as well that this was a leaderless movement.
So unless they're proposing that Art Pulowski was in fact the leader of this entire thing, then there you go.
It's a little bit like what they were talking about here with Ottawa Hydra.
I think that was the name of the operation that the either the OPS or the OPEC is.
That's right.
Yeah, because it's a monster with multiple heads.
Exactly.
If you took one down, three other one would rise up and take the lead as well.
So, said, is there a reason why you're here in Ottawa today?
The great province of Alberta to come to Ottawa.
No reason aside from the fact that Marco is a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission.
I know there's some discussion around how nice Ottawa is.
I will say the weather is a little warmer than it is in Calgary, if you like that sort of thing.
But my focus is on those individuals who are related to Coots who are now here for the Public Order Emergency Commission.
And I could add to that, the Public Order and Emergency Commission, I believe, was invoked on the 13th.
14th?
14th, right?
Yeah, sorry, the 14th.
The 13th is when the execution of warrants started through the night and then into the wee hours of the morning.
We're talking like 2, 3 a.m., I think, is when that wrapped up.
And after that, I think Marco said around 12 o'clock on the 14th is when they said, you know, we're going to pack up, we're going to head home.
That's when they finalized conversation with the RCMP on that front.
And I believe after that was when Trudeau invoked the Emergency Act, Emergencies Act.
The 14th.
Bit of an interesting timing.
What was that?
On the 14th on Valentine's Day.
That's a great way to say, I love you to Canadian.
No, William.
But what is really interesting about that is, I know this is just my opinion.
But yeah, that is really interesting timing, isn't it?
After everything had been resolved, so to speak, right?
This is exactly what we saw in Windsor as well.
Actually, they had the tow trucks prepared and everything.
But that blockade has disassembled before the EA was invoked.
It was not necessary there either.
Well, and I can say in Coots, I mean, we spoke to the individuals there who were in attendance and, you know, like the Emergencies Act is upon us.
You know, is this a concern for you guys?
You know, you're clearly at a demonstration that might see the crack of or the what do you call it? The whip come down with the emergencies act involved.
They're like, no, this really had nothing to do with it.
It'll take time to bring that enforcement into play.
It was quite literally an entirely separate matter.
Yeah.
The invocation of the emergencies act and the fears that it might get used against the protesters of the Coots blockade and surrounding demonstrations.
Yeah, and not to cut anyone off, but we've been talking for a little while and not everyone at home has watched the testimony of Marco.
So if we could take a look at clip number nine to show the viewers at home what Marco, the protester from Coots, had to say until all mandates and restrictions are lifted.
Do you see that?
I do.
It also says, calling all semis, trucks, SUVs, cars, meeting point flying Jay Lethbridge, which you referenced earlier, 5 a.m. border shutdown on this day that Albertans hold the line to take back our given freedoms.
Do not budge, do not move, do not surrender.
Did you ever see this flyer?
This is the first time I've seen this.
So was it your personal intention to block the border and not give up until all the mandates and restrictions were lifted, as is stated in this flyer?
It was never my intention to block the border.
It was always our intention to create an inconvenience at the border in the afternoon of January the 29th.
But you would agree based on this flyer that it was some people's intention at least.
Based on this flyer, I could see that there were people who would have these intentions.
You always talk about it.
When the crowd's big enough, you're always bound to have some bad apples.
I think that was the case right here.
There are some people who had intentions that went against what the original protesters of the Coots border blockade wanted to see happen because it was such a big crowd.
The same thing in Ottawa.
You know, there were some people with different intentions that wanted to stir up trouble, but I don't think it's reflective of the view of the whole crew.
In addition to that, I think that Marco put it very well.
He said our intention was to create inconvenience.
It wasn't to block the border completely.
And AOC, the leftists from the Democratic Party herself in the United States once said that the point of a protest is to create inconvenience.
That's the whole point of a protest.
I mean, yeah, no, that's again, I wish that I had something different to say.
You know, we agree on all these points.
I'm really hoping that we see something else come out of this.
Dynamic, what Marco just explained, is that the same dynamic that you saw in Coos, Alberta?
Well, let me just speak to what two of the things Marco said: he was alleged by the RCMP to be a key participant who, as he said multiple times today, had no intentions of blocking the highway.
Yeah, so the feeling I get is that these things run a little contradictory.
And then another thing you mentioned is he spent every day working with the RCMP to maintain public safety.
And this is something that he alluded to: is that he was just kind of by his character traits, by his position as a Fort McLeod town councilor, he kind of understood how government worked and he kind of had his hands on, you know, being a decent communicator.
And you think about a bunch of truckers, well, and I mean this quite literally with no disrespect, they spend their time in isolation.
Yes, there's the radio, there are conversations and communications taking place, but that is very much one of the industries where I would imagine at least, you know, you are more of a solitary person.
You're not honing your communication skills every single day as you know, in opposition to someone like a town councilor.
So it was kind of, and this is the sense that I got was that it was just people saw, you know, this is my skill set.
I'm walking into this demonstration.
There was, it was very chaotic.
There was really no organization until everyone was sharing a building.
And they're like, okay, well, what do we do about the toilet?
You know, how do we eat?
You know, these simple things that people were like, oh, I know how to take care of that.
I think to touch on the communication aspect that you just mentioned, I think Marco, in his testimony, also said he had great communication with the residents and the school board, the people that were here.
He was in discussion, I believe he stated during his testimony.
Not just discussion.
He actually was in communication with officials in the school board.
So that's school buses.
Okay, well, there you go.
Let's take a look at that.
Let's take a look at the clip.
Back to the lanes opening up.
We were getting, we were in discussions with residents, school board, et cetera, to allow the buses free flow, to allow traffic, you know, the residents in and out, all of that.
Plus, we were in no position to hold the highway shut.
So we open up a lane on each side.
I think that's what you just said.
That's weird.
It's almost like I was there and I watched it.
But yeah, I think that just really goes to show that, again, an inconvenience is not the same as committing an act of terror or terrorism.
They very much worked with the locals there.
They had great communication with the RCMP.
And again, they allowed school buses to come through and go as they please.
So inconvenience is not terrorism, even though that's what the Ottawa residents here.
Oh, for sure.
I think it is.
No, Master Fleur who talks about microaggression and thinks it's the valid reason to involve the EEA.
That's lunacy.
But you were both in Ottawa and Coots, you just mentioned, right?
Yes, yeah.
So what was similar in both places?
What was different between both protests?
Yeah, I've talked with Sid about this a few times, but the main difference was the overall, I guess, vibe, the energy between the people.
Like in the beginning, the convoy in Ottawa, obviously, everyone was celebrating.
Everyone had come together for the first time in so long.
And there was this really lighthearted and loving atmosphere, very friendly, very family-friendly, I might add.
Everyone was there.
It was just, it was incredible to see so many people smiling and dancing and to just, yeah, to just kind of like bask in that energy.
And then we drove back after being there for three days, Mocha and myself.
We didn't even go home.
We went straight to Coots to meet up with Sid and Kian.
And tensions were very high there.
It felt different.
It was, you could definitely feel the tension because we weren't really sure what was going to happen in regards to the RCMP.
Even though things were peaceful, it just was a different overall feeling.
I think you can touch on that more, probably, Sid, right?
Well, and even within the demonstrations that were happening in the area, there was the Milk River one, the Coots.
That's right, yeah.
And then a variety that would pop up all over the province.
And both of those as well even had very different atmospheres.
Yeah.
But in terms of, well, I guess in terms of Ottawa, the Milk River demonstrations and the blockade, that felt like to undermine the activities that they were doing, but it felt more like fun, basically.
It was fun.
It was a bit more of a party.
The select individuals that were in Coots, I mean, it wasn't like, sure, there was, you know, a barrier set up in Ottawa and stuff like that, but Coots was isolated.
Like they showed a map during the commission of Coots and the surrounding area.
And it's the regular Google map that you see.
If you look at the terrain version of that map, it's a barren wasteland.
I remember.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
It is isolated from everything and the border's right there.
Yeah.
And so you're thinking to yourself, well, if it was any closer to the border, then it would be a legitimate border issue.
100%.
A bit of a situation there.
But because of the tightness of getting into the area, which is something the locals even had issue with the RCMP.
But the people who were there, the people who had their trucks on the road, especially into the second week and so forth, everything was on the line.
Yeah, for sure.
And these weren't, even though everything was on the line, they weren't acting violently.
They weren't being malicious towards the RCMP.
They just, I don't know if I can use this expression, basketballs to the wall, right?
It was everything was there for them.
And it was a very tense moment.
It was make or break for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
One Last Clip00:08:29
Guys, we're going to have to cut this short tonight.
And here's the reason why.
As you might know, in the United States, our southern, our southern neighbors, they have the midterms election.
It's the extremely, extremely important election.
That's where we're going to see whether or not the Republicans are going to take over different levels of government.
We're going to see how Joe Biden reacts.
We're going to see how many polling machines get broken or something weird happens to them.
It won't happen because nothing unusual happens during election time.
All the elections are fair and not rigged at all.
Yeah.
They're not rigged.
They're 100% fair.
So if you want to watch our midterm coverage, you can just head on to our next live stream, which is going to happen right after this one ends.
That's why we're going to have to end a little bit early.
But Sid, I had one last question for you.
I think Marco has a court case coming up soon, along with other truckers.
Can you touch on that?
TruckerDefensefund.ca.
I'm just going to give you the URL now, but Alex, Marco, and George, the three individuals at September the 16th, RCMP alleged them to be key participants of the blockade, which is from that stemmed three charges of mischief over $5,000, one per individual.
Now, these individuals, the maximum penalty, I believe, is 10 years in prison.
So that's what these guys are faced with now.
Again, for their alleged being key participants of the Coots blockade.
And, you know, they've mentioned that they were, at least Marco, was in deep correspondence with the RCMP.
He had no intentions of breaking the laws and stuff like that.
He was just the person who people happened to talk to.
You see a smiling face, maybe you're more likely to approach that person.
So now these three individuals, some of the greatest guys you'll meet out there, the Salt of the Earth Canadians that you grow to know and love from your own family, they're now being charged with these charges of mischief over $5,000.
And again, key participants of the blockade.
Well, Arthur Polowski, what do they say about him?
That it was his fault that truckers stayed at the border.
And he spent 51 days in prison for that, or behind bars, I should say, for that.
Where is this coming from?
Is what I want to know.
But luckily, Williamson Law, they were the legal team that was responsible for being negotiators between RSCP and the demonstrators.
They were lubricant to the situation, I guess you could say.
We've been assisting with that.
It's been crowdfunded legal defense for them.
And now, Williamson Law, we've retained them to help Chalix, Marco, and Chad with these charges of mischief that is going to be faced before the courts.
TruckerDefensefund.ca is where you have to go if you want to help join in, because right now they need your help more than anything.
Yeah, no, that would be definitely great to follow along how that's going to play out.
And you're staying here for the next few days, right?
Yes.
So you'll be able to have interviews with all these people.
More than likely.
The commission doesn't seem to run on as nice a schedule as we would all like.
Yes, it should be hopefully the case.
All right.
Well, I definitely look forward to see all that coverage.
So we can go to truckerdefensefund.ca.
All right.
Well, guys, if you want to see everything that is going on with the truckers that were at the Coots border blockade, you can head on to truckerdefensefund.ca.
All right.
Let's take a look at one last clip from Marco's testimony tonight.
Then we'll wrap up and you'll be able to switch over to our midterm election live stream, which is going to take place in a few minutes right after this one ends.
So let's take a look at some of what Marco had to say.
Premier Kenny did make an announcement on February 8th that the provincial government was announcing a plan for a gradual easing of the pandemic-related public health measures.
Is that right?
Correct.
And based on our response to his message, it was not the message we were looking for.
And what was his message, and what was the message you were looking for?
The message that Kenny gave was a phased approach with a lot of maybes.
And there was no surety of anything in that message.
It spoke to a lot of different aspects, and there was a lot of different methods to back out of that phased approach.
But it really was something because they had to address, you know, there was pressure, even though we weren't communicating, there was pressure.
Coots did apply pressure to the provincial government.
And this was not just exclusively Coots.
This was, you know, you all, the evidence is submitted to the slow rolls in Edmonton, to the protests of 5,000 to 10,000 in Calgary, the inconveniences on highways all over the province.
Obviously, the focus is on Coots, Ottawa, Emerson, Ambassador, Sarnia, et cetera.
But Albertans were frustrated and they were making it very aware to their government that they wanted to see change.
So we were willing to have those discussions and to work on a realistic plan.
You mentioned Jess and Kenny.
Just one last thing.
Celine, what is it that you noticed from her leadership?
If you could wrap that up super quick about Daniel Smith as opposed to Jason Kenney's leadership.
Yeah, exactly.
Yes.
Okay.
Well, I mean, there's a big difference.
I mean, specifically, I proposed a question to Danielle Smith during the AGM, the annual general meeting that the Conservative Party of Alberta does hold, where she actually apologized, even though she was not in power at the time where these restrictions and mandates were put into play.
But she apologized to all people that faced prosecution during that time for going against or having the mind to withhold their personal medical information.
So I think just even saying that shows the huge enormous difference between her and Kenny, among many things.
Well, you know, that's a good start.
But are we going to have to worry about these three Albertans?
Again, more Albertans going to prison for breaching COVID violations.
I mean, Arthur Polowski, Tamara Leech, Tim Stevens.
There's so many Albertans who have had to face time behind bars because of these COVID violations.
Is that going to continue?
Well, we're going to see that, right?
Because she did say that she was currently looking into the legalities behind those things.
So I do hope 100% that that is exactly what we see: those charges are thrown out and that they are granted the amnesty that they were promised during her campaign.
Yeah.
So just before we sign up, we're going to sign up in a minute.
I know that you know that Doug Ford doesn't want to testify at the inquiry, and we currently have a petition to push him to testify.
So if you want to sign our petition that we will attempt to go drop off to Ford's office for Doug Ford to testify in front of the Public Order Emergency Commission, go to stophiding, stophiding.ca, stophiding.ca.
There, you will be able to sign our petition to make Doug Ford testify at the Emergencies Act Inquiry.
All right, if you want to follow our midterm election coverage, go to well, you'll be able to sign up and head on to our next live stream.
Thanks so much for joining us today, Celine.
Thanks so much for your time, Sydney.
And have a good evening, everyone.
The perception around Coots, unfortunately, due to the discovery of the guns and such, has tainted what Coots was.
And for me, what's important is that we were there to demand that our representatives communicate with us like they are obligated to do and like what had not been happening.
We were never able to enter in official communication with the government, but looking back at the political state of affairs in Alberta, it might have been better for the Kennedy government to actually have done that.
The COVID restrictions and the mandates, they messed with our lives.
Like we see the inconsistencies of the experts.
And I don't necessarily blame them.
The information provided was what they went off, and that information is at times is now no longer factual either.
Things, you know, that the ball kept on getting pushed further down the road, two weeks to flatten the curve and look at where we are now.
And I'm not going to speak to COVID, and I'm no expert on it, but even the experts got it wrong.