Tom Marazzo, a Freedom Convoy veteran and former combat engineer officer (serving since 1998), debunks myths about military coordination while detailing Alberta’s logistical struggles before the Emergencies Act was invoked on February 14, 2022. He criticizes Aaron O’Toole’s weak leadership—despite his RMC graduate and Sea King helicopter navigator background—as a key factor in convoy failures, contrasting with James Topp’s five-deployment combat record. Witnesses like Marlon de Grant (Alberta’s oversight division) revealed protesters dismantled blockades before federal action, while Mario Di Tommaso admitted Ontario was blocked from contacting Ottawa convoy leaders by the feds. The episode ties Trudeau’s Cambodia trip during Remembrance Day, assisted suicide funding, and Emergencies Act misuse to systemic disrespect for veterans and Canadians, framing the convoy as a decentralized "Alamo" standoff against authoritarian overreach. [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.
go to rebelnewslive.com to get your tickets today well welcome back everyone Good evening to everyone listening at home on YouTube, Rumble, Odyssey, Getter, wherever you are listening.
I'm here joined by my great colleague, Celine Gallas from the great province of Alberta.
Celine, how are you doing?
Really good.
There's lots to unpack today, so I hope everyone's buckled in and ready to get right into it.
I think we're all pretty tired.
It's been, what, four weeks?
I don't know, four years, four weeks?
Something like that.
Four years, yeah, right.
Last time we talked about it, we were talking in terms of years.
I think that's how we're all feeling.
Honestly, it's a long inquiry, but always super interesting.
I'm also joined to my left by Freedom Convoy key figure, Tom Morato.
Tom, how are you?
Volunteer.
The volunteer is very good.
Well, on your LinkedIn profile, we see that it is written internship.
Are you an intern or a volunteer?
You know, I guess I could say both because technically interns usually don't make a lot of money if they make any money at all.
So let's go with intern or volunteer.
That's right.
Unless you're an intern hired by the NDP or the Liberal Party at the Parliament, there you are unionized and you make a bunch of money.
They make a lot of money, it turns.
I think that you would be very surprised to see how much money a single intern at Parliament makes when they work for the Liberals or the NDP or the Greens, because the Conservatives don't have the right to be unionized, which is pretty funny.
There's a rumor going around that I actually work directly for Doug Ford.
Wow.
And for the record, I've never been in a room on a Zoom call, phone call.
I've never done smoke signals or chiseling away at stone tablets with Doug Ford.
That's right.
So when we clear that up, I have no knowledge of it.
Well, I think you've been speaking negatively enough about Doug Ford and Justin Trudeau for people to see that you're not the most nice to them.
All right.
If you guys want to chat with us tonight, go to Rumble or Audison there.
You will be able to send us paid chat.
If you send us a chat that is higher than $5, we will be able to read it on air.
A few times I was misgendered.
Afterwards, it was corrected by the person who sent the chat.
But anyways, if you want to chat with us, you can always head on there.
Also, one last announcement before we get right to it.
Listen, Seth, once again, Rebel News Live, RebelNewsLive.com, try and get your ticket.
We will have two events, one in Calgary on the 25th of November and one in Toronto on November 19, 2022.
If you go there, you will be able to hear Tamara Lee speak.
You'll be able to hear our pastor Archer Provosty speak.
As well as Bishop and Reed, who else, Sling?
We've got our friends from True North, Andrew Lawton, as well as Derek Fildebrandt from the Western Standard and many other rebels for you to meet and mingle with.
Exactly.
So if you guys want to have a chance to mingle, that's a great word, mingle.
If you guys want to have a chance to mingle with your favorite Rebel News reporters, your favorite public personas like Tom Morato, who's not a convoy organizer, you can head on to rebelnews.com and get your ticket for either Calgary or Toronto.
That is rebelnews.com.
All right.
Today was the last day of the Emergency Stack Inquiry for the week because tomorrow it is Remembrance Day.
And well, if you go to CPAC or our website or the publicorder emergency commission.com website, you will not see any live stream because we have a break tomorrow.
So today was the last day of the week.
And can you tell us more about the two people that we got the chance to hear from today?
Yes.
So there was two testimonies that we heard today.
So yesterday, as you know, we didn't get to touch on Mario Tommaso's testimony because that was during the time where the lawyer for the Commission Senior Council actually fainted or allegedly fainted.
We're not sure exactly what happened.
Sure, safe to say.
So today we got to see that.
It resumed this afternoon.
And this morning we had from the Alberta government, we had Marlon deGrant.
He's a part of the Law Enforcement Oversight Division for the Ministry of Justice and Solicitor Governor.
So we can take a look at some clips following that.
And then again, this afternoon, we had Mario Di Tommaso.
He's the Deputy Solicitor General for the province of Ontario here.
Right.
So how did you find today?
Your general analysis of how they went?
Gosh, such a loaded question, William.
Well, fresh off the top of my memory, if we can talk about Di Tommaso's, his testimony was very, very lengthy.
I was actually surprised that there was only two testimonies in a full day, but I'm not surprised because there was so much to unpack.
A lot came to light.
We had some clips that revealed, and we'll be able to show you as well.
But one in particular is where he admitted that there was an attempt to contact the convoys, the convoy in Ottawa in particular, by the provincial government in Ontario that was then denied by the federal government.
So that's very breaking to me.
I mean, we've talked about through the course of the last couple of weeks that there has been no attempt to contact the organizers or the convoy in general, excuse me, but that was changed today.
So that is a new piece of information that I think is very important.
And we'd love to show you that clip as well.
Do we have that ready?
I think it was a pretty long day.
And just before we get started and before it gets to Tom, where I notice you've been live tweeting all day, where can people follow your live coverage on Twitter?
Yeah.
So if you go on Twitter, you can go to Celine C-X-L-I-V.
I'll spell my name for you, not Celine like Dion.
It is Italian.
So S-E-L-E-N-E.
And then last part of it is C-X-L-I-V.
We're going to pull it up.
There it is.
And you can follow me for the entire day's proceedings going forward.
I live tweet from the very beginning of the morning to the very end until I come here and I prepare to do the live stream for more in-depth breakdown.
Yeah, of course.
Well, if you want to follow everything minute by minute, play by play, like Brendan Miller would like to say.
You can go to Wales's leave's Twitter account.
Tom, you've been following all day from what I understand.
What is your general takeaway?
Interesting.
I listened to some of the testimony earlier on in the morning.
Perking Up at Military Testimony00:15:36
And obviously, whenever they were talking about the military and that testimony came up, you know, I perked up a little bit and started to listen a little bit more.
But I don't really think that that part of the conversation is overly newsworthy.
But it was interesting to me to see that there was an attempt in Alberta to have the military get involved and provide them with some heavy equipment or towing capacity.
But I think the witness today was talking about how frustrated he was that he knew because in his organization, they had retired military there that were kind of giving advice in terms of what military equipment they could have to go and start towing trucks.
But the, you know, the Canadian forces struggles desperately to keep a lot of its equipment serviceable.
And so it doesn't mean that, you know, just because the military would say, hey, we can't support you and what you're asking for, doesn't mean they don't have the equipment.
It just might mean that it's actually not serviceable.
And so that's always a challenge for the military.
So, I think, you know, when they kind of paint that narrative that, you know, the military couldn't do the job, it's kind of true, but not through any like resistance on the part of the military to get involved.
But more importantly, you know, for a province to request the military, they do have to go through the federal government to get that support.
They just because they're co-located with the military in that province, with CFB Edmonton, they can't just go to Edmonton and say, hey, can you help us out here?
They actually have to request that through proper channels and through the chain of command within the various levels of government, federal government, because the military doesn't work for the premier.
It's not like in the United States where a governor has his own military in every state.
Here we have one military and they all are federal and they answer to the minister of national defense and the prime minister.
So, you know, it was interesting to see the interpretation of how to employ the military in a situation like that.
And then there was discussion about using them for using the reservists, and that was denied by the Canadian military as well.
So just some interesting kind of perceptions on how to go about using the military for an operation like this.
And I guess the last comment I could have about that is that, you know, it's very, very important for the military to never to be seen as being in charge with a law in a law enforcement capacity.
They don't want Canadians to ever have that perception that the military is actively working against its own citizens in any way.
We have a law enforcement, various levels of law enforcement agencies within our country.
They do law enforcement activities.
The military does war fighting and overseas.
And so it's important that the military is never seen as being involved in a law enforcement activity.
Well, yeah, and I thought that it was really interesting when he almost went in to criticize the fact that they refused to get involved by going to the as far as to say that, well, you know, they have so-and-so equipment to remove much larger tanks and goes to list a type of tank that I cannot recall because I did not retain that information.
But even to just go out of the way to make a side comment that had nothing to do, he already disclosed that he knew that the military decided to stay out of it.
Yes.
It was really interesting to see.
And rightfully so, because during the convoy itself, there was a lot of rumors flying around.
Like the truckers were very, very agitated and worked up.
A lot of anxiety about the military being called in.
And I remember doing one of the live streams that I did where I repeatedly stated there is no mission for the Canadian Armed Forces right now.
So the level of anxiety amongst the truckers needs to come down.
They don't have a mission.
So let's just kind of put that to rest.
This is a law enforcement government of Canada problem.
This is not a military problem in any kind.
And I spoke to a lot of people where we were working or on the street and I said, look, they're not a factor in this.
The War Measures Act or the Emergency Act would have introduced a different dynamic.
But it was still my firm belief that even then the military would not want to participate in something like that.
But I will say, which is disappointing, and maybe it'll come out in the future, but I think that there was a, you know, we in the military, we would say that somebody was leaning forward, meaning kind of getting ready to do a possible task.
And I think there is some evidence that the chief of defense staff was leaning forward and anticipating that maybe he would be employing his soldiers in Ottawa.
Goodness.
Well, that's an interesting analysis.
Just going to start by, we're going to start with the commission with the clip that we have from today.
We're going to start with clip number one.
We're already starting with an interesting clip.
Not the mayor, sorry, what did I say, mayor?
Marlon de Gras from the Alberta Public Safety Minister said that the protesters at the Couds border blockade were already dismantling the blockade on the morning of February 14th, the day that Justin Trudeau decided to involve the Emergencies Act once against Valentine's Day.
Very ironic.
Let's take a look at what de Gras had to say.
Sorry, let me back up.
The evidence we've heard is that protesters met in the morning of February 14th and decided they would be leaving the next morning.
Were you advised on the 14th that they had made that decision?
I was.
And do you recall around what time you were advised?
It was very early in the morning that I was advised of the enforcement actions seven well, very early for me.
Sorry.
Seven, seven thirty.
Now, I'm struggling now to recall if it was at that particular conversation or in one of the conversations I had in the morning that I was advised that it looked like the protesters were now dismantling.
I want to think it was kind of a little bit later on, but that would be speculative on my part.
It was all within the morning, certainly of the 14th.
So within the morning, you understood they were leaving, would be leaving the next morning?
Or in beginning preparation that day, actually, and there was already events taking people taking down tents and structures and leaving on the 14th.
I thought that his testimony was pretty interesting.
He didn't have the same dialogue as, you know, Doug Ford or people from the OPS or DOPP or Jim Watson had.
He didn't seem to be as prone to a federal military response to the convoy and to blockades as other people were.
Well, you know why?
Because he's from Alberta.
That's why.
But yeah, no, in all seriousness, like this also correlates with other testimonies that we saw coming in from Coops.
So Mayor Jim Willett, as well as Marco Hugenbos.
And no, those were the only two that testified from Coots.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
In regards to the specifics.
Yeah, directly from Coots.
So that all matches up.
And it's also the same with the other border blockades that we saw.
The one in Windsor, specifically on Ambassador Bridge.
Those blockades, so to speak, were all dismantled prior to the Emergencies Act being invoked as well.
So I don't know.
Just to reiterate it, the convoy in Ottawa had nothing to do in terms of the organizational purposes to the convoy and coups.
Well, not the convoy, the blockades and coups.
There was, to my knowledge, absolutely no connection to any other protest across Canada.
And I testified to that fact as well.
And Justice Relot actually asked me if I was making an assumption or if it was actually, I knew for a fact there was no connection.
And so for this particular question, it's an important question that I remember speaking to people where I was located and I said, we are not getting involved in any other convoy or any blockade of any kind.
We need to be very, very specific about that.
Maybe you could, I think you can make a case that the convoy inspired other people to take action in their area.
But I didn't want to get ever painted or accused, you know, and here we are November.
I didn't want to ever be in a situation where we would be accused as being like this national headquarters coordinating all the things, which interesting is when the commissioner of the OPP was testifying, he said he was absolutely convinced that there was national coordination in order to test the limitations of law enforcement across the country and across the province.
And I fundamentally disagree with that assessment.
And it's unfortunate that that's a statement that he had kind of made on the stand.
I was very, very frustrated by that.
Yeah, but you know, I think, I think it's unfortunate that he chose those words like that, but not unfortunate in the way that it does anything to deface already what we know, which is that there is no way, there's no way that there was communication through, they all happen at different times.
If anything, I'd like to just point out that I believe that Coutz actually inspired the rest of the blockades because they were the first ones to just decide to drop themselves down and stop moving from a slow roll.
In Ottawa, there was so much going on that even despite Coots happening, I couldn't even catch up to Coots myself until we were almost all the way to Coots in Alberta from our trip back because there's so much going on.
And that's a huge aspect, right?
And you know what's interesting is I watched the Trucker Rebellion, the documentary that you guys did.
And what's his name?
What's his name?
I don't know.
He's around here.
He's somewhere in this building.
He was heavily involved in this documentary.
Would you mean Kian Simoni Rebelskin's mother?
And I think if I look over my shoulder, I'm looking right at him.
The men behind the camera.
But I, you know, I learned so much from that documentary.
And as I was watching it, I have to admit, I felt a little bit of sadness in the fact that even during these two things were happening simultaneously, I wasn't paying more attention to the other events across Canada because what they were doing in Coots was just unbelievable.
Like I was very, very impressed when I watched the documentary and see and could see what people were going through.
And I know somebody that was at Coots that I met this summer when I was traveling out there.
And so what was happening around the country, we didn't need to coordinate it.
It wasn't required.
It just was not important to coordinate it.
Everybody was doing their own thing in the best way that they thought to get the change that we were all looking for.
And we all had almost the same goal.
So the fact that it was grassroots across the country is absolutely perfect.
And, you know, to speak a little bit more on that, if you wanted to check out that documentary yourself, you can go to TrekkerTruckerdocumentary.com and you can watch it there.
It goes in depth behind the scenes RCMP action.
So the negotiations that went down, we had rebel news reporters embedded in that entire story.
So go check it out at truckerdocumentary.com.
Of course.
Well, definitely interesting to hear your perspective from someone who was actually at the Coots, Coots Border blockade.
I wasn't there myself.
I was still in Ottawa, still in the gorgeous but corrupt city of Ottawa, and you were in a small town of the great province of Alberta.
How was in Coots?
It was very different than from when I was in Ottawa.
So there was kind of two aspects to Coutz and that area in general that's really important to note is that there was a protest stopped at Milk River, this very small city as well, or village, I guess you could call it, right before Coutz, which is just bordering on Montana in the U.S.
So that atmosphere there at Milk River was a lot like Ottawa in the sense that it was, you know, super party themed.
The atmosphere was really uplifting.
It was joyful.
People were very cheery and merry and smiling and sharing their stories and just happy to be united as one.
And then you travel a couple of kilometers more and you hit Coots and it's a very small village, about 250 people.
And the tensions were high because that's where the border was next to.
And that's where all of the negotiations with the RCMP were going down.
That was the main.
If there was a control hub for if they were going to move, if they weren't going to move, everyone there was kind of in contact with each other.
And again, with no specific leader, which is very interesting, but it shows you that if there's a common goal, obviously people are going to put aside any differences that they might have for a common theme, for a common movement.
And that's exactly what we saw in Coots.
What's very interesting that you're talking about the fact that both protests had an uplifting spirit, that both protests were super positive.
It was a party-like feeling.
And I think despite, you know, the protests being totally unrelated in terms of a connection between them, apart from their purpose, both protests were uplifting, both protested party-like spirit, as you were talking about.
I think that's very interesting to hear.
And I think that says a lot.
That's my point.
I think that says a lot about the movement, the freedom movement.
Well, it was grassroots in Canada.
You know, it was a grassroots movement from the very beginning.
And I think that they're trying to make all of these different connections about them being in cahoots somehow because they refuse to believe that there's actually that many Canadians that would come together for a common cause and wouldn't be connected in some sense.
But it just points to show how many people were in fact fed up.
And this was all of Canada.
Of course.
All right, to go back on today's topic, let's take a look at the second clip of the day from the Emergency Security College because we're here for the Emergency Security Inquiry.
I'd love to be talking about Alberta all day, about Alberta, the whole live stream.
Let's continue to look at what went on today with clip number two.
So under the heading Alberta, it says that the biggest operational challenge to date is procuring, towing, wrecking equipment and skilled workers to operate the equipment.
That's correct.
By this point, you had most of that equipment at least.
The information that Talal in this message was referencing came from a point in time prior to us having finalized the purchase of the last of the equipment.
So we were still looking for trucks when he and I had a conversation.
And his reference to our conversation contained in this email to Rob Sturge is based on that sort of time-dated information that we were still looking for it.
February 13th Revelations00:05:29
Of course.
And by that point, on February 13th, you had no idea that the federal government was about to invoke the Emergencies Act.
That's correct, sir.
So, you know, just to put some name on the faces, to the left, you had Alan Honor, who is Yak, who is a lawyer with the Democracy Fund, a registered Canadian charity that focuses on fighting for the civil liberties of Canadian.
They have standing in the Public Order Emergency Commission.
So them alongside the GCCH, Justice Center for Constitutional Freedom, and I believe the Canadian Liberty Association, Civil Liberties Association, something on those lines.
Those three have standing all together, which means that they are able to decide, okay, well, who's going to ask the question?
They are able to work together to formulate the question to ask the witnesses.
So in this clip, we saw Alan Honor talk to the Grand.
Is that the way?
Is that his last name?
Le Grand, yeah.
Le Grand, yeah, Le Grand.
Marlon de Grande.
Le Grande.
And he basically said that he had no idea the government would invoke an emergencies act on February 13th.
So the day before Trudeau deciding to say, happy Valentine's Day, Canadians.
I love you so much.
I'm going to trample your civil liberties.
He had no idea the cabinet was going to do so.
Oh, yeah, and that was revealed actually in depth today.
So the government of Alberta had no prior recollection.
And there was, it did come out that there was a meeting prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
And they had no, again, they had no prior notice of what the meeting would be about.
And so they were not involved in any way, shape, or form regarding the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act inquiry, which I'm not surprised because it's Alberta, but also that's insane.
How can you invoke a counterterrorism law, aka what was it?
The war successor to the War Measures Act.
Exactly.
Well put.
Exactly.
Well, yeah, I think it's a great way to say I love you once again, Kenny is on Valentine's Say.
You love them so much that you just want to take their civil liberties away.
Tom, what do you make of that?
Not too much.
Not too much.
Is it surprising?
Well, it is not surprising, but yet the cynical part of me says, come on, you guys all knew.
Yeah.
You all knew.
You had to at least have some sort of suspicions.
You know, remember what I said about leaning forward?
You know, when you're leaning forward, that kind of signals to other people that you got something on the go.
And so I would not ever come out and say he's lying because I don't believe he's lying.
But I would certainly think that they had a sneaking suspicion that something was in the works.
I think there's a difference between having a suspicion and being informed or knowing.
Well, to go a little bit more in-depth on that, it could be possible.
Obviously, it's always possible.
That's why I say I'd love to be a fly on the wall for some of those meetings.
But I think a really interesting, it came out in the testimony yesterday when Jim Willett, the mayor of Coots, was giving his testimony.
But he actually provided information that suggested, and it showed 100% that the ex-minister of transportation, Rajan Sani, was actually going to go to Coots and connect with those protesters.
And she was stopped by the federal, oh, sorry, by the provincial government in Alberta.
So that leaning forward statement would give grounds, I believe, it holds some grounds to provincial government.
Yes.
You know, the other issue is when you're planning something big, you do something called a staff check, which is basically like, do I have the people?
Do I have the equipment?
Do I have all the other resources to move a large body of people from one location to another?
And, you know, you start to think, okay, how do I level all the resources across the province to do this policing that I have to do?
So when you start asking people questions that are related to resources, I think you start to get a sneaking suspicion that you're going to be getting resources.
So, you know, there's lots that you could deductively figure that something is coming up.
No, for sure.
Yeah, that's fair enough, for sure.
You're totally right.
All right, let's go to a quick ad break.
When we come back, we'll look further into today's procedures of the inquiry.
We will also talk about military, veterans, and remembrance day.
And in relation to that, our national drama teacher/slash draft queen performer, Justin Chudo.
All right, let's take a let's take a quick break.
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James Topp's Military Service00:14:13
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So we are back, guys.
Sorry about that.
Technical difficulties here at the Rebel News Studio.
Tom, you were in the military in the past for Canada.
Can you give us a little bit more?
Can you tell us a little bit more about your background in the military?
Yeah, so I actually started off in the reserves in 1990 and I was 16 years old, but I was in my 17th year.
So technically, like after January, you're technically in your 17th year.
So I was eligible to enroll.
And I wanted to be a pilot.
That's what I wanted to do.
That's why I joined.
And I was in, and I joined the reserves to see if I would be interested in military life.
And I remember being a young infantry private, and I hated it.
I just, I hated it.
I really didn't like it.
But then, you know, eight and a half years later, I ended up joining the regular force and I almost got in as a pilot, but then I failed the eye exam.
So I got my next, you know, best option was to become a combat engineer.
And so in 1998, I enrolled in the regular force as a combat engineer officer.
And very similar to the infantry, except that you get to do some pretty cool stuff like, you know, minefields, blowing bridges and stuff like that.
And it's interesting because I met James Topp in 1996 when I was still in the reserves.
And James and I were on a course together called Assault Pioneer.
And that's where it's the infantry's version of a combat engineer.
And so that's when I first met James Topp, like 27 years ago.
And but what we were doing on that course with the infantry and all the explosives and all the demolition stuff that we were involved with on that, I really liked it.
So that's why I went to become a combat engineer officer.
And to this day, at 49 years old, I still don't have a pilot license.
That's right.
Yeah, you told me.
Yeah, your military background is very interesting when you told me about that a few days ago.
But you mentioned James Topp.
James Topp is a very, I think he's a great person.
Oh, yeah.
I had a chance to meet him a few months ago.
Can you tell us a little bit more about James Topp for the people that don't really know who he is?
Yeah, so James does have five overseas deployments.
He was a young soldier in the MADAC pocket in, I think, 1993.
And it was the first time since Korea that, or probably Cyprus, in 1970 when Canada had been involved in combat missions or a combat situation in a built-up area was the MADAC pocket.
And I believe it was Croatia.
And that was in 1993 when he was really young in the military.
And then he did leave the military for a very short time, but within the same year was back in the military.
And he had done, during 9-11, he was, I think, deployed to Macedonia during 9-11, but then he had done three, no, two combat tours as a sniper in Afghanistan and in reconnaissance platoon.
And, you know, he's an exceptionally smart man.
And he's got a very unique sense of humor.
So his brilliance actually doesn't always come out because of his sense of humor.
But I have always suspected that maybe he had a photographic memory too.
Well, just to put some context to the images that we're seeing right now, that was when James Topp finished his march in Ottawa.
I believe that James Topp went marching from British Columbia to Ottawa to protest government overreach, to protest how the federal government was acting at the moment to protest COVID-19 mandates, COVID-19 restriction.
So he walked the whole way from British Columbia to Ottawa.
And here we can see him right after he laid a few things on the tomb of the unknown soldier, being very emotional.
I was right next to him at this moment.
And I think two days ago, I might be wrong, but I think two days ago, you guys had a meeting and you were there.
You guys had a meeting with some MPs in a parliamentary building.
Can you tell us more about how that meeting went?
I would say I've got mixed feelings about that meeting with the federal MPs because first and foremost, no other political party showed up to that meeting.
And we did two back-to-back meetings.
And none of the political parties except the federal conservatives showed up.
And Dean Allison was the one who sponsored it.
He's a, I think, Niagara West Conservative MP.
And, you know, he was the one who made that happen.
And of all of the people in this country who have been protesting COVID-19 mandates and measures since the beginning of this, James is the only person that actually got a meeting with the federal government to discuss some of the issues.
And while I was encouraged by what he was saying and, you know, various parts of that meeting, I was also really frustrated by the fact that a lot of the MPs walked in, took a photo, and then left.
It was a photo op for some of them.
And for others, it was more serious.
And I think one of the MPs, and I do think he was from out west, I remember him saying something that, you know, we all had more support inside the Conservative Party than we thought.
And I absolutely genuinely believe he was sincere when he said that.
But my only question is, how did that translate into any actual action for the rest of Canada, other than they got rid of their leader, Aaron O'Toole, at the time?
But I don't think they got rid of Aaron O'Toole because of any of us.
I just think they got rid of him because he was a fundamentally weak leader of their party.
Well, yeah, I think, though, the convoy did have an impact on kicking out Aaron O'Toole.
I think if we didn't have the Freedom Convoy come in Ottawa and I think in a certain way expose the weakness that Aaron O'Toole actually was the weak leader that Aaron O'Toole was.
Yeah, he flipped flat back and forth.
I remember that.
That would have been kicked out.
I think it sped up that timeline that eventually was going to see his removal, but I don't think it was the cause.
I think very early after the first convention that they had, the entire party recognized that they were in trouble with Aaron O'Toole as their leader.
And Aaron O'Toole is a graduate of Royal Military College in Kingston.
And he was a navigator on the Sea King helicopter.
He was a pilot.
No, he wasn't a pilot.
He was a navigator on the Sea King helicopters for nine years.
And then he left the military honorably and became a lawyer.
And, you know, so I certainly would never criticize his service.
He served his country and he did it honorably.
And it's just that when he got into federal politics and then became the leader, we just, we didn't see him really acting like a conservative.
And I remember watching his speech at the convention and I was like, who put the liberal on stage?
That was my first thought.
Like, that's the liberal platform what I'm hearing.
He was basically like, forget everything.
We're going, it's all climate change.
And I was like, okay, who put the liberal guy up on the stage?
Yeah.
Really bizarre.
really quite bizarre.
And, you know, I was encouraged by the fact that conservative MPs showed up.
I was disgusted by the fact that no other political party showed up to that particular meeting.
That was really quite disturbing.
And here's the thing I want to, I really want to emphasize this point, that there was almost this attitude that somehow James was trying to fight for their time.
And I don't mean the conservatives, I'm talking about all the other political parties.
Well, as far as I'm concerned, James Topp has spent two and a half years of his life in war zones and combat zones, actively engaging in combat and risking his life for this country.
It was my expectation that every member of parliament in the federal government would have been tripping over themselves to get in there and shake his hand after everything he's done for this country.
Not criticize him, not align with people that say the rest of us are a bunch of fringe minority misogynists, racists.
And by not going in meeting with James, that clearly to me was exceptionally disrespectful for everything that he had just accomplished.
And whether you agreed with his protest, which was against COVID-19 mandates or not, he served this country very, very well, you know, in five combat zones in his entire career, 27-year career.
And, you know, that's not about politics.
Risking your life is not about politics.
But then when you object to what the government's doing and you have the balls to walk across this country from Victoria, BC, or Vancouver, all the way to Ottawa, 137 days, 4,300 kilometers, I think that he's more than earned his right to have a meeting with every single member of parliament in this country.
It's extraordinarily telling.
And you're right.
It is very scary to hear that.
What it says to me is that in terms of all the other political parties, Canadian soldiers are just disposable.
Yeah, well, that's a little bit of what the message Justin Trudeau was saying and it was sending the past years and talking about soldiers, talking about people that spent years in a war zone, talking about veterans who aren't properly helped by the current Trudeau liberal federal government.
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day.
Tomorrow is November 11th.
So there will be a ceremony in Ottawa.
And guess who's not attending the ceremony, guys?
Justin Trudeau himself, Jr.
He's not coming to the, he's not coming to Ottawa.
He's busy right now in Cambodia overseas.
So tomorrow there will be a memorial for all the veterans, for the soldiers that gave their life to this country that died on a war zone to defend our rights and to defend our civil liberties.
And our own prime minister isn't even willing to come and assist and be there at the ceremony, not even help, just be there in person to pay his respect.
What does that say to you?
Well, there's about five different directions I could go in that one.
But before I start to talk about that big issue, let's talk a little bit about climate change for a minute, because was he not just on an overseas trip burning up all that fossil fuel from his plane from Alberta.
And now, perhaps, perhaps, I don't know, just call me crazy.
Maybe he should consider attending that summit on a Zoom call like the rest of Canadians have been doing for two and a half years.
I don't understand why he's going to go to Cambodia other than the fact that I believe his presence at the National War Memorial this year in particular, after he declared the Emergency Act against citizens of his own country, perhaps it's not a bad idea that he doesn't attend that particular place in the nation's capital.
And, you know, I will be there.
And I'm not going there because of Justin Trudeau.
I'm going there because I'm in Ottawa for this commission.
And that is the Cenotaph, the National War Memorial.
It's the premier war memorial in this country.
And because I'm in the nation's capital, I'm going there.
I'm going for the veterans.
I'm not going there because I want to disrupt or stare at Justin Trudeau from across the yard.
That's not the whole point.
But I think that in typical bad taste, bad judgment on his side, I mean, this is almost like, you know, peace and the reconciliation where he'd rather be surfing than a year within the same year he's declared the emergency act against his own citizens against the veterans that were actually beaten on the steps of that.
We saw that testimony on Friday.
That was crazy.
Yeah.
So maybe he just is feeling too ashamed to come to that location and to do that ceremony, but he is an outright narcissist.
So I don't think he probably have a personal problem with it.
Yeah, no, honestly, his views are very un-Canadian to begin with.
You can see that from the invocation of the Emergencies Act, as well as the last two and a half years of these draconian and unscientific COVID mandates and restrictions.
And then to go as far as to pit Canadians against one another and create more of a divide for some who chose to keep their medical information concealed, some that didn't feel comfortable putting a certain something in their body for obvious reasons.
But no one would want him there.
I don't think that Canada is missing out on anything.
And that's a crying shame to have the prime minister of a country not attend something that is for the veterans.
But we see the way that he treats the veterans.
We see that he would rather actually fund assisted suicide instead of help and prevent or help provide food, housing, and other supplies to veterans in need, because that's what's more important to him.
Is that that just goes to show you that he would rather actually people literally kill themselves than help them in any way, shape, or form.
So they're asking for too much.
Prime Minister's Failure00:03:48
That's what he said.
That's what he said.
That's right.
That's what he said earlier.
I think Justin Trudeau and his whole time as a prime minister, which I truly hope ends soon and in the next four years, he's made it clear that Justin Trudeau himself does not care about Canadians.
Canada's Veterans Affairs offers assisted suicide to veterans with PTSD.
How absolutely idiotic is that?
It's despicable.
It's disgusting and it's unacceptable and it's un-Canadian.
He's encouraging people to commit suicide.
So yeah, I think Justin Trudeau has shown in during his time as a prime minister that he couldn't care less about our veterans, couldn't care less about the people that died to serve our country because we saw him trample their own civil liberties during the Freedom Convoy.
We saw him say outright that the veterans are asking too much, that people who were ready to be killed for the well-being of our citizens are asking for too much when they're going back to their country of origin.
And we saw him offer assisted suicide to veterans with PTSD.
He's a despicable prime minister.
Tom, we don't have you on for a long time.
You almost need to go just before you leave.
Can you talk a little bit?
Can you talk to us a little bit about your book that you're writing?
Yeah, it's been a, I didn't even know what the word cathartic meant.
I had heard it before, but I had to look it up because every time I mentioned the book, people say it's very cathartic because I am writing the book myself.
I did consider getting a ghostwriter, but I decided, no, I need to tell it from my perspective where I want to go with it.
And being at the commission has been very good because I get to get a refresher because we were so busy and we're so fuzzy on the timelines.
It wasn't about getting up in the morning and looking at the calendar.
It was about getting up and getting things done during the day.
So being at the commission has really helped refresh my memory.
And I had the same conversation with Eva yesterday.
And, you know, I was writing today.
I was sitting in the audience and listening and I was doing some writing from, you know, what I was hearing today.
And, you know, I still, I believe I can meet that deadline.
I want it for the 14th of February, which is the one year anniversary of the Emergency Act.
And a friend of mine who was actually in Windsor, he we were talking one day and he said to me, you know, the convoy, all this stuff was the People's Emergency Act.
And so that's where I got the name for the book, because that's exactly what the convoy was, was the people's desperation.
It was their emergency so much that they decided to come here.
So that's what the name of the book is, the People's Emergency Act.
And I was writing about meeting Chris Barber today, which was really nice.
Chris Barber, he's such a great guy.
Well, keep that date in mind, guys.
February 14, 2023, Valentine's Day, and the day that our national drama teacher invoked the Emergencies Act on Peaceful Canadians who are here to protest his mandate.
Definitely looking forward to reading your book, Tom.
Well, thanks for coming on again.
Thank you for your service in the military.
And I look forward to seeing you tomorrow at the ceremony.
Well, just really quickly, actually, before we go on break again, I just wanted to point out that I've heard that there's some other people that will also be writing books and providing their testimonies.
But I think it's a really beautiful thing because it's within the hands of the people, I believe, to rewrite what that date means in Canadian history.
So.
Yes, of course.
All right.
Let's take a quick break.
And when we be back, we will continue talking a little bit more about a few things that are relevant.
Just a few things.
Take a quick break.
Government Role in Sovereignty Movements00:08:16
Freedom in 2022 is your right to disagree with me anytime on anything in your heart online or in the public square.
Freedom in 2022 is also your right to live your life however you see fit without hurting me or for that matter being bothered by me.
But freedom in 2022 is in very real danger under constant attack by Justin Trudeau through his censorship bills, his attacks on gun rights, his attacks on farmers, and his attacks on peaceful protesters.
These people have even tried to denormalize our flag.
At Rebel News, we're not afraid to have dangerous discussions that Justin Trudeau, the media and big tech censors, say we're not allowed to have.
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.
I'll be there with dozens of other rebels and rebel adjacent free thinkers.
And I hope that you'll join us.
Just go to rebelnewslive.com to get your tickets today, but do not sleep on this because these tickets are going fast.
See you soon.
At rebelnewslive.com rebelnewslive.com That's where you need to go to get your tickets if you want to have the chance to meet Tamara Leash, Andrew Lawton, and a lot of other interesting speakers.
So right now we have on Sydney Fissard from Alberta.
Sydney, how are you doing?
I'm doing all right.
How's the day for you guys?
Everything's perfect.
It's a long day.
Alberta, and I keep saying that name, Alberta, Alberta.
Alberta is a great province.
Alberta is a fantastic province.
Alberta is a province where there is a growing sovereign movement.
The people want Alberta's sovereignty.
And while it's wild, they're ungovernable and ungovernable.
That's a great segue to a documentary that was made by our good friend Kian Simoni from Alberta.
Have you seen the documentary?
I have.
I can definitely speak on this.
I've seen it a few times because I have also helped out and attended at these events.
You can see this at albertadocumentary.com.
Sorry, we got a few of those amazing documentaries made by rebels only, Kian Simoni.
So go there.
It gives you an in-depth history of Alberta, how the federal government, the overhanging reach of the federal government, has impacted Alberta's rich oil history.
So go check that out there at albertadocumentary.com.
Yeah, it also shows how funny, suck-wearing drag queen lovers.
Blackface has blackface.
What's the other one?
I always have national drama teacher, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, treats Albertans nowadays and why the sovereign sovereign movement is growing so much.
You know, I'm from Quebec.
I never really had a lot of loving feelings about Alberta when I was young.
We're always told, you know, the West is mad.
Conservatives always favor the West.
Conservatives don't care about Quebec.
Only the Liberals care about Quebec.
You should hate the West.
And then I watched this documentary and I learned so many things.
And I think I said it once.
So thank you, Kian, for making that documentary.
Definitely go check it out at albertadocumentary.com.
It is called Ungovernable.
All right, let's take a look at clip number six from the Emergencies Act Inquiry.
So let's take a look at what the witness had to say.
Comment was certainly not aligned with the comment that Deputy Minister Stewart made previous, where he was suggesting that the federal government did have a role in particular with regards to finding interlocutors.
So from my perspective, this question was all about from my perception, the federal government wanting to wash its hands of this entire thing.
I didn't think that was appropriate at all.
I thought that the federal government did have a role.
At the end of the day, these protesters were in Ottawa to protest mainly the imposition of a vaccine mandate on January 15 on international truckers.
They were on Parliament's doorstep.
They were in the national capital region.
The federal government, Public Safety Canada, does have a memorandum of understanding with Ottawa Police Service with regards to the provision of policing resources in and around Capitol Hill.
The OPP is not a signatory to that MOU.
So from my perspective, the federal government did have a role to play, just like Ontario had a role to play in the provision of resources.
And so I made that known to Jody Thomas.
I felt that some of the options that were available to the federal government included the possibility of meeting with and listening to the protesters, the possibility of amending their vaccine mandate, the possibility of providing additional resources to the Ottawa Police Service.
So there was a range of options available to the federal government.
And it was my position that the federal government certainly had a role to play in this.
This witness had some interesting things to say during his testimony today.
Can you give us a quick rundown of what was your main takeaway from his testimony?
I know it took a while.
I think Brendan Miller cross-examined him while we were doing the live stream or too late for us to actually clip something.
So what did you think of him?
His testimony was exceptionally long, just like I addressed in the beginning of this live stream.
There was so much to go over.
But as you can see, that's very important.
So there were attempts made and denied, again, one more time in regards to actually connecting with protesters to resolve to hear them out and to actually address what was going on.
And to have that blocked shows me, I think it shows potentially majority, if not all people, that despite some people making the effort to have that denied, there was no intent to resolve anything.
It seems to me like they only desire to invoke the Emergencies Act because if you're not working with somebody, again, how you do one thing is how you do all things.
I think you were the first one to say the few live streams that go, history repeats itself.
Yes, the same thing every single day because it seems like the federal government wanted to invoke the EA instead of actually negotiating with protesters.
What about you, Sydney?
What do they say about history?
It doesn't repeat at rhymes.
So, you know, now the Emergencies Act, but formally, how would you address it?
I know you know the answer.
War measures.
Exactly, right?
So it's in many ways, it is a repetition, just for the new flavor.
Like that.
And also, I'm not sure if we've got the clip.
It was really, really small.
And it's just a really short addition to just build on top of this.
Despite these things, and despite the fact that that came out through Mr. Di Tomaso's testimony, he also did say that Doug Ford, Premier of Ontario, did plan on invoking the Emergency Act or a state of emergency in Ontario, pardon me.
And Dimut also said that he would actually support doing that and was going to suggest it had the Premier not already beat him to it.
So just for salt and wound, just a little addition.
Yeah, and another familiar name that came out today at the inquiry was the name of Archer Pavlovsky, the pastor that was arrested multiple times.
Clip number five, we saw his name being mentioned at the commission in regards to the coups.
Look, it was a very odd clip.
Let's take a look first of all the clip and then we can discuss it a little bit further.
Here we see an indication from him on February 4th that an Archer Polowski had showed up and fired everyone up at the Coups protest site to convince them to stay.
Archer Pavlovsky Arrested00:08:51
You're aware of that?
Yeah, I actually am aware of that event.
Yes.
From the RCMP's reporting, not from this conversation.
Could we go to pb.can.40s1835?
It's the multimedia file that we had yesterday.
And I'm going to ask to play this from the 207 mark until 418.
Thousands upon thousands of people are coming.
They don't have enough RCNP officers to deal with that.
They don't have enough army to deal with that.
Remember, you have the power now.
Do not give it away just because it feels right.
And yes, some of you might be arrested.
Yes, some of you might pay the price.
I'm not going to kid you that is pleasant and beautiful on concrete in jail facing the biggest guns in the country.
It's not.
They don't treat us well over there, especially when you're a pastor.
Three days on concrete and two nights.
Every half hour they banged on my door.
They did not allow me to sleep for three days and two nights.
They roughed me up.
They stripped naked me.
They put chain on my leg.
And yet I'm still here with you.
Yes.
Those people don't play fair.
They're coming here with their budgets and they're telling you that they represent the law.
No, they're representing, they represent lawlessness.
They are gangsters for the biggest mafia that there is, Kenny's mafia.
And it's up to you now, for the first time in two years, to rise up, to stand up, and to hold the fort.
And if this is our alamo, so be it.
And if you don't want to be here, no one is stopping you.
You can take your car or your truck and you can go.
There is a huge rally in Calgary.
There's a huge rally in Edmonton.
You can join them.
No one will think of you as a coward.
Everyone has to face the giants of the lands.
But I'm telling you, there is this huge opportunity right now that we have been given.
God has given us this moment in history.
Why?
Because international media are watching you right now.
That's power.
During 1980.
Thank you.
Have you seen that speech before by Archer Pulowski?
No, I haven't actually.
Thank you.
Do you hear that he is singling out Premier Kenny as the source of the problem?
And I believe he referred to Kenny's mafia?
Yes, what I heard, yes.
And he said this is our Alamo, referring, I take it, to the standoff at the Alamo in Texas.
That's what I assume the reference.
And he points to the international attention that has been gathered and says that's power, right?
That's correct.
I think it was a bit emotional.
I think I...
I think some of his points were pretty hard.
You know, when he spoke about his experience as a pastor that was jailed, the treatment he felt in a prison, I think Omar Carter was treated better than this.
And Omar Carter is a terrorist who received millions of dollars by the federal government.
But hearing him recall his experience as a pastor that was put in jail for protesting the government, for protesting Jason Kenny's quote-unquote mafia.
You know, it's sad.
Well, and you know, a little bit of a background on Pastor Archer Pavlovsky.
If you're unfamiliar with his story, you can go to savearter.com and you can check that out.
But just a brief summary of that is he is a pastor who defied the COVID-19 lockdown and restrictions in order to keep his church open, continue feeding the homeless.
And he was arrested and charged multiple times for doing these things just because he had a different opinion than the federal and provincial government at that time.
I just want to break that down a little bit more as well.
So their term phrasing insight to stay.
Now, that's very suggestive of Archer Polowski having some innate sense of control over this group of individuals, which is absolutely ridiculous.
How does one control such a large group of people that have gone there of their own volition, just because they're all moving towards the same goal behind some of the same ideologies, not all?
And then also, I want to touch on the fact that after this sermon was given, and again, pastors preach, he gave us sermons.
He was arrested and he spent 51 days in jail for this.
I can't imagine the way that we treat our pastors here in Canada.
And he is not an isolated case.
We have other pastors as well.
Yeah, that's just my two cents on it.
Well, it's just in Truos Canada.
Oh, yeah, sorry.
Sydney, I think that you got a chance to meet Pastor Archipilowski.
What do you make of this?
Certainly a few times.
Well, in the sense of him being somebody who incited them to stay, well, we already heard previously that all of the demonstrators that were in Coots, they decided before he made his service.
This was not a factor.
And I talked to them afterward about Arthur Piloski's arrest while I was in Coots.
And they're like, well, why?
Like, he literally had nothing to do with it.
It's the government was kind of selecting him as the designated head or the researcher, just so that they could have the individual key representative, like they were seeking for seemingly the whole time.
And, you know, they talk about how there was a multitude of leaders, organizations, groups, factions, individuals, who all had a multitude of mixed motivations.
And they were attempting to communicate at various different times with enforcement.
All the time, it was kind of different.
So it's very shocking to find out that he would be put away behind bars for such actions when it was such a decentralized movement.
And they even said there was the PSIO, I'm not going to remember the abbreviation, but it was an intelligence assessment.
That's alluded to the fact that early on on February 1st, at least, there was no apparent centralized leader.
There was no communication between Coots and the Freedom Convoy, but they were inspired and in support of the Freedom Convoy.
And much like we saw decentralized action across the province, we saw centralized action across the country in relation to the Freedom Convoy.
Any real allegations of a leader, it's like quest for Tyler Durden, right?
This phantom figure who's going around creating this entire organization of people that are going to take over the government and create anarchy for everybody, right?
That's who they're looking for.
They're looking for Tyler Durden, I think.
Maybe that's, I don't know, you can talk to me about how fair of an analysis that might be.
Well, I think to a certain extent, it is true.
I think there was no leader.
And I think, yeah, I think some people are trying to look for a leader at the government of Canada, the Ottawa Coalition, Paul Champ little group there.
They are trying to look for a leader.
There is indeed no leader.
All right, we're already past 7 p.m.
Thank you so much to everyone for tuning in today.
Thank you for co-hosting with me throughout the whole week.
Absolutely.
I think it'll be a well-deserved break tomorrow for the ceremony for Remembrance Day and November 11 to remember all the veterans that gave their lives to their country to everyone that's served in the army to make sure that we would stay free in Canada.
Thank you.
Thank you for joining us tonight.
If you guys like our cover, I know we've got a bunch of people watching, but if you guys like our coverage of the Emergencies Act Inquiry taking place here in Ottawa, you can go ahead and go to truckercommission.com.
There, you can donate as much as you can.
The smallest contributions help so much.
It all helps us continue to be able to provide you with the best independent coverage of the inquiry of the commission.
So if you want to contribute, if you want to contribute as small of a donation as you wish, you can go to truckercommission.com.
Also, if you want to meet us soon, if you want to meet Tamar Alish, if you want to meet Ezra Van, Sheila Gunreed, Pastor Archer Pavlovsky, you can go to RebelNewsLive.com and there you can get a ticket to attend one of our two Rebel News Live events taking place this year.
All right, thank you again for being here, Celine.
And thank you, Tom, who's somewhere in the streets of Ottawa at the moment.
And to everyone, happy evening.
Freedom Under Threat00:00:52
Freedom in 2022 is in great threat in Canada.
We've got provincial governments that have stripped away fundamental human and civil liberties in Canada.
And we've got a federal government that is censoring and controlling the media and even cracking down on the right to protest in ways that are unprecedented in the post-war era.
It's a fascinating but terrifying time if you're concerned about freedom, concerned about your basic liberties right now.
But we've got to do more than just complain about it.
That's why I've accepted the invitation to speak at the Rebel Live conference in Calgary, November 26th, coming right up here.
I'm going to be speaking in particular about the state of the media.
It's controlled by the federal government and what independent media can do to hold power to account, to stand up for our basic freedoms.