David Menzies, Sheila Gunn Reid, and Tamara Ugolini examine Alberta’s $826K purchase of 12 tow trucks—including a 1996 GMC—to bypass the Coutts blockade, despite federal inaction and Bill Blair’s false claims. Ontario’s Dr. Kieran Moore recommends masks for toddlers amid flu season but ignores antibiotic shortages forcing cross-border shopping. Ford’s maskless legislature contradicts his support for masking, while Unifor Local 444 head David Cassidy allegedly plotted violent retaliation against protesters. The episode questions why governments push ineffective measures like masks while ignoring deeper healthcare failures, exposing a pattern of coercion and selective accountability. [Automatically generated summary]
Welcome to Rebel Roundup, ladies and gentlemen, and the rest of you, in which we look back at some of the very best commentaries of the week by your favorite rebels.
I'm your host, David Mentis.
So during the Coutts blockade, the province of Alberta reached out to tow truck companies and energy firms based in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and even Montana to see if they could be hired to haul away those Freedom Convoy vehicles that were blocking the Alberta-Montana border.
Not surprisingly, those companies told the government to take a hike.
So the province went out and bought their own fleet of used tow trucks, including a 1996 GMC 3500.
Yeah, that'll tow away a big rig, no problem.
Rebel News Chief Reporter Sheila Gunreed has all the details.
Oh no, it's deja vu all over again.
Ontario's chief medical health officer, Dr. Kieran Moore, is recommending that everyone mask up again, even though the face diaper mandates were only lifted back on March 21st.
Why is Ontario going down this failed path yet again?
Tamaro Ugolini will try to make sense of it all.
And letters, we get your letters.
We get your letters every minute of every day.
And you had plenty to say about Unifor Local 444 head honcho David Cassidy in Windsor, who was allegedly threatening to send a thousand auto workers down to the Ambassador Bridge last February to throw peaceful protesters in the Detroit River.
Ah, the loving, tolerant left strikes again.
In any event, those are your rebels.
Now let's round them up.
The Public Order Emergency Commission is taking place in Ottawa as we speak to examine the actions of Justin Trudeau's federal government in invoking the never before used Emergencies Act.
a wartime counterterrorism law to put an end to weeks of peaceful anti-COVID mandate protests.
Those protests were led by truckers and bolstered by their supporters on the streets of Ottawa, but also at border crossings at Coutts, Alberta, Windsor, Ontario, Edmerson, Manitoba, and near Vancouver, BC.
To see and support all of our coverage of the Public Order Emergency Commission, please visit truckercommission.com.
Now, the federal government has repeated the lie that using a law which suspends civil liberties and gives police and financial institutions extraordinary powers was somehow necessary to get tow trucks to move vehicles off the border and out of residential areas.
It's crazy, but here's CBC reporting the federal government's claims unskeptically just a few short weeks ago.
A deal with police to secure tow trucks to clear last winter's convoy protest fell through and the Emergencies Act was needed to commandeer those services.
A lawyer acting for the federal government told the Public Order Commission inquiry Wednesday.
So prior to the 13th, I would have said we could have used some help with that.
But as things materialized on the 13th, I was satisfied that we were good.
And you were satisfied that we were good.
You're satisfied that the federal emergency power to compel tow trucks wasn't necessary.
Correct.
Thank you.
Now, the province of Alberta completely disputes the federal government's claim that a counterterrorism law was necessary to commandeer tow trucks in this province.
In fact, the Alberta government is currently participating in the Public Order Emergency Commission with full standing.
The province is arguing that the Emergencies Act was not necessary, which should tell you just how unreasonable the invocation of the Emergencies Act was, given that Alberta, for a time, had some of the most authoritarian crackdowns on civil liberties during COVID, including on places of worship.
The crackdowns were so bad, they led to the ouster of Premier Jason Kenney, who was eventually replaced by a more freedom-oriented Premier Danielle Smith.
The Alberta government has said that it received no help from the federal government in dealing with the border blockade at Coutz.
The Alberta government could not get tow trucks to come.
It's on page nine of these commission documents.
You can see that on February 1st, approximately 50 companies throughout Alberta with heavy haul towing capability and cranes had been contacted.
All of them refused to assist.
Companies in British Columbia and Saskatchewan either wouldn't or could not get involved either.
On page 10, we can even see that the Alberta government reached out to companies in Montana who likewise said they were not coming to help.
And back on page nine of these documents, the Alberta government ultimately reached out to Public Safety Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces in Ottawa because the province wanted to be able to use heavy equipment from CFB Edmonton.
But on page 12 of these documents, when Alberta Minister of Municipal Affairs Rick McIver, a guy I like pretty much, reached out to Bill Blair, the Minister of Public Safety, McIver couldn't get a response.
But documents presented to the Public Order Commission by the province of Alberta indicate that even if no private tow companies ever agreed to tow away convoy-related vehicles, there was always another way forward.
You see, on February 8th and 9th, the province of Alberta quickly began looking for their own towing equipment, knowing the feds were not going to come through.
They even began identifying Alberta sheriffs who possessed a Class 1 driver's license to drive them.
By February 11th, the province of Alberta had found the vehicles that they needed on Kijiji and Truck Trader.
Honest to goodness, I appreciate their frugality of buying some used bargains.
By the 12th, they had purchased the equipment.
By the 14th, they had purchased even more, and they had borrowed a heavy wrecker crew from the city of Edmonton to help out.
$826,000 in all on 12 pieces of towing and heavy equipment.
And I've got to tell you, I think they got a pretty good deal on that kamatsu.
Now, according to the documents on page 13, the RCMP didn't even need all the equipment because the border blockade had by then disbanded.
Ultimately, they ended up hauling one farm tractor, a semi-trailer, and a gravel truck.
Now, on February 21st, text messages exchanged between McIver and Blair show Blair trying to take credit for the resolution of the blockade at Coots, claiming the Emergencies Act had helped Alberta get those tow trucks, you know, tow trucks they bought themselves prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
McIver wrote, what is true is that Coots was resolved on the 14th and we got our own tow trucks.
Further, McIver wrote to Blair, you were too late and did the wrong thing.
My point is saying nothing now would have been better than not telling the truth.
And then Blair never responded naturally.
I mean, how could Blair respond?
He had already been told to stop lying and gun owners in Canada know if Bill Blair's talking, then Bill Blair is probably not telling the truth.
For Rebel News, I'm Sheila Gunread.
Well, folks, yet more amazing testimony coming out of the Emergencies Act Inquiry in Ottawa.
And isn't it great to hear that tow truck companies and energy companies right across western Canada and even the great state of Montana essentially flipped the bird to the government of Alberta when it went looking for independent contractors to clear the border blockade in Coots, Alberta.
But those hell-bent on shutting down a peaceful freedom protest are very, very diligent given that the province was able to find and purchase 12 pieces of used heavy haul equipment in the days prior to the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
But why?
And joining me now to unravel this mystery on these latest revelations is our chief reporter for Rebel News.
And that would be none other than Sheila Gunread.
Hey there, Sheila, how are you doing?
I'm doing great, Donald.
I mean, to get everybody's name wrong, I'll return the favor.
Sheila, I'm so sorry, but there's so much to unpack here.
And I was looking over the manifest of the equipment.
And this might be a minor thing, but it was the manifest of the equipment that the government bought.
And one piece of equipment really stood out for me, namely a 1996 GMC 3500 pickup truck.
Sheila, I'm no tow truck expert, but can this vehicle actually haul away an 18-wheeler?
No, I showed the list to my husband.
He's like, that'll make a great like farm truck, good used, like light-duty tow truck, but I don't think it's going to haul away an eight-wheeled tractor.
But I think they were trying to, like, there were thousands of people at one point in between Coots and Milk River, and some of them were illegally parked.
We saw a bunch of people get tickets in this like march through town where they just issued tickets for illegal parking as though Milk River is just plugged up with people parking wrong.
You know, like I don't think they've ever had a traffic jam there normally.
Do something better with your time.
But, you know, they did, I've got to give the government credit.
And I did give them credit in my video.
They did get 12 pieces of towing and heavy haul equipment.
I think they got, according to my husband and my notes on the auto trader, they did get some good deals.
I was impressed that they ran out and got, they went looking for used equipment.
That's a very Alberta thing to do.
So they were frugal with their money.
But the reason this is all so interesting, well, there's a bunch of different reasons is that knowing what I know about tow truck drivers, and I do, I know a couple, one pretty well, they wouldn't come to this to help out.
They wouldn't want to get involved for a bunch of different reasons, but normally blue-collar people don't go after other blue-collar people on issues that they ultimately agree with.
But they couldn't get anybody in Alberta, in BC, in Saskatchewan, and then out of Montana.
They couldn't get anybody to come, not just from towing, but also from the energy services industry, because you have to remember in Western Canada, we're moving drilling rigs around all over the place.
So we've got big trucks and picker trucks and cranes and bed trucks.
So moving those pieces of equipment, there's a lot of that sort of equipment out there in Alberta that just, they weren't for hire to the government.
So that was great.
But the whole point of this is that it pokes a hole in the federal government's narrative that they absolutely needed the Emergencies Act to compel tow operators to come.
Now, they could have compelled tow operators to come through other parts of the law.
But good on Jason Kenney, and I don't say that often, he didn't go about that route.
He just decided to buy his own tow equipment.
But Justin Trudeau has said all along, we needed the EA to get the tow truck drivers to come.
The Alberta government had already purchased their own towing equipment before the EA was invoked.
And part of that had to do with the fact that Bill Blair, the minister in charge of, I think, emergency preparedness, wouldn't return any phone calls and text messages to Rick McIver, our municipal affairs minister.
So the Alberta government just said, okay, well, the feds aren't going to do anything.
They're not going to help us.
They're not going to connect us with the equipment at CFB Edmonton, which is one of the other options, the military base just north of Edmonton.
They thought, okay, well, they've got heavy equipment.
Maybe we can get them to come down if we can get federal permission.
None of those things were happening from the federal government.
The federal government quit communicating with Alberta.
So Alberta solved its own problem.
And as I said, it just completely dismantles Justin Trudeau's argument that he needed the EA to break up the blockade.
The blockade was already broken up.
And if it needed breaking up, the Alberta government could have done it anyway.
You know, Sheila, I want to go back and focus on what something you said earlier, which was the fact that the government was reaching out to the tow truck driving industry, to the energy development industry.
And like, what were they thinking in terms of these would be willing woke allies to go in there and shut down their fellow blue-collar individuals.
It reminds me, you know, several days ago, we had a little piece on about how David Cassidy, no, not the fictional David Cassidy, the lead singer of the Partridge family, but David Cassidy, the head of Unifor Local 444 in Windsor, said to a police officer allegedly that he was going to round up 1,000 auto workers, go down to the Ambassador Bridge, break some heads, and then, quote,
throw them, meaning the freedom protesters, into the Detroit River, which I can tell you, Sheila, in February is certainly not a Caribbean beachfront water kind of situation.
But the thing is, those thousand auto workers never materialized.
Do you think maybe because many of them were with auto companies such as Chrysler that were suspended without pay for not taking the vaccine?
So I guess, you know, I'm just trying to get an idea, Sheila.
Why were these people who on one hand wanted to tow away trucks, on the other hand, wanted to beat up demonstrators?
Why were they so misguided in thinking they had willing allies?
It's the same problem you have with everything, with government, with union brass, you know, like the guys at the top are never the same as the guys at the bottom.
You often have like the union leadership of unions that will work in pipelining advocating for climate change policies, right?
Or encouraging people to vote for the NDP who are actively against energy resource development.
So there's a big disconnect between the leadership of a union and the actual union membership.
And you have to remember in Canada, you're forced to join a union if you are in a union shop.
You don't have the right to work as they do in some American states.
Government Compulsion Failures00:04:58
So it's never really, the politics of the union are so often not the politics of the people on the ground.
And it's the same thing with government here in Alberta.
Jason Kenny might have been conservative, but boy, he sure could not compel a lot of conservative business owners, tow truck drivers, and energy resource companies to do his bidding because they agreed with what was happening at the border.
And you see that in the polling that Leger poll that Ezra reported on, where people were advocating for Daniel Smith to offer COVID amnesties to people who were charged with being COVID scoff laws within conservatives blocking the border.
The convoy itself was very popular.
It's just, you know, the government who had to deal with it that didn't really seem to like it.
You know, and Sheila, I got to say, though, at least we should be thankful that the government never, I don't know, got a goon squad to go down there and just destroy the trucks there.
And I'm saying that because I know it's a separate story, but it's something that sticks in my craw.
Our beloved colleague Sid Fazard did a great piece about how RCMP officers actually went to heavy construction equipment and vandalized it to such an extent, I'm sure the repairs might be in the tens or even the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
To me, that's shocking.
I thought law enforcement was all about preventing people from vandalizing stuff, not taking part in the vandalizing.
Do we have any update on that, Sheila?
Not really.
I know Sid is working on it.
It's one of the stories that I get asked about out in the world the most.
That end did David get his whiskey.
But people always ask me about, they always ask me about the excavators because those excavators were convicted of pre-crimes.
They were just excavators in a field near Coots, Alberta.
And the RCMP approached the owner of the excavators and said, would you mind moving them away from the road?
And of course, the owner complied.
But the reason the RCMP wanted them moved away from the road is so that they would not be seen when they were cutting the fuel lines and then spray foaming them closed, rendering the equipment inoperable.
Now, there's no evidence that those excavators were ever going to the blockade, but the RCMP were just allowed to vandalize them anyway.
And like you say, do tens of thousands of dollars of damage to, I don't want to say innocent excavators, but I don't know how else to describe them.
They were convicted of pre-crimes.
And like I said, that's one of the stories that people constantly ask me about because it's so appalling and it was so premeditated by the police.
And the police exploited the goodwill of the owner of the excavators, knowing that he would comply with the police request to move them away from the road.
And that makes it even worse, the fact that he wasn't putting up any resistance, but he was rewarded for his cooperation by all that vandalism.
I wonder if Brenda Lucky had her clammy hands on that little caper.
You could ask her, but she won't remember if you've been watching her testimony.
Or she'll say yes and no.
But I guess, you know, Sheila, we got to wrap it up here.
But what is, I don't know if anyone cares about this or not, but what is the fate of all that government-owned towing equipment?
Are they, I don't know, are they going on tradio and swap and shop to try to sell it off, or is it just part of the provincial inventory in case a Coutz blockade happens in the near future?
You know what?
My husband is watching the provincial government auction sites for some of those things to go up because he's like, they got a really good deal.
So if they even sell it for what they purchased it for, someone's going to be very, very happy.
I do know that for a time it was staged near Lethbridge just in case another blockade broke out or remanifested itself.
I don't really know what happened to it now, but the government bought 12 pieces of equipment for under a million dollars.
I'm not mad.
I'm not mad.
And at the end of the day, no tow truck operators were compelled to do something against their will.
They were not expropriated by the government, which for me is the best outcome.
That's true.
Well, there you have it.
We'll leave it at that, Sheila.
For all you Albertans out there, keep looking at the auto-trader listings.
You might find that 26-year-old GMC.
My husband loves the Kamatsu loader.
Christmas might come early in Alberta if you're into things like tow stuff.
Mask Mandate Debate00:15:30
Sheila, thank you so much.
Great commentary, as always, my friend.
You got it, David.
Have a great weekend.
You too.
And that was Sheila Gunread, our chief reporter, somewhere in the northern hinterland of Alberta.
Hey, folks, keep it here.
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after that.
Tamara Ugolini here with Rebel News to remind you of a time when the government and health hysterics repeatedly told the public to trust the experts and follow the science.
If we don't act now, it's going to get worse.
And if we don't act now, we're going to be in much worse shape in a week down the road or two weeks down the road.
And now that we are a thousand days into rolling COVID-19 related restrictions after being sold on that slogan of two weeks to flatten the curve nearly three years ago.
You've heard public health officials and myself say many times that we need to flatten the curve or plank it.
Into what health officials would have you believe is the deadliest pandemic since the Spanish flu of 1918.
It's a pandemic though that has a very controversial death rate and our health overlords continually fail to follow the science.
Instead, they're relying heavily on behavior modification and peer pressure to try to solicit compliance with masks and vaccines.
For instance, at his press conference yesterday, Ontario's chief medical officer of health, that's Dr. Kieran Moore, is highly recommending everyone wear a mask indoors, including toddlers.
Have a listen.
The best way to prevent the flu is by getting the flu shot every year.
You can also get your COVID booster safely at the same time for those over five.
With the peak of flu season expected in early to mid-December, the time to get your shot is now.
Please, please do not delay.
It is not too late to get protected.
And in response to the worsening trends and existing challenges for our healthcare system, I'm strongly recommending that all Ontarians, not just those at high risk, wear a mask in indoor public settings, especially around our most vulnerable Ontarians, the very young and the very old.
I'm also recommending that if possible, children between two and five wear a mask with supervision if they can tolerate the mask and safely put it on and off.
Applying all these layers of protection will help to protect ourselves, our families, and most importantly, our children under five.
This means that mask mandates aren't coming back to Ontario, at least not yet.
Yet a mask mandate is not out of the realm of possibility.
So we have launched a petition at no moremasks.ca, which calls on health authorities to never again implement unscientific, indiscriminate mask mandates.
The science does not justify this arbitrary measure, and Moore himself admitted that mandates have not worked in the past.
Again, have a listen.
But I need us to mask around those most vulnerable in social settings, which mandates haven't worked for in the past.
At family gatherings, at family social situations, we have to mask to protect those that are the youngest among us, those that are four and under.
Because after two years of bubble-wrapping children from normal societal interactions that would traditionally build up their immune system, we have masked and sanitized them almost to death.
And now the health overlords are crying wolf.
Not one mention, though, of the shortage of antibiotics for children, as described by this pharmacist.
You would like to add to the point that you said that there's a shortage of Tylenol as well as Advil.
There's a shortage of two things that are extremely difficult for us to manipulate or make.
And these are the two most commonly dispensed antibiotics for kids: amoxicillin and azathromycin.
And not enough is being said about those.
If we cannot treat children in a community setting, this is going to spell a larger disaster for hospitals, as hard as that is to even imagine.
So this needs to be addressed as well.
I'm really not sure at what point do we refer to this as an emergency.
At what point do we have our politicians actually address this in a more urgent fashion?
Well, as the late great New York Yankee Yogi Berra once quipped, it's deja vu all over again.
Yeah, folks, just eight months after the mask mandate was lifted in Ontario, the province's chief medical health officer, Kieran Moore, is now strongly recommending everybody mask up yet again.
But why?
Where is the evidence that wearing non-medical masks actually worked during the initial stages of the pandemic?
And for that matter, where is the evidence that getting jabbed with an experimental vaccine works, given that so many people who have been double-jabbed and have taken their booster shots continue to contract COVID-19?
How frustrating that our medical health necromancers seem to have learned hardly anything during these past three years.
Unbelievable.
And joining me now with more on this story is Tamara Ugalini.
Hey, how are you doing there, Tamara?
Hey, David.
Well, I'm maskless, so good as ever.
And how about you?
And better yet, you're still alive, as am I.
But Tamara, you know, I guess the good news here is that at least Dr. Moore didn't utter that old COVID chestnut, you know, two weeks to flatten the curve.
I mean, that line ranks right up there with the check is in the mail and hi, I'm from the government.
I'm here to help you, as one of the greatest lies ever uttered.
But Tamara, seriously, why are we going down the masking route yet again in the first place?
I can't help but think that the media party has a huge role to play in the push for masking.
You've seen all throughout, even when the mandates were lifted, that the media continued to don the mask and live in hysterical fear and any little bit that they get that they can sort of push that fear into the general public and force them basically to comply through this heightened emotional state rather than using logic and reason and rationale.
That seems to be where the push continually comes from.
And then, of course, there's this loud segment of, I don't even believe that they're actual practicing doctors, you know, the PhDs and the philosophers of the crowd who really push for this masking to come back.
And they almost portray it to be the saving grace to our failing medical system.
You know, there wasn't over the last two years, the government had ample opportunity and time to increase capacity, garner more staff to compensate for the staff shortages, or, I mean, God forbid, hire back the terminated, healthy, but unvaccinated workers.
And yet, it seems to be the continual fallback plan is, you know, mask up and get vaccinated every three months.
It's just outrageous that these are the fallback points rather than actually correcting this, sad to say, but systemic failure of the healthcare system that's decades in the making.
You know, and when it comes to the mask, Tamara, I believe it was March 21st is when the mandate was lifted in the province of Ontario.
And yet, I've seen for months, although the numbers are going down, people still wearing the mask, typically young, healthy adults wearing the mask.
And I've always said that I think there's something more here going on than being, you know, than people protecting themselves from an airborne virus.
I think the mask has become a political statement.
You know, much like when you see a Muslim lady wearing a hijab, a Christian person wearing a cross, a Sikh wearing a turban.
Well, it's an indication to others.
I'm on team Islam, I'm on team Christianity, I'm on team Sikhism.
That's what I think the mask is because these were the people that are saying, well, we're listening to all the medical health officers.
Well, once the medical health officer says, that's it, take your mask off, why are you still wearing it?
What happened to follow the science?
Right.
It seems to be very virtuous, these people who are engaged still in this indiscriminate masking.
And that's again where the media fear comes back into the picture, right?
Initially, with the mask mandate in late 2020 or mid-2020, I should say, it was sold to the public on the basis of you're going to save the grandmas and the grandpas, you know, those frail, vulnerable seniors in long-term care.
If you wear your mask, no one will ever die ever again.
And now we're seeing that narrative switch from the vulnerable and at-risk seniors to you protecting the very young and infant, those in infancy, if you wear your mask.
And if you don't, then you're a selfish, I suppose, child killer because you don't want to don a mask that is shown to be ineffective and potentially has great repercussions for the development of the very children they're saying that they're aiming to protect.
And there's also a large segment of the medical population who would argue that masking, sanitizing, distancing, isolation,
the forced confinement into your own little bubble and you're staying home to save lives, that all of this rigamarole over the last two years is what caused actually the influx of viral infections in children and specifically led them down a path of immune sterility so that they weren't building robust antibodies by being exposed to society as a whole over the last two years.
So there's a lot here that, you know, right in the onset, you mentioned experimental, and it's more than just injections.
There was a massive societal experiment that happened here from young to old.
But now I think we're starting to see that boomerang effect of what they did over the last two years and how it's going to have a devastating effect long term on the health of children, not only emotionally and mentally and psychologically, but also obviously physically and immunologically.
Yeah, and you know, Tamara, I mean, there is no doubt that the children's hospitals right now, they are overcapacity.
You've got COVID, you've got the seasonal flu, you've got a respiratory virus out there.
It's kind of like a perfect storm.
And as well, you've got this big shortage of children's Advil and children's Tylenol.
But I guess the point I'm leaning up to is that we've been dealing with this thing for almost three years now.
And what about this as a solution?
Maybe, oh, I don't know, in the space of three years, I think you could have put up a couple of children's hospitals, new ones, with the money, rather than going down this masking and vaccination route.
Why did they consider that?
You know, that seems, I don't know, so logical to me.
I'm not in the healthcare business, but if you were anticipating that there's going to be more children getting sick, shouldn't we have diverted resources to building a few more children's hospitals?
It really reminds me of the tent hospitals that went up across Ontario, right?
They spent millions of dollars and gathered support from, I believe it was a lot of military that ended up staffing these tent hospitals that saw no patients throughout the peak pandemic pandemonium.
And that leads to my, you know, my initial statements where I said, why didn't we focus on building capacity, hiring more staffing?
I mean, look at, as I referenced in my report that you can find at nomoremasks.ca.
Why have we funneled all of these resources and money, millions of dollars into building a new Moderna mRNA factory manufacturing facility?
And yet we couldn't have built maybe a couple of manufacturing facilities for things like fever reducers and children's Tylenol.
But the other big concern here, which I mentioned also in that report, is not just the shortage of Tylenol and children's pain and fever medicines, but also the shortage of children's antibiotics.
So erythromycin and amoxicillin.
That is massive in the health and wellness of the society.
You know, I'm not an advocate for use of pharmaceuticals, whether it be from Tylenol to antibiotics.
However, I am very thankful that those options are available when you need them.
And now we're starting to see that they are not available even in neat times of need.
And our government is still too busy trying to secure Moderna manufacturing facilities and pushing indiscriminate vaccination when there's a real shortage and crisis happening in our healthcare system.
And it has nothing to do with vaccination.
Yeah, I know.
And you see Canadians, at least near the border, going over to the border of the U.S. and cleaning out pharmacies there, hoarding those type of products to bring back to Canada.
It just gives us a feeling that we're almost like a third world nation that can't take care of its own population.
But the other angle I want to talk to you about, Tamara, is it was on Monday that Dr. Moore brought down that recommendation.
And of course, Doug Ford, the Premier of Ontario, said, oh, absolutely, mask up.
And then it was noted on Tuesday when the legislature resumed hearing, sitting rather, most of the MPPs, including Premier Ford, were maskless.
And again, the Yogi Berra deja Vu all over again comment: oh, no, not do as I say and not as I do, or one law for thee and one law for me again, Tamara.
You know, I think that Moore fell short of implementing a mandate.
He didn't say that it was off the table, but for right now, it was a recommendation and not a mandate.
And you can say what you'd like about Ford.
He's definitely not my slice of pie, a cherry pie, or my cup of tea.
But I wonder if he is finally growing a bit of a backbone and a spine, and he may finally be following the science because the science shows that if you're a healthy individual, that there is absolutely zero need for you to wear a mask.
And arguably, even if you were sick and symptomatic, it does very little to stop an invisible virus from becoming airborne.
So say what you want about Doug Ford, but I think that that was proof in the pudding there that maybe finally we may be seeing this government follow the actual science.
Unbelievable.
Maybe proof in the proverbial cherry cheesecake when it comes to the premier.
But one last thing, Tamara, a hypothetical question.
You're right.
It's a recommendation right now, not, thank God, a mandate.
Mandate Hypotheticals00:04:15
I'm wondering if things get worse on the flu front and this does become a mandate.
What do you think the, I don't know, the appetite is of Ontarians in terms of cooperating, masking up, you know, yet again, the whole social distancing thing, retailers putting up those plastic shields.
Because I can tell you, everybody in my circle is saying exactly the same thing.
If they bring this back as mandatory, I'm walking into that mall and I don't care if I run into a mall cop or a real cop.
I'm not putting that damn face diaper on again.
Do you sense the majority of people feel that way?
Or like so many sheep, are we going to all comply just like the last two years?
100%.
I hear and see that there are so many people who are just so fed up and they've learned so much.
They have more information now after nearly three years of these rolling restrictions than they did at the onset of 2020.
They see more a little bit through the propaganda and through that incessant fear porn put out by the mainstream media and some of these government unappointed bureaucrats like our health overlords, Dr. Kieran Moore being one of them.
However, I am old enough to remember before vaccine mandates were a thing and people were saying, oh, I would never, I won't take that vaccine.
Oh, if my employer institutes a mandate, I will stand firm against it.
And we saw all of those people, at least in some of my social circle and in the larger context of my reporting, many people complied out of threats of job loss and various other coercive techniques that were implemented on the general public.
So I do hear that more and more are fed up.
I think there's an abundance of information available to the general public now and more are sort of seeking that out on their own.
And also we have lots of access to information requests that have come back in showing that the government wasn't following any sort of science.
It was just these knee-jerk anecdotal reactions.
But I wonder if, depending on the level of coercive technique that is instituted, I always am doubtful that people will stand up and hold firm to their convictions.
Personally, for me, I never wore a mask all throughout the pandemic.
I'm alive.
I'm here.
I'm well.
And I will not comply again.
And thankfully, throughout the last two years, I was able to discover where I was respected and where I wasn't respected.
So where that exemption would be honored and where it wouldn't.
And I'm happy to resort back to that way of living.
And for anyone who may, you know, feel that pressure again, there are businesses and there are a lot of venues that will respect and uphold your personal medical autonomy.
And we need to really rally support around those people.
And, you know, money talks.
Just don't support the rest if you're able to.
You know, you're so right, Tamara.
I think the most despicable thing about the pandemic was the fact of, you know, the amount of coercion, whether it was masking, whether it was getting jabbed, or else you lose your job.
A lot of people say, well, it's not a mandatory masking.
It's not a mandatory jabbing.
Well, it kind of is if they're going to give you an economic death sentence, which many people received.
And it's despicable.
I don't think history will judge those in charge kindly.
And as for the rest of the people, I always get a good hoot, Tamara, even if you're on board with masking, the number of people I see with the mask below the nose, because that's a no-no when it comes to masking etiquette.
And I'll never forget, if I wasn't late for an assignment, I would have pulled over and got a picture.
But I was at Young and Finch and at the bus stop, there was somebody waiting for the bus, and he had a mask on, but he had cut a slit in it so he could smoke his cigarette.
And I thought, Am I on the Bizarro Superman world?
Here he is ingesting something that, if used as directed, is going to shorten your life or even kill you.
But he's still wearing that bloody face diaper.
Insanity.
Last word goes to you, Tamara.
Mask Slits and Cigarettes00:09:16
That's just case in point: that it's all about health and not virtue, right?
That's a healthy dose of sarcasm there.
There was a gentleman, and we could probably dig up this report from the summer of 2020 that I did downtown Coburg at a local protest.
And he was walking by wearing a cloth mask and he was legitimately smoking right through it.
He could both inhale the cigarette through the mask and exhale.
So, right then and there, you can see for yourself that this is obviously just an ineffective piece of facial decoration.
And it's really sad that that's still the fallback at this point, you know, almost three years later.
Wow.
Well, one thing's for sure: that man in Coburg, it wasn't Bill Clinton, because as we all know, he never inhaled.
Tamara, thank you so much for your insight into the ongoing madness on the COVID front.
Much appreciated.
You have a good weekend, my friend.
Thanks you as well and to all the rebels.
There you go.
And that was Tamara Ugalini in Coburg, Ontario.
Keep it here, folks.
More of Rebel Roundup to come right after that.
David Menzies for Rebel News here in Toronto.
And folks, I'm standing outside of Unifor's national headquarters.
And you see, there was an individual in the news, it was Blacklocks that broke this story, namely David Cassidy was advocating for violence.
Now, wait a minute, the David Cassidy I know, he's all about peace and love and harmony and having a groovy good time.
Check it out.
I woke up in love this morning when you spent with you on my mind.
Oh, turns out it wasn't that David Cassidy.
No, I'm talking about the David Cassidy, who is the head honcho at local 444 in Windsor.
And this is what David Cassidy allegedly said.
He wanted to assemble 1,000 Unifor rank and file members in Windsor, descend upon the Freedom Convoy participants, act out violently upon them, and then, quote, throw them in the Detroit River, end quote.
How can this be?
I thought, you know, Unifor being the leftist organization that it is, it's all about peace and love and tolerance and understanding.
Well, I did reach out to David Cassidy and I had two questions for him.
One, did you actually say that?
And two, why would he want Uniform members to become vigilantes in order to shut down a peaceful protest and shut it down violently?
I don't think the Detroit River in the month of February is a very welcoming place.
Well, Mr. Cassidy has yet to respond.
So it is that I reached out to the media relations team here at Unifor.
They've got quite an extensive team.
And I sent an email to Kathleen O'Keeffe.
She's one of the spokeswomen here.
And my questions were this.
One, assuming Cassidy's statement is true, does Unifor support or condemn Mr. Cassidy's words?
And secondly, why would Mr. Cassidy deem it appropriate to enlist Unifor members as vigilantes to violently shut down a peaceful protest?
Well, folks, that was a couple of days ago.
It's radio silence, so we decided to make a house call.
Let's see if Ms. O'Keefe or anyone else in the media relations team has anything to say to us.
Kathleen McKay?
Yes, Kathleen with a K. Her last name is O'Keefe.
Thank you.
No problem.
Any of your name, Sherry?
My name is David Menzies.
Well, there you have it, folks.
This Unifor headquarters, it resembles the Hotel Overlook in the Shining.
It is virtually devoid of human beings.
The helpful fellow at the desk tried to get us in touch with anyone, but it was just Voicemail City.
And you know, it's incredible.
Like I said, they have an entire communications team.
And keep in mind that Unifor represents most of the mainstream media journalists in Canada.
You'd think they would have a little, I don't know, professional courtesy to get back to an independent journalist, but no, this is a horrible looking story.
And instead of addressing it, they go into the fetal position and hope that it goes away.
All I can assume is that these statements by Cassidy are indeed accurate and they are horrific.
He was advocating violence.
He was talking about a lynch mob dumping peaceful protesters into the Detroit River in February.
It is incredible, isn't it, folks?
It is Tamara Leach that gets 49 days in jail, whereas this union rep, David Cassidy of Unifor Local 444, spouts this hateful and threat-laced diatribe, and nothing seems to happen.
Unbelievable.
Nice.
Oh, and if you're wondering why you haven't seen coverage of this egregious story in the mainstream media, maybe it's because Unifor is the union that represents mainstream media outlets.
Unbelievable.
DJSCO writes, please keep doing your good work for the people.
We don't have enough real reporters anymore with all this current day propaganda.
Well, thank you, DJS.
You know, we are a non-union shop here at Rebel News, of course, but if we were to go the union route, I can tell you this much, the scandalous unifor would be our last choice.
Sulcanar writes, I wonder how Cassidy would feel if a thousand Freedom Convoy supporters showed up looking to confront him about his alleged statement.
Ah, but that's the thing, Sulkinar.
The Freedom Convoy supporters, they're not into coercion or violence.
Those are the tactics of the left.
Newham writes, incitement to violence is illegal.
Is he under arrest?
Nope.
But Tamara Leach was incarcerated for, well, what exactly?
Supervising bouncy castles?
She got 49 days for that?
Disgraceful.
Jason Crozet writes, Good work, David.
I've always known Unifor were a bunch of thugs.
Well, the funny thing is, Jason, those 1,000 auto workers never did materialize.
Do you think most of them supported the Freedom Convoy?
Maybe?
Cassidy is truly a loser.
And Neil Hillman writes, Dave, I think you will have an interesting story if you were to look into all Unifor leadership, past and present, criminal records.
Happy digging, and I look forward to the stories.
You never know what you might find.
Well, I can tell you, Neil, I am keeping my eyes peeled regarding ex-Unifor head honcho Jerry Diaz.
An investigation into Diaz found he allegedly accepted a $50,000 bribe from a supplier of COVID-19 rapid test kits.
Of course, soon after these allegations surfaced, Diaz issued a statement saying he is entering a residential rehabilitation facility due to his use of alcohol, painkillers, and sleeping pills.
Oh, give me a break.
Gee, at least he didn't say the devil made me do it.
You know, I wonder if the sinners residing in hell are unionized.
Unifor would be a perfect fit for them.
Well, that wraps up another edition of Rebel Roundup.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Have yourselves a fantastic weekend.
And hey, folks, never forget, without risk, there can be no glory.