Ezra Levant critiques the Trucker Commission’s handling of claims, including Brendan Miller’s unsubstantiated allegation that Brian Fox (not Brian Fawkes) waved a Nazi flag during protests, calling Fokes’ affidavit "wobbly" and demanding a retraction. The commission’s tight deadline—driven by Trudeau’s delayed unredacted documents—exposes potential political overreach, like Freeland’s terrorism designations contradicted by her handwritten notes. With Trudeau’s testimony looming, Levant questions whether the judge will uphold legal standards for the Emergencies Act, given testimonies from loyalists like Mendocino and LeMetti, suggesting accountability may hinge on procedural flaws rather than substantive threats. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, my favorite lawyer at the Trucker Commission gets something wrong, and we want to get it right.
It's November 24th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
I'm finding this trucker commission of inquiry useful.
We're learning things we never knew before that we could never know without the power of this commission of inquiry, the power to subpoena people and documents.
I mean, in Parliament, we have question period, but it is not called answer period for a reason.
At the Commission, though, politicians have to attend.
They have to swear to tell the truth, and they're pressed to answer.
They're not always doing so.
Some of them are clearly lying, although the police witnesses were pretty good, I think.
And as we showed you yesterday, we get access to records that are normally kept secret from us, that are normally exempt from, for example, access to information requests, cabinet memos, private text messages between cabinet ministers, like this one, where two cabinet ministers casually talked about sending a military tank to respond to the trucker convoy.
Seriously, what a couple of fascists.
I think this inquiry is good.
I think the evidence is overwhelming that Trudeau had no legal basis for invoking martial law.
And really, his shows aren't even really claiming with any enthusiasm that he did.
They talk about political reasons and journalistic reasons and how they were being made to look like fools on the world stage.
But I don't think anyone is really even pretending that the legal reasons for invoking martial law were met.
I'm sure Trudeau, the prince of lies, will take that on himself, but I don't think it'll work, actually.
So I like this commission, and I really didn't think I would.
Commission lawyers are doing a fair enough job, especially given their very tight time constraints.
That's something Trudeau has been using against them.
He just refuses to release unredacted documents because he knows this commission has an expiry date, unlike in normal court cases.
Things can't be delayed while a judge orders someone to hand over better records or the other move, dumping tens of thousands of pages on the other side without time for them to review them.
So it's unfair, but it's fair enough.
But I've said this several times, the real stars of the commission are the freedom-oriented lawyers.
The Democracy Funds had a litigation, Alan Honor.
He has official intervener status at the Commission.
He's given private confidential documents and advanced.
He's allowed to cross-examine witnesses, including cabinet ministers.
He's doing a great job.
But my biggest kudos go to the team of lawyers associated with our friends at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
I think there are six or seven of them altogether.
I know Keith Wilson.
We've talked to him a lot on this show before, but there are a lot of new faces I didn't know before.
For example, Rob Kittridge, who we spoke with just the other day, Eva Chipiuk, who's been working with Tamara Leach in particular.
I think there are literally seven lawyers affiliated with the Truckers and the JCCF.
And I think they've been the stars of the commission, really, giving it teeth where I'm not sure other lawyers there would have done so.
And my favorite lawyer has been Brendan Miller.
He's the toughest, the best informed, the most tenacious in the group.
I only heard of him from this commission.
I didn't know him before.
I met him very briefly on the first day of the commission, and he's been the MVP.
Good facts, good arguments, good questions for the witnesses.
I think he's been running a little hot lately.
He lost his cool a little bit when the judge wouldn't give him a speedy ruling on some of Trudeau's blacked out documents, and the judge actually booted him out for it.
Sir.
Okay, the Commission counsel has not completed her application.
I understand, sir, and your counsel's advised you that.
No, I know you've directed the application.
Sorry, I'm speaking.
Yes, sir.
The application, if you want to do it, you've been advised it's to be done in writing, not in the middle.
Sir, we filed two motions in writing at your direction that you've refused to rule on with respect to the redaction of documents from the government of Canada.
You're speaking.
Hold on.
And they've been filed for a while.
I will take a break while you're asked to leave.
I will return in five minutes if security could deal with the counsel.
Well, Miller didn't like that one bit, obviously.
Canadians are entitled to the truth, and you can't hide behind unlawful redactions in a public inquiry claiming baseless redactions on staffer correspondents because it may hurt you.
Made two, actually three technically, written applications with respect to these redacted documents in advance of the minister's testifying.
And the commission has failed or refused to rule on them.
And one of the other grounds of procedural fairness is for decisions without undue delay.
When decisions are not made on procedural issues of this importance without undue delay, procedural fairness of not just my clients, but everyone's is violated.
Canadians are entitled to the truth.
And you can't hide behind unlawful redactions in a public inquiry claiming baseless redactions on staffer correspondents because it may hurt you.
And that, in my view, is what the government of Canada is doing.
And it needs to stop.
And had we had a timely ruling on these redactions, this application made orally today would have been entirely unnecessary.
Is it your expectation to continue?
Which the application for Alex Cohen would have been entirely unnecessary?
Correct.
Is it your expectation to continue in the proceedings?
Yes.
Well, it's my client's constitutional right to have legal representation of their choice.
Is there another lawyer as part of the team that could step in for you if you're not allowed to?
My client's choice is to have me.
And with respect to being thrown out of the building at the direction of the commissioner, there is no jurisdiction to do that either.
So it is what it is.
We'll wait and we'll see.
Is that your next step then?
You're just going to wait for some response from the Commissioner now.
Response more so from security.
It's up to security whether or not I'm allowed in the building.
And it's up to the commissioner whether or not he'll abide by my client's constitutional right to have the lawyer of their choice and the procedural fairness and constitutional right to be heard before the tribune.
But look, it's the judge's courtroom.
He's trying to balance a lot of things, a lot of lawyers, his own lawyers, each of the witnesses, lawyers, give the judge some leeway.
And there can only be one boss in the courtroom, and it is the judge, for better or worse.
I think having security escort Miller out of the room was a bit too much.
I think the judge could have just ordered him to sit down.
But I take all that as a sign that tempers are just a little bit afraid after a month of this.
I mean, remember, for every hour the commission sits, there's probably an hour of preparation and follow-up.
I bet everyone involved in this has been working 18 hours a day.
Battling for Courtroom Control00:15:30
I'm not surprised.
A lawyer fainted the other day.
So you have a phone call at 1300 hours, I think, with Deputy Minister Rob Stewart.
He says that there are 300 commercial CMV.
That's commercial vehicles.
Anyways, a few days ago, Miller had a bombshell.
He telegraphed that to us.
He said he had a doozy, but he wasn't able to tell the details to us in advance.
All the lawyers who have some standing with the commission have to follow certain rules of confidentiality.
They are given early access to documents so they can review them and prepare.
But in return, they must keep those documents confidential until they're formally released publicly through the commission's website.
So we didn't know what this bombshell would be.
Well, it was about one of the worst smears against the truckers that happened during the convoy.
As we know, the truckers were multiracial from English Canada and Quebec, people from all walks of life, peaceful, fun, patriotic, the bouncy castles, the hot tubs.
Trudeau wanted to demonize them as Nazis, but they just weren't.
Here's Ralph Goodale in a text.
He's an old liberal hack calling them neo-Nazis.
No basis other than his own bigotry.
He's projecting.
The liberals knew it wasn't true, but they knew they had to gin up that theory because they wanted to demonize their peaceful opponents.
They wanted them to be Nazis.
They needed them to be Nazis.
They weren't, so they did what they always do.
They make accusations and they sent in false flags.
Who was it?
Who were the Nazis who were there?
Some of these photos look like they were taken at the Chateau Laurier, the most prestigious, the most expensive, exclusive hotel in the city.
Were the neo-Nazis really, really staying there?
No one else saw that photo, saw that image in that photo.
I wonder where it came from.
I do know that the Chateau Laurier was where the RCMP were staying.
Isn't that funny?
They boasted about it in their RCMP WhatsApp groups.
That's where they were staying when they were running their ride horses.
They were feasting like kings on the taxpayer dime at the Chateau Laurier.
I wonder if some undercover cops were there and they were the Nazis.
It wouldn't surprise me.
It wouldn't be the first time either.
I mean, the supply of Nazis in Canada does not meet the demand for Nazis.
Trudeau's entire team wanted to demonize the truckers as Nazis.
Everyone saw through it.
But who was that guy who held the Nazi flag?
How could CESIS or the police not know?
Like he was the one guy.
Well, I bet they do know.
I bet they do.
Just like the FBI knew all about Ray Epps in Washington, D.C. on January 6th.
Tomorrow, we need to go into the Capitol.
Into the Capitol.
Tomorrow?
I don't even like to say it because I'll be arrested.
Well, let's not say it.
We need to go.
I'll say it.
All right.
We need to go in.
Shut the fuck up, Boober.
To the Capitol.
I need to hear.
We are going to the Capitol, where our problems are.
It's that direction.
Yeah, look, we don't know who the Canadian Ray Epps was, but Brendan Miller, the lawyer, said he did.
He said it was a man named Brian Fox, who was a senior executive for a public relations firm called Enterprise Canada.
Well, that's stunning.
Enterprise Canada is a political firm.
Maybe it was a false flag operation conducted by a group of political dirty tricksters for, who knows, the government, the Liberal Party.
At least we knew who it was who was smearing the truckers.
At last, we finally got the name.
Here's Brendan Miller raising the subject at the commission.
Were you aware that the first time that the picture of the gentleman all covered in Army fatigues with a mask over his face, walking with a Confederate flag through a crowd, it first appeared in an opinion piece in the Toronto Star from someone who actually works for the Liberal Party of Canada.
Were you aware of that?
Mr. Commissioner, my friend seems to be giving evidence now.
I'm asking if he's aware.
I just asked a question and I can guess at what the answer is going to be.
Okay, but there's a presupposition of a fact.
That's not a question.
Because you keep interrupting me when I'm trying to ask questions, and I'm running out of time.
Just please.
Okay.
I'm not aware of the articles, and I'm not aware of the facts that you mentioned.
I'm sorry.
Are you aware of a company called Enterprise Canada?
Not specifically, no.
And have you identified the individual, the one that is, it was all over the news, the gentleman that was carrying the Nazi flag?
Have you identified him yet?
Mr. Commissioner, as I said before, the specific details of our investigations have been shared with Commission earlier.
I would not be able to go into more specific details.
So I think that's right.
Yeah.
No, and I take it then, sir, that you know that that individual was Brian Fox from Enterprise Group.
I have not said anything of that respect to counsel.
I've not testified to that counsel.
He named Brian Fox of Enterprise Canada.
Got him.
Got the dirty trickster.
And not just that, but Brendan Miller wanted to subpoena him, to call him under oath, to ask him all about it.
That's a great idea.
I mean, remember, this whole Emergencies Act thing was because the Liberals claimed it was violent extremists coming to overthrow the government.
Imagine if they had arranged somehow to plant that Nazi protester like a false flag.
And then you catch the guy and he revealed the whole conspiracy.
Who set him up to it?
Who put him up to it?
Now, Brendan Miller had trouble going further on this.
The judge wouldn't let him.
Judge shut him down.
Miller wanted to subpoena Brian Fox, interrogate him.
And Miller has his own witness, a live witness who saw Brian Fox that day.
Sean Fokes is his name.
He has an affidavit swearing it's true, Sean Fokes.
And frankly, Miller wanted to call Sean Fokes also his witness.
I don't know.
This was extremely exciting.
I thought this was an exciting story.
Bombshell indeed.
And Brendan Miller had so many bombshells this past month, he really did have the goods on so many politicians and bureaucrats and politicized cops.
So if Brendan Miller says he's got the proof and he's willing to say it in this judicial forum and willing to call witnesses, you better believe that I'm paying attention and every rebel news viewer ought to.
So we ran that story big time, but you know our practice.
We like to reach out to the other side just to make sure they have their say in the story too.
But really, what's left to ask?
Eyewitness, sworn affidavit.
Miller has been right every time so far.
But I don't know, Brian Fox and Enterprise Canada, they disagreed with this.
They were pretty fast.
They put out a statement before we even reached out to them.
They immediately put this up on their website.
Today, in the scope of the Emergencies Act inquiry, Brendan Miller, the lawyer representing Freedom Corp, made an entirely unsubstantiated and deeply offensive accusation against Enterprise Canada principal Brian Fawkes.
For the record, there is no truth to this absurd and despicable accusation.
Neither Brian Fox nor anyone from Enterprise Canada was in attendance at the Freedom Convoy protests in any capacity.
Mr. Fox was in Toronto for the duration of these protests and had no involvement in them.
Now, that's pretty categorical.
There's no wiggle room words there.
Someone has their facts wrong.
Either Brian Fox or Brendan Miller in his eyewitness.
Now, Fox's company added some more details later saying Brian Fox has not been in Ottawa since 2019.
Brian Fox has not been involved with the Liberal Party of Canada or Freedom Convoy protests in any way.
In fact, I'm told he's a peer polyev supporter who was last in Ottawa three years ago for the Manning Center Conference.
It's a Conservative conference.
But really, a senior executive in a national communications firm, the idea that he would dress up as a Nazi to do a false flag dirty trick at a trucker convoy, it's implausible.
Really, you're going to get a senior VP kind of guy doing that?
That's the kind of thing that a young college kid might be convinced to do by a dirty trickster.
But a businessman in his 50s or 60s, I don't know.
Well, Miller was adamant.
We had made application days and days and days ago.
The Commission consistently directs that we are to make motions in writing.
So we do so.
We currently have two outstanding.
The first is dealing with all of these redactions that the government of Canada has put on all of the staffers' correspondence, as well as the notes of Ms. Katie Telford, the chief of staff to the prime minister.
They have redacted these documents claiming they are irrelevant or that they are in fact subject to a cabinet confidence, despite the fact that the law is abundantly clear and undeniably clear that cabinet confidence does not apply to political staffers.
These include the notes of Sarah Jackson, who is the office manager of Katie Telford, discussing the Emergencies Act, discussing the protests, discussing what they're going to do.
These include the email responses from Minister Blair to his own chief of staff about why he did not accept the advice of law enforcement to carry out the plan that was before the IRG.
The government of Canada has continuously and every day dropped hundreds of documents on the parties and the parties are frustrated.
It is not just myself.
They have tried to turn this entire proceeding into an inquiry about the failures of Chief Slally as opposed to actually about the invocation of the Emergencies Act.
And my duty to my clients and my duty as a lawyer is to uncover the truth.
We have also applied and we applied before I asked the questions with respect to Mr. Brian Fox to have him compelled as a witness.
And we did that in writing.
We applied to also now have Mr., I believe it's David Chan, who we found out was the individual who actually took the photos of the gentleman carrying the Confederate flag, of which he is also the photographer for the Prime Minister.
David Chan's not the transfer of Barbara.
Well, I would disagree with you if you have an official photograph.
Well, I understand there's an official photographer on the other on Brian Fox.
Yeah, but that's not him.
So explain to me why you've named Brian Fox.
Because we have a witness in our application who had met the person with the flag, all right, on the day he was running around with it and can identify him as Mr. Falk.
Who's that person?
It's in the application, and I'm not allowed to say yet because they won't release it to you.
Our applications that we have made, our applications that we have made have still not been released by the commission.
Are you worried about it?
Did you get sued, sir?
No, I'm not.
Because guess what?
Truth is a full defense, and we also have privileges for things of which we say in a courtroom.
And the reason that that exists is so that lawyers can do their job and witnesses can tell the truth.
I don't care about Enterprise's little announcement yesterday.
I could care less.
If they want to bring that, I would be happy to do so and defend it and get discovery and get their records.
What are the odds of getting at the truth on this sidewalk?
Well, I can tell you the odds of getting at the truth and a commissioner who has no compulsion powers at law directing that I leave a building, a government building where I am counsel to a client whose rights to counsel are constitutionally protected.
Well, you're challenging his authority.
Well, I understand that.
And I'm challenging the lawfulness of what's going on.
All right, I'll bite.
Who is this witness?
What does the affidavit say?
Well, let's take a look at it.
I'll read from it.
So, affidavit is Sean Folk.
He says, I approached the person who was carrying the Nazi flag on January 29, 2022, and I attempted to speak with him.
On November 21, 2022, I went onto the website for Enterprise Canada and found Brian Fox's profile thereon, including a photo of him attached here too in Marquis Exhibit B is a true copy of a screenshot of the profile of Brian Fox from the Enterprise Canada website.
I can confirm that Brian Fox is the man I met with the Nazi flag on January 29, 2022.
So this guy, this witness, Sean Folk, says he spoke with a Nazi flag guy in January, but I don't think he took any notes.
He certainly didn't take any photos.
He just sort of saw him in January and spoke briefly with him.
And then in November, just a few days ago, he happens to look at the Enterprise Canada website, sees the photo of Brian Fox, and says, that's him.
10 months later, you talk with someone briefly, no notes, no photos, no video.
He's wearing a mask.
And then 10 months later, you look at a website photo, and who knows how old or accurate that website photo might be.
And you say, that's him.
Absolutely.
I'll swear on a Bible.
Now, you're not really an expert at these things.
You're not trained in these things, but you're sure of it.
Even though the Nazi guy was wearing a mask.
How sure are you?
How sure are you?
How credible is the witness?
Who is Sean Fokes?
Well, his affidavit describes him as a political activist.
Pages and pages of how he fights political battles and a bit of attention-seeking in other ways, too, in his affidavit.
He talks about his father inventing the musical genre of reggae, talks about his accomplished family.
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with him himself or Brian Fox or what he saw, but this affidavit sort of paints a picture about Sean Folkes as in, is he really a disinterested witness just coming forward with the facts, or is he someone who wants to be part of the excitement, someone with a bit of an asterisk, someone who wants to be internet famous, wants to be in the fight, someone with political ambitions?
Is Sean Folkes Reliable?00:11:38
It's a bit different, isn't it?
But here's a surprise.
Sean Fokes actually did make a video record of what he saw back when it happened or right afterwards.
I wonder if he forgot that he did that.
See, when he was in Ottawa, the Convoy, he talked to an independent citizen journalist who happened to be live streaming from down at the convoy.
Here's a video published back at the time.
I'll start with the part where Sean Folk identifies himself.
You'll see this is the guy.
You hear that?
That's what we're here, guys, Freedom.
What's my name?
You guys can look me up.
My name is Sean, S-H-W-N, Folks, F-O-L-K-E-S.
Now, when you bring up my last name, you might bring up my sister because she's the head of acquisitions and procurements.
Okay, she's buying fighter just for the military.
Paula Folks Delaire.
You might bring up my dad, John Folkes, my father.
And if you bring his name up, he's the founding father, the guy who started reggae music.
Still, dad?
Holy crap.
Yeah, O Carolina.
That's my dad's song.
And you can find out the history of it because now people can't say, oh, you're bullshitting because they can do their Google research.
So that's him.
He actually seems like a nice guy.
I bet he's a rebel news viewer.
He mentioned that reggae thing, didn't he?
He's proud of that.
And, you know, he got some things right.
He pointed out the military snipers in Ottawa.
That was true.
And he talked about drones overhead.
That was true also, police drones.
And believe it or not, the Canadian Armed Forces drone, too.
He sounded a bit wild saying it then, but we now know it's 100% true.
And you know what's the interesting thing?
Is you guys have no idea how they're watching us.
We're being watched by drone right now.
I have these really crazy binoculars.
I spotted three snipers.
Really?
Yeah.
That could, you know, fall asleep behind his trigger and pull that trigger and one of us is dead, right?
Yeah.
Where do they got snake?
I'm all for Canadian snipers if they're against our enemies, but the last time I seen, I can't remember the last time Canadian had enemies.
Yeah.
I like this guy, and he's living proof that this was a diverse group of Canadians, these truckers.
Sean Folk himself was certainly no Nazi.
But let me get to the important part.
Here's a full minute where Folks describes his encounter with the Nazi guy.
Very interesting.
So the media says there's racism here.
Is there racism?
Okay, let me tell you something about that.
It's funny that you ran into me of all people.
Apparently.
Okay.
I was here the first day of Ground Zero.
I actually spoke on stage.
I actually saw the guy with a Swastika flag.
So it was a real thing.
It was a real thing.
But this is what they didn't tell you.
He was going around with the flag saying, is this what you want for our country?
Really?
This is what Trudeau is going to turn our flag into if we allow this draconian fascism to continue.
Is this what you want the May Police to be replaced by?
This is what we're heading to, people.
And he was speaking with a European accent.
So I'm thinking that he came from a country that knows about fascism because we don't know it.
You know, we're just oblivious to it.
And we don't see the slow incremental movements that they're making towards this total, you know.
I don't know even what to call it.
So the Nazi thing was apparently ironic, as in a warning of what Trudeau was going to do to Canada.
What an absurd thing to say.
That sounds like a lie, a lie told by the Nazi guy.
I mean, I'm sure he did say that lie to Sean Folkes.
That's just showing up with a mask and a Nazi flag and then claiming you're just being ironic and you're accusing Trudeau of that.
You're not trying to taint the whole protest.
I don't buy the Nazis' excuse.
Obviously, it was a false flag designed to smear the truckers.
But did you hear that key part?
The Nazi flag guy spoke to Sean Folkes in a European accent, which I'm sure Folks meant Eastern European, like Russian or Polish or Czech or something, and claimed to be talking about fascism from experience.
Okay, maybe.
But whatever the substance of the Nazi flag guy's comments, if he spoke with an accent, well, Brian Fox was born in Windsor, Ontario.
Doesn't have an accent at all, actually.
I'm not saying Sean Folks lied in his affidavit.
I'm saying it's much more likely that he forgot 10 months later about that detail of the accent.
Or more to the point, he's never met or spoken with Brian Fox.
He just looked at a photo of him.
So he simply didn't know that Brian Fox does not speak with an accent.
I mean, seriously, he never even saw the face of the Nazi guy.
And he was looking at a corporate website photo of Brian Fox.
Imagine trying to compare those two things 10 months apart with great certainty.
What a joke.
If he really did meet Brian Fawkes in person, he'd have heard the Canadian accent and known it wasn't him.
Couldn't have been him.
Take a look at this.
You ever made a mistake?
Everyone has made a mistake.
I make tons of them all the time.
That's the way I learned.
The government's making mistakes, but they're not learning from them.
You're right.
Yeah, he's right.
Do you ever make a mistake?
Of course, we all make mistakes.
That's how we learn.
That's right.
He's right.
That's sort of obvious.
Sean Fox made a mistake.
But Brendan Miller made a mistake, too.
I hate saying that because Brendan Miller has been the MVP in these Trucker Commission proceedings.
He's asked the best questions in the best ways.
But this, this wasn't the best.
This was wobbly to begin with.
Brian Fox immediately denied it was him, denied he was in Ottawa.
He was in Toronto.
He said he hadn't been to Ottawa in years.
He said he's a pro-conservative guy, if that matters.
And really, do you really think a senior business executive would do a dirty trick prank like this?
Even if he was motivated by malice, and even if he was in town and had the opportunity and the proof, a foggy memory of a guy who briefly spoke with him 10 months ago and then was shown a corporate PR website photo of him.
Come on, that's your affidavit?
And that's the basis you're calling a man a Nazi guy in public?
Now, we reported Brendan Miller's accusation when it was made because it was news, very newsy.
It was made in a judicial inquiry about matters in the public interest.
It just was news.
And we immediately published Brian Fox's refutation of it.
But I won't lie, even though a flat denial is pretty powerful, I was still tending to believe it.
Miller has done just such a good job this past month, and I couldn't believe he would say something so powerful without some real evidence.
We ran Brian Fox's response because that's the journalist's thing to do.
But I got to tell you, I still believed on the balance of probabilities that he was the guy.
I mean, I just couldn't believe Brendan Miller would say something without proof.
But I have to say, I cannot say that now.
Now that I've read the affidavit, the foggy memory of a guy 10 months ago who said on a contemporaneous video that the Nazi guy had a European accent, that's it?
That's all you got?
That's all your evidence?
No.
There's a reason why police traditionally have had a lineup of five or six similar-looking suspects when an eyewitness is asked to identify them because it's bloody important to get the right guy, more important than how it was treated by the commission.
No, it's not enough, and it's not right.
I know what it's like to be called names unfairly.
I'm Jewish, but because I'm conservative, you know, here's an example.
The disgraceful Gerald Butts, the advisor to Justin Trudeau, his friend since childhood.
I mean, I'm called a Nazi.
Trudeau's corrupt henchman, disgraced lobbyist.
I'm a Jew, but he calls me a Nazi.
Now, I can brush that off more easily than most.
It really is absurd to call a Jew like me a Nazi, but Brian Fawkes, I can only imagine what it's like to be tarred that way.
He had nothing to do with this whole thing.
He wasn't even in the city, but some foggy memory guy says for sure it's him, so it's him.
Look, part of Rebel News is championing the cause of freedom.
That's why we support the truckers.
That's why we support the trucker lawyers, including Brendan Miller and his great team.
If you don't know, Rebel News constantly promotes the JCCF, and I always buy tickets to their fundraising dinners.
Their boss, John Carpe, will be a speaker at our big Rebel News live conference in Calgary this weekend.
I love the JCCF, and as you've heard me say all month, my favorite new lawyer there is Brendan Miller.
He's doing a great job at the Commission, but he got this one wrong.
Maybe he just wanted it too much, so he didn't look at countervailing facts.
Maybe he just knew in his bones that the government did set this up and he forced the facts to fit his theory.
I don't know.
I can imagine he's under stress and pressure and is sleep-deprived, too.
We like the JCCF and Brendan Miller, but we also have a duty to our viewers to tell the truth, a duty to our own conscience.
Oh, believe me, we wanted to find out the identity of that Nazi guy as much as Miller did.
And when he made the accusation, we reported it with some gusto, but now three days later, we can't.
It's just obviously not true.
Miller raised the question again obliquely today with Christia Freeland.
He didn't name Brian Fawkes, but he said the Nazi flag waiver was a government plant.
I do think the Nazi flag waver was a government plant because if he were real, we would know his name, address, phone number, and bank account like we know that information for a thousand truckers and their donors to the GoFundMe.
The banks would have frozen the Nazi flag waiver's bank account.
The media party would be doing biographies on his whole family and all his friends, and we know everyone he'd follow on social media.
The fact that we don't know who the Nazi flag guy is tells me that he was Canada's version of Ray Epps, a government plant, an undercover cop, maybe.
But I'll tell you, it was not Brian Fawkes.
I think Brian Fawkes deserves from Brendan Miller a retraction, a correction, and an apology, not just for the sake of Brian Fawkes's reputation, but for the sake of Brendan Miller's reputation.
Here at Rebel News, we work hard to get it right.
You know, when you publish 20 stories a day under time pressure, you're not always going to get it right.
A few times a year, we get it wrong, and once in a while, we have to apologize.
Eat some crow.
It is not tasty, but it is the right thing to do.
And it's also a message.
If we apologize when we make an error, that's a signal that you can trust what we do and say the rest of the time, because we'll admit it when we're wrong.
Saying sorry once in a while actually improves your reputation for accuracy the rest of the time.
We've been the top boosters of Brendan Miller and his team all month.
And I've literally never met or heard of Brian Fawkes until three days ago.
But we owe it to our readers to correct the record and to our viewers and to call upon our champion, Brendan Miller, to correct the record too.
Brian Fawkes did not do that terrible thing.
And just as it is wrong for the truckers to be demonized for political purposes of Trudeau, it's wrong for our side to do the same to Brian Fawkes too.
Stay with us for more.
Well, I'm so glad we're doing this Trucker Commission coverage the way we are.
Justin Trudeau Takes the Stand00:04:10
As you know, we've rented an Airbnb in downtown Ottawa, not far from where the commission hearings are.
I'm really glad we did that.
It's so walkable.
It's actually faster to walk from our Airbnb to the Commission than even to call a cab.
It's so close.
It's got four bedrooms, so our reporters can stay there.
It's almost like a fraternity house, but instead of for partying, it's for working.
Our team is going around the clock.
I have to give credit to the Commission of Inquiry.
I have never heard of a court keeping these hours before.
I mean, courts often start at 9:30 or 10, and they often wrap up at 5.
It's not unusual for this Commission of Inquiry to go to 7 p.m. or later because they are on a very tight deadline.
So I give credit not just to the Commission staff and lawyers, but to the judge himself.
It cannot be easy and to stay focused and attentive.
I'm the kind of guy I start to daydream and my mind wanders.
It must take a very strong attention span to follow things.
And I'm not saying he's got everything right, but I think he's got most things right.
And I'm actually optimistic, and maybe that'll be proven to be naive that I actually believe that some public system can hold Trudeau to account when he has corrupted so many public systems.
I mean, the people handpicked by Trudeau acted like it.
You saw his CESIS advisor, his security advisor, the head of the RCMP, all the people that he personally chose completely lying for him.
It was disgraceful.
Marco Mendocino and David LeMetti yesterday, just the ones who are put in place by Trudeau are loyal to Trudeau, not to the country.
It's quite depressing.
I hope that this judge is independent enough to do the right thing.
How possibly could a judge find that the legal test for martial law was met?
Oh, a political test, maybe a journalistic test, a feelings test, sure, sure, sure.
But that's not the law in Canada.
That's the law of wokeness, I guess.
But will the law be upheld?
We'll find out.
As I said, over the course of the weeks, it's like the Commission of Inquiry is moving towards the bullseye from the outer rings of people who really weren't that involved, moving into the police and then cabinet.
And today it was Christy Freeland, the deputy prime minister, and Katie Telford, who I believe is the chief of staff.
So we're really in the inner circle.
And then tomorrow we get to the bullseye himself.
Justin Trudeau will take the stand.
He's a dramatic actor.
He's a thespian.
We know that.
He loves to play dress up and he loves to put on his dramatic actor voice.
It'll be interesting to see if he can hold up under cross-examination because normally when he does his dramatic actor routine, it's a soliloquy.
It's a unilateral speech and press that he largely owns or rents, just take notes.
It'll be interesting to see how he handles cross-examination from adverse lawyers.
I don't know how that'll go.
It'll probably be more duck speaking, just fog to kill the time.
He'll try and run out the clock.
That's, I think, the chief tactic of the government, because, like I say, this commission has a hard end date.
So any shenanigans in a real court could result in a delay or more hearings, but not this.
So I think Trudeau will simply try and run out the clock.
Well, Christy Freeland is the deputy prime minister, and in some ways, I think she's become the de facto prime minister because Trudeau just likes mascot type things.
He likes being a spokesmodel.
He loves doing the foreign trips.
He loves cutting ribbons and shaking hands.
That's not just my opinion.
That's how he described himself before the ethics commissioner.
He was accused and convicted of taking an illegal gift of a $100,000 secret vacation to Billionaire Island in the Bahamas.
And his excuse was, sure, the man who gave me the vacation, the Aga Khan, was a lobbyist.
Sure, we paid him hundreds of millions of dollars, but I didn't know about any of that.
I don't know any of the details of business.
I'm just there for relationships.
I think there's some truth to that.
I think that Justin Trudeau is an empty vessel.
And Christia Freeland is actually the hands-on prime minister in many ways.
Vaccine Blockade Debate00:09:49
She took the stand today, and our own Alexa Lavoie was covering it, live tweeting it.
She is at the Airbnb in Ottawa and joins us now.
Alexa, great to see you again.
Thank you for being there.
We're really down to the final days in the inquiry.
The most important people are there.
I'm really glad you're there.
Tell me what it was like.
How was Christia Freeland?
What was her tone, her temperament?
Was she in that lecturing mode that she sometimes gets?
Did she answer questions plainly and directly?
What was it like?
I would say because I arrived really at the end of the commission, only two days left.
But I was capable to feel that people are getting tired.
And it is something that we were able to feel in the room.
Christian Frélén arrived by walk.
I was pretty surprised that she didn't take a car or anything.
But she arrived.
She was pretty calm, I would say, but it was really interesting to see her in front of really tough questions trying to abort, or she was sending a lot of different things that was not making sense to, I think, gaining some time to answer to the question.
So this is something that we were able to see.
Now, you've chosen three clips to look at, and this will be my first time looking at them.
These were selected by you and the team there.
Your live tweeting events were live streaming the whole proceedings.
Plus, we're cutting video clips during the day.
And then at night, we have a wrap-up.
There really are a lot of things happening at truckercommission.com.
I'm really pleased with it.
This first video, clip number one, is talking about a text exchange with an American owner of a steel company that's based in Hamilton.
Let's take a look at this clip and then let's talk about it.
I know it sucks politically to back down and reverse course, but it does really pay to carry on the policy or does it really pay, I'm sorry, to carry on the policy in support of a mandate for a vaccine that doesn't prevent the spread of Omicron and which seems to be vanishing naturally anyway.
Moreover, this could create a resurgence of the right wing, just like it did in America.
Anyway, I know this is a massive headache for you, but it could be solved by retreating and letting it fade away from everyone's memory, just sharing my views, hoping the spreading disruption gets resolved quickly.
You know, I think what he says there, and he runs Stelco in Hamilton.
He is American though, and U.S. based.
What he was saying at the beginning about onshoring and relocating to the U.S., that's what I was talking about earlier today.
And I kind of highlight that for all of us here just to kind of make clear to everyone that for people whose bread and butter, whose livelihoods were in the U.S. trade-exposed industries, their immediate conclusion, you didn't have to think about it.
The immediate conclusion from the blockage of trade was the Americans are going to respond by cutting us out.
And then, in terms of Alan's proposal, I didn't debate it with him.
I don't think that it's, I think that the relevant information for me from him wasn't for him to tell me what the right solution was.
Yeah, because he was saying the obvious.
Why are you bringing this vaccine mandate for truckers so late in the game when we all know that the vaccine isn't stopping Omicron from spreading?
Why are you doing this political theater?
If anything, you're going to radicalize things.
I think Alan, who apparently is in charge of Stelco in Hamilton, had some good advice for her, but she wasn't interested in that.
The idea that Hamilton's steel factory would shut down and move to America, I mean, that may happen eventually.
I have no idea.
Probably for other reasons, the reasons that other steel plants have closed in Canada.
But it absolutely was not affected.
There was no blockade in Hamilton.
The steel in Hamilton is used in Canada.
I think that that's grasping.
But let's say she's right.
Let's say this trucker convoy would make the owner of that stelco factory say, I'm going to move it to the United States.
He didn't say that.
In fact, he said, what are you doing with your ridiculous vaccine mandate?
But let's say her attempt to say, oh, no, no, this is a threat to trade.
A threat to trade is not a listed ground to bring in martial law.
Under the Emergencies Act, you have to have one of two things.
A threat, a danger to the people of Canada or a danger to the sovereignty of Canada, like a revolution or an invasion.
And part two, this is so important, something that can't be dealt with by regular laws.
So a trade dispute that may or may not happen and didn't happen is not grounds.
And even if it did, you know, you solve the blockade with regular laws, which it was in the case of the Windsor Bridge.
And even if you didn't, even if that Stelco factory moved to the United States, which was not proposed in this text message from Allen, even if that were to happen, you don't say, well, there's my justification for bringing in martial law.
I think Christia Freeland is far too easy to say, yeah, martial law, because my job was difficult for a day.
Martial law is the solution.
But the blockade was dismantled before they invoked the Emergencies Act.
No?
So they have the power to already dismantle some blockade.
So that just proved that it was overused to invoke the Emergencies Act since no blockade was there anymore and it was only Ottawa that was still up.
You know, I think Christia Freeland is an ideologue.
I think she really doesn't care about civil liberties.
She's more used to the global billionaire set.
In fact, she wrote a book about billionaires.
She was, before she became a member of parliament, she was actually the official biographer of George Soros, which is, I think, a fact most Canadians don't know but would find interesting.
And to this day, bizarrely, I don't even know how it's legal.
She's on the board of directors of the World Economic Forum.
She doesn't care about things like civil liberties or Canadian sovereignty.
She loves the idea of bringing in martial law.
And this whole idea of having to answer to the public is something that she doesn't really like one bit.
Let me show you clip number two.
About transparency.
Yeah.
And thank you for selecting these clips.
I just have a quick summary of them here, but I'm watching them for the first time.
This is Brendan Miller, who has been an excellent lawyer doing some great cross-examinations.
Here he is asking: what's the point of an inquiry if the public isn't allowed to see the key documents?
Take a look.
I have to say that I disagree with the premise of the question.
I think Canada is a very transparent democracy.
And in fact, the commission that we're part of right now is a part of Canadian transparency.
Right.
That's why it's important.
And on that point, if I told you that there is a whole bunch of unlawfully redacted documents that we've been fighting over and waiting for an order just to get them today, and we haven't had them for this whole proceeding.
Do you think that's transparent?
Again, and with apologies, I can't agree with the premise of the question.
I think that, but what I can say is I think that the fact that this commission exists, that these hearings are being held, that they're public, is really important for Canada and is a measure of Canadian transparency.
Well, there's some truth to that, but the Commission of Inquired really doesn't work if it can't get access to documents.
And it's not very much a public inquiry if the documents are not made public because Trudeau blacks them out.
And it's really funny because during her testimony, they show a document, but it was just a black square, a giant black square, because everything was hiding.
So where is the transparency when we see some document look like that?
She claimed that there is no lack of transparency on Canadian citizens.
I'm sorry, but when we see the document coming back from the government, it just shows that there is like a really big lack of transparency if you don't want to show the information and to hide the information from the population.
Yeah, I think you're right.
Our third clip is again with Brendan Miller asking about terrorists.
Take a look.
Transparency Debate00:07:07
Is Tamara Leach a terrorist?
In terms of designating who is a terrorist and who isn't, that is not my job as Minister of Finance or Deputy Prime Minister.
We have authorities whose job is to do that.
Right.
And so it's not your authority to designate Tamara Leach Chris Barber, Tom Morazo, or Danny Boldford terrorists.
That's somebody else has to do that.
Yes, we have intelligence services.
We have enforcement agencies whose job is to determine who is a terrorist.
Okay.
And there you say that you need to designate the group as terrorists.
So, but it's not your job, but you wanted to designate them as terrorists, right?
So that handwritten note in my notebook, I can assure you that was not a meeting with the director of CESIS.
With whom I didn't have a meeting.
It says it's okay.
It's with David Vignon from CESIS.
It doesn't say that.
It says it's with a gentleman called Dave.
Which Dave?
That meeting, that is not an account of a meeting with Dave Vigno because I didn't.
Which Dave is in those notes?
The CESIS director.
Which Dave is in those notes?
What's Dave's last name?
I need to see my whole notebook that you're referring to, but I can tell you for certain that I did not have a meeting during this time with the CESIS director.
Okay, so I can exclude that 100%.
You know, I thought that was an excellent back and forth.
She said twice, no, we do not designate people as terrorists.
We have experts who do that.
And then a second later, her own handwritten notes say we need to designate these people as terrorists.
Oh, I thought you literally just said you're not allowed to do that.
You don't have the power to do that.
But we've seen this throughout.
I mean, politicians do not command our police forces.
We have civilian oversight of the police.
Politicians do not direct police to arrest their enemies.
And yet throughout, we've seen Trudeau and other politicians demanding that police do their bidding.
I think that Brendan Miller caught Christia Freeland red-handed there.
And it was a perfect moment.
And especially when you think that some people from the organism was present in front of her saying what she was saying on front of their face, I find that a little bit arrogant and not adequate at all.
I don't know if who the Dave was in question there.
She claims it's not Dave Vigneau from CSIS.
I don't know how many people named Dave she talks to about designating people as terrorists.
But I think that there's more answering to do there.
But again, the nature of this inquiry is that she likely will never be followed up on that.
And it'll be interesting to see tonight if the mainstream media reports that stunning contra juxtaposition.
It is interesting to me who Dave is.
But more interesting.
Sorry, go ahead.
It's just because she keep telling that it's why she taking, she's taking note because she keep forgetting.
But I'm just like, oh, you can forget to who you talk about designated someone as a terrorist, or you can forget who that person is.
Yeah, I mean, if you're in a crisis and you're talking to someone about designating them as a terrorist and you just forget who that is, I find that implausible.
But again, in some ways, it doesn't matter who it is because you saw that Christy Freeland wanted them designated terrorists and she's the decider.
She's the deputy prime minister.
I say she's more than that.
She's a de facto prime minister.
She just said it's not our role to make people terrorists.
And then the next moment she said, yeah, those are my notes.
I just can't remember who I was talking to.
Well, of course, it does matter if it was CSIS.
But in a way, it doesn't matter because we just see the mask has slipped.
And we see that Christy Freeland is in the habit of designating her political enemies as terrorists.
I'm sure it's not the first time she's done that.
Well, Alexa, thank you for your coverage there.
And thanks for bringing these three clips.
And I know that the coverage will continue and it'll continue with Katie Telford, the Chief of Staff, and tomorrow's a big day with Justin Trudeau.
So thanks for being in Ottawa to cover it.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be there too.
Well, I think you're doing a great job.
Thanks very much.
Thank you.
Folks, if you want to see all our coverage of the Trucker Commission, go to truckercommission.com.
And if you can, help us chip in to cover the cost.
The Airbnb for a month and a half with four bedrooms in that little pop-up studio, it's about $15,000.
Plus, we've flown people in and out of Ottawa.
Even our Western team has done some shifts in there.
So I'm not sure the total amount.
We probably need to raise about $30,000, to be honest.
And I know that's a drop in the bucket to the CBC, but it's a lot of money to us.
If you can go to truckercommission.com and help, I'd be grateful.
All right, stay with us.
more ahead.
Hey, welcome back.
Your viewer feedback on Brendan Miller and Christia Freeland today.
Jack Masterman says, what is Brendan Miller trying to do?
His questions to Freeland did not make sense.
They should have been directed to the health minister.
Why spend time asking questions the witness can't answer, not within their ministry and have little to do with invoking the Emergencies Act?
Walking away after asking a question is just making Rillo mad as he has already talked to Miller about this before.
Look, I'm worried about this because as I said at great length in my monologue, Brendan Miller is right to say that the Nazi flag waiver was obviously a government planned.
Otherwise, we'd know who it was.
But I think he's got to correct the waters, correct the record, because he muddied the waters by falsely claiming it was Brian Fox.
It had nothing to do with it.
Here's a letter on Mark Mendocino's testimony.
Calvin 1536 says, these liberals are far too reckless and cocky to be effective tyrants.
They provided ample campaign material for constitutionalist conservatives.
They'll be voted out in the next election.
Oh, my God, do I wish I was as optimistic as you.
Listen, we already knew what Trudeau was like in the 2021 election.
He had yet to do the martial law move, but he had done the lockdowns and he was re-elected soundly.
Oracle of Truth says, they should have treated it the same as they treated the Black Lives Matter and Aboriginal protests, i.e., done absolutely nothing at all or even joined in.
Yeah, it's quite a contrast, isn't it?
Black Lives Matter, Trudeau literally took an E, but he was talking, or his cabinet ministers were talking about bringing in a military tank when it was the truckers.