Ezra Levant and Rebel News, with 5M social media followers, thrived during the Ottawa Convoy protests, drawing viewers from legacy outlets like the National Post and Toronto Sun. Leveraging unpaid Fox News appearances (e.g., Tucker Carlson’s 4-5M views), they bypassed corporate funding, relying on crowdfunding for growth. Levant dismisses formal journalism education, advocating self-taught skills like video editing and daily output—highlighting Sheila Gunreed’s rural reporting via access-to-information requests. Pre-recorded interviews with Alex Epstein, Harmeet Dillon, and others fill the Christmas break before his first international family vacation in three years, reaffirming their mission to combat censorship and defend free speech amid systemic indifference. [Automatically generated summary]
Today, a bit of a different twist on the Ezra LeMance show.
I'm going to read your viewer mail.
I'm just going to sit there with a big bag of mail and read your questions and your letters to me and give you my answers until you're sick of it.
So that's what's going on today.
You can get the video version of this where you will see me in a slightly silly Santa hat by going to RebelNewsPlus.com.
Click subscribe.
It's $8 a month.
And sometimes it's even more interesting than just seeing me in a Santa hat.
We have lots of video.
That's our primary medium.
$8 a month.
And you know, we need it because we don't get any money from the government.
We rely on viewers like you.
All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, I read your letters to Santa, or letters to Ezra, that is.
It's December 23rd, and this is the Ezra LeMance show.
Shame on you, you sensorious thug.
Hi, everybody.
It's a tradition that we've done before.
I think it's fun.
I put out the call for questions about anything, literally anything, whether it's world affairs or personal things.
I have not looked at them, but we have an entire bag full of letters.
There's got to be, there's got to be a hundred of them here.
I'm not going to read them all, but I really will pick them out randomly and just read them.
Just a little bit of fun.
Here we go.
Letter number one from Ruth Gray.
Thank you from the UK for all you do to expose the woke madness taking over our world.
Especially appreciate Callum's reports.
Our GB News broadcasts here are a lone voice standing up for ordinary people.
Ruth Gray.
Ruth, you're right.
I deeply admire GB News.
I think it's actually, by some measures, more interesting and even tougher than Fox News is in America.
And I know they're following some of the same model.
I deeply admire Neil Oliver, who's such a brilliant commentator, Calvin Robinson.
Why We Keep Reading Letters00:15:05
So that's GB News.
It's one of my favorite news networks in the world.
And thanks for your shout out to Callum Smiles, who is doing journalism for us in the UK and has done important work on the migrant crisis over there.
So nice that you're watching over there.
Let's keep going with the letters.
I'm having fun already.
That's a nice one to start off with.
Thank you all for the opportunity to ask a question.
My question is twofold, and I would like to know how your two reporters, both David Menzies and Alexa Lavois, are doing after being beaten up by Trudeau's personal RCMP squad and Alexa being harmed by the RCMP in Ottawa.
Remember, in the Emergencies Act inquiry, it was stated that no one was injured during that time.
Another lie.
Candice Serro was trampled by a horse and Alexa was shot.
What is the status of both lawsuits filed against the officers involved?
George Whitehurst.
Thank you very much for that question.
George, in fact, just last week, Alexa and I had a meeting with the lawyers.
The case is proceeding.
Both sides have undergone questioning called depositions or an examination for discovery, it's sometimes called.
And we're now doing what's called undertakings.
Both sides have to provide some more documents to the other.
And then we're going to set it down for trial.
The courts move very slowly.
There is a chance the trial will be in 2023, but it actually might be in 2024, which is so slow.
The gears of justice move slowly.
That's on Alexa's side.
And it's fresh on my mind because I just had a meeting with the lawyers with Alexa last week.
I would have to inquire into the state of David's lawsuit.
Just absolutely abominable what they did to him.
Just absolutely egregious.
That lawsuit is proceeding.
I just don't know offhand its timing.
Let's keep going through the letters.
Is Jeremy Lafredo safely back in Canada from Russia?
I have just prayed for him, Florence.
You know, Florence, thank you for that.
Want to tell you something that I that a decision we made before we sent him that we kept secret until now, and that is, we made a decision that we would take the artistic license of waiting until he was out before publishing his first video.
So we sort of shifted time by a few days.
So he went in, recorded his videos, sent us the video files, and it was only after he was safely out of the country that we started to put them up.
So we We created a slight illusion that he was still there, but we didn't want him to actually be there when video number one went up, because we were worried that perhaps the police or some other force would track him down.
So there was a nothing changed substantively in the stories.
It was just a bit of a license that we took with the timing to ensure his protection.
We also, as you know, hired a Russian criminal lawyer just in case, God forbid.
So we did that, and there were about one or two other moves we did just to keep him safe.
And I hope you agree with him.
What do conservatives think of central bank digital currency?
Will they be implementing it in Canada if they come to power in the next elections?
Vikrant Aurora.
Well, Vic, my point of view is that, you know, having the government involved in a digital currency like government Bitcoin would be terrible because it would defeat one of the main purposes of cryptocurrency, which is privacy and freedom.
And I would be worried about two things with a central bank digital currency.
Number one, they would know where every drop of your money was.
They would know who you're buying from, who gave you money.
They could track you in ways that would be impossible with cash or even with private cryptocurrency.
The second thing is the ability just to turn off your money.
Just like they could turn off your cell phone, let's say, or turn off your Tesla.
Imagine if they could literally track your money and turn it off.
No central bank digital currency for me, please.
Next letter.
Hi, Azra, Loving Rebel News.
Is there anything in the works to get a sit-down interview with Elon Musk?
A half hour, even better, an hour session with Elon would be very edifying and illuminating.
Many thanks.
Thane Poor.
Well, that's a great idea.
He really is one of the most interesting men in the world.
He's obviously one of the richest men in the world.
He is an innovator.
He's brilliant.
And I think he is making a real difference for free speech.
I wouldn't know even how to get in touch with him, but two of our rebel journalists on Twitter regularly banter with them in public.
It's quite remarkable to see.
One is our friend Avi Yamini, and Avi and Elon Musk go back and forth sometimes.
It's amazing, but mainly Ian Miles Chong, who largely does written work for us.
I think he talks to Elon Musk every day.
Now, it's not a private conversation.
It's out and open on Twitter.
They sort of click.
It would be an amazing get for us to talk with them, and maybe it will happen one day.
All right, let's keep going with these letters.
I got a whole bag of them.
I've got to go through them.
Okay, this is a long one.
My question is, why is the Conservative Party silent on all the obvious misuse of power that liberals have done to our country?
Not only on the convoy, but the mistreatment of veterans, aboriginals, to say nothing of the flagrant misuse of taxpayer funds.
I could go on, but you get what I mean.
Billions of dollars for foreign countries, but very little for the vets, the homeless, and others in need.
Are they the opposition or are they not?
They owe it to Canadians to voice their opinion, assuming they have one.
I think we are living in communist Canada.
At the very least, the PC should call Trudeau and lose your deputy PM on their association with Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum.
Thanks to you and your reporters for their patriotism and outstanding journalism.
Signed, John McInnes.
Thanks, John.
By the way, I am headed personally to the World Economic Forum in Davos, along with Avi Yamini and Sheila Gunrid.
So we're going to do some journalism on that.
I think that if the conservative opposition were here, if Pierre Polyer would hear, he would say he is taking on certainly some of those issues.
I think, and he can say credibly that he is a strong critic on finance.
I mean, that was his portfolio for quite a while.
I haven't heard a lot from Pierre Polyev on Aboriginal issues, and I don't think he's weighed into the World Economic Forum matter much.
I think there is a place for a conservative leader to talk about national sovereignty as opposed to globalism, to talk about local democracy rather than oligarchs running the world.
If I had to guess, it would be that Pierre Polyev doesn't want to be branded a conspiracy theorist.
When Danielle Smith said that she didn't want her MLAs going to the World Economic Forum anymore, she was denounced by the media, even though really she just said, look, I don't like the fact that Kloveswab is bragging about controlling governments.
That's not something we want to involve with.
So I think the media is so insane on those issues that may be why Pierre Polyev doesn't engage more.
Another good letter here, measuring by size.
I've been reading your newsletters for some time and have yet to see examples of any alt-right, far-right, or neo-fascist views that Wikipedia attributed to Rebel News.
My wish would be for you and your staff to do an article or feature on how name-calling has come to be a kind of gaslighting tool.
Consider a creative way to put those criticisms out there, topic by topic, as in listing words you used and the hysterical reaction critics deployed.
What exactly was anti-Muslim?
Why are critics reacting so mostly?
What evidence would you select so as to encourage readers to review and decide for themselves?
Many of us are tired of the name-calling that needs sunlight.
Best to you, Mary Ann Van Hooten.
Well, thank you, Mary Ann.
And I think Wikipedia has been colonized by leftist activists.
Wikipedia, for those who, I mean, everyone knows what Wikipedia is, right?
It's one of the world's most popular websites.
It's an everything dictionary that anyone can edit.
So if you have a particular hobby or an interest, you can fill in details about the things you care about.
And it's crowdsourcing as opposed to crowdfunding.
Trouble is, whereas you and I might think, oh, I know something about model trains or I know something about Banff.
There are people who are paid professional activists, literally get paid to do nothing but go into Wikipedia pages on political things and tilt them to the left.
Like imagine having access to the world's largest research tool and being able to tweak the answers.
It's amazing.
So the left has colonized Wikipedia.
It's very hard to deal with.
As to your suggestions, well, I think every day we live by example.
We say and do things that we think we can stand by.
And, you know, it is true that if people's first impression of us is Wikipedia, they're going to get that leftist stuff.
But I hold on to the fact that hundreds of millions of people actually see our real work so they can judge for themselves.
Next letter.
Hello, and thank you to the whole Rebel team for your service.
I've wondered a few times, how did everyone on the team get to travel the world reporting on the truth with all the vaccine mandates?
Assuming the majority of the Rebel News staff are unvaccinated, thank you again.
The efforts from the whole team do not go unnoticed.
Genevieve Press.
Well, the answer is during the no-flying for unjabbed people, we did not fly.
I mean, some of our staff are jabbed.
I would say most of our staff are not.
I'm not jabbed myself.
So for a great period of time, we simply did not fly.
We drove a little bit, but frankly, I stayed very close to home base here.
We have only been flying in the last few months since Trudeau ended the flight ban.
So it was only after that flight ban was lifted that we sent Alexa Lavoie, Drea Humphrey, and Tamara Ugalini to the World Health Summit in Berlin.
It was only after that that we sent people to Moscow, that we sent people, like, again, some of our people are vaccinated, some are not, but we really didn't do any traveling during the flight ban.
Now the flight ban is lifted, except for in America.
not been in America in three years because Joe Biden still has a ban on unvaccinated people.
But we never imposed a vaccine mandate here, obviously not.
We just let people choose and we didn't really raise the issue.
I mean people made whatever choice was best for them.
Oh, that's the same one in my hand.
I got to get through a lot of these letters.
Let me speed up.
Ezra, there's no one deserving more deserving the Order of Canada than yourself.
No one has stood more courageously against political and media corruption.
However, it is clear that you and Rebel are blacklisting Premier Smith, an individual who may become the most important politician in our country's history, the greatest defender of the Canadian people's civil rights and liberties.
Merry Christmas, Ezra.
Signed Ian Fultz.
Well, Ian, you obviously wrote this before my 33-minute sit-down with Danielle Smith this week, in which I think I asked very fair and interesting questions, and she gave her answers freely.
So I think my work speaks for itself.
Next letter from Zoltan.
Hello, Ezra.
I'm dual Canadian EU citizen, and in the last year, I have been spending more time in Europe than Canada.
It's quite possible I could make a more permanent move here or move from BC to Alberta, depending on future provincial federal elections.
While here in Europe and even back in Canada, I find I am watching more GB News, especially Nigel Farage, Mark Stein, and Neil Oliver on their YouTube feeds.
I know your shows are behind paywalls and bits and pieces on YouTube.
Will Rebel News in the future follow this type of structure of having a live feed all day with daily hosts?
Thank you for calling out the hypocrites and the progressive left, Zoltan.
Now, Zoltan, I know a little bit about GB News.
And one thing I know about it is that they have millions and millions and millions of dollars from corporate investors.
We do not.
If we did, we would probably look a little more like them.
We would have around-the-clock production.
We would be a little fancy like them.
Alas, we have our crowdfunding, but it is not 20 million bucks a year like they have.
Next letter, the Public Order Emergency Commission in Canada overseen by Paul Rullo.
The report is scheduled to be released in February 2023.
Do you think Paul Rulot oversaw and allowed for a balanced and fair submission of facts?
Do you think justice will be served or all those involved as corrupt as Trudeau?
Anna Lewis.
I'll tell you honestly, Anna, and maybe this just shows that I'm naive, but I think the judge did a fairly good job.
I can only imagine him being pulled in different directions from the government, from the interveners, from the witnesses, from the amount of time he had, from the mandate he had.
He had a very compressed time period.
He worked often six days a week, very long hours.
He didn't rule always in favor of our freedom-oriented friends there.
But you know what?
I think he was pretty fair.
What I'm worried about is actually him finding against Trudeau and the whole country shrugging and the media party saying, oh, yeah, so what?
That's old news.
That's what I'm worried about.
Just like they did when Trudeau was convicted so many times of violating the Conflict of Interest Act.
Next letter.
I love Rebel News and was riveted to the convoy coverage.
Thank you so much for being on the ground.
Question.
Is it against the rules for Trudeau and Freeland to belong to the World Economic Forum or other political organizations?
I keep reading that it is not allowed.
Have a wonderful holiday and new year, Joanne Fox.
Joanne, it is not against the law.
But I find it very confusing.
How could Christia Freeland be on the board of governors of the World Economic Forum and also to which she owes a loyalty and a duty of care and a fiduciary responsibility and confidentiality?
How can she do that, but then have the same loyalty to Canada as a member of cabinet?
You cannot ride two horses.
And Teresa Tam was in the same pickle when she was on a certain committee on the UN's World Health Organization at the same time of being Canada's public health officer.
You cannot do both because in that case, she chose loyalty to the UN over Canada.
That's why we started a petition for Tam to resign.
I mean, there are many reasons, but how can you serve Dr. Tedros' World Health Organization and Canada?
You have to choose.
Next letter.
Ezra Rebel has been a lifeline to me.
None of us ever thought Canada would become a totalitarian state in our lifetime.
You and your excellent team have been with us all the way, informing and fighting our rights.
May God bless you and continue to be courageous in this war.
My question is, have we been getting a substantial amount of money that you can hire more reporters, do a makeover of the Ezra Levant show, etc.?
I hope so, as I want Rebel to expand and expose the corruption by the globalists.
A Merry Christmas to all.
Muriel Clark.
Well, Muriel, as you know, we did expand.
We doubled our size during the pandemic.
And that did come from crowdfunding donations.
Trouble is, the intensity of support has obviously declined since the pandemic and the lockdowns has largely receded.
So it's actually more difficult now because where before we had sort of a steady state of 25 staff, we've got around 50 now.
And that was wonderful in February, March when donations were very intensive.
But now people have sort of, you know, the crisis has passed.
So actually it's a little tougher now.
And there's not a single person in the company I want to let go.
We've just met so many amazing reporters.
So we actually have to work harder to sustain the size of our company.
Next letter, is Justin Trudeau a self-appointed totalitarian dictator?
What do all dictators have in common?
Rebellion Against Digital Voting00:04:36
They do not seek the approval of the people and they do not respect nor fear elections because they rig them.
Justin Trudeau is positioning for another snap election.
Do you feel confident in Canada's federal electoral system integrity that we will get a free and fair election result?
Glenn Gautrow.
Well, Glenn, believe it or not, I think our elections are generally stronger than American elections.
I don't know if you followed this insanity out of Arizona where they were literally counting ballots two weeks later.
And the ballots were moved from here to there and here to there and they're transported and trucked and stored.
Craziness.
Some parts of the U.S. they also use digital voting machines.
How is that not susceptible to tampering?
I like the old pencil and paper approach and that is how most, I think that's how federal elections are done in Canada.
Now we have very weak voter ID rules.
But again, in the U.S., you can vote by mail.
So I think that America has a severe voting problem, voting integrity problem.
I think that's a fact.
Dear Edison, the Christmas letter show last year was so entertaining.
Thank you for doing it again.
My question is, what is your favorite restaurant in Toronto?
P.S. I've been reading your articles since my university days in the 90s.
Thank you for creating Rebel News.
You and your team are fearless and genuine.
Cheers to all of you.
Lisa from Toronto.
Well, you know I'm a snacker just from looking at me.
There's a breakfast restaurant called Pure and Simple that I just think is really fresh food.
And I'm trying to be a little healthier.
So that's sort of my favorite breakfast place.
And I can't remember the name.
There's a Vietnamese place called Pini Nong Thai or something.
I got that right.
It's just occasionally order little chicken salad rolls from there.
So I'm obviously a snacker.
I mean, just look at me.
And one thing Toronto has is some good restaurants.
And there's also Bagel Worlds on Avenue Road.
Say no more.
Let me say one thing about Bagel World.
Or was it Bagel House or Bagel Inferno?
Or was it Bagel Barn or Bagel Dump?
There's a bagel restaurant on Avenue Road.
And they did not require it.
And during the lockdowns, they never asked me to put on a mask.
They never once asked me for a vaccine password.
I'm sorry, I forgot.
It's a bagel restaurant on Avenue.
I just know where it is.
And I always go there with gratitude because they did not treat me like a criminal when I obviously didn't have a vaccine passport and I wouldn't wear a mask.
So that's a serious answer to a good question.
and that great bagels Montreal style.
I respect and appreciate your work, but I struggle with the word rebel.
I can't seem to relate any positive connotation to it.
Why rebel news?
Why not change it to something more palatable?
Paul Zelensky.
Paul, I have been taking versions of your letter for almost eight years.
You know, we'll turn eight years old in February.
Some people say, rebel, are you a supporter of the Confederacy in the United States Civil War?
Because they called themselves rebels.
Some people say, Lucifer rebelled.
Are you against God?
Is that the rebellion you mean?
I frankly never even thought of those for a second when I came up with the name Rebel News.
I'll tell you exactly what I thought.
I thought we are rebelling against the ideological conformity of the media party.
We are rebelling against the government regulation of traditional radio and TV.
And we're rebelling against the technology, the high cost structure of traditional TV.
When I was at Sun News, I had a million dollar studio, a million bucks.
The TV cameras were over $100,000 each.
There were four producers on my show, five people in the control room.
When we would interview someone, it would be by a satellite feed, $400 a pop.
We were rebelling against that.
Now we do things by Skype, on cell phone cameras, in a simple, modest studio or on the street.
So the rebellion was against the ideology of the mainstream media, the censorship and regulation of the government, and the technology, the high-cost barrier to entry technology.
That's what I meant by rebel.
And I understand what you're saying, because rebellion, oh, we want harmony, not rebellion.
Well, I have to tell you, the conformity of the lockdown, I think it was very appropriate for us to be called rebels because we were rebelling against the madness of the world.
Trump's Controversial Dinner00:02:29
That's my answer.
Next letter.
Since 2019, I, an American, have been following Rebel News and was curious to see how you view Trump, who was running in 2024, having dinner with a known white supremacist and yay, an anti-Semite.
Personally, I don't want him back in the White House for this very reason.
Thank you.
Adam Fernandez.
Well, you know, Rebel News was started in 2015.
And other than Conrad Black, we were the only media company in Canada to support Trump in the nomination for the presidential primary and as candidate.
And we were thrilled when he won in 2016 and took on the establishment.
And our Christmas party in 2016 was just a few weeks after he won the election.
And it was when they still had Trump Tower.
They had a Trump Hotel rather, in Toronto.
And that's where we had our Christmas party just as a theme.
And I think he was a pretty good president.
I'm not thrilled with him now.
Now, him having dinner with Kanye West and a racist called Nick Fuentes, I believe Trump when he said he'd never heard of Nick Fuentes.
Nick Fuentes is someone of very little accomplishment.
He's just a kid with a racist YouTube channel.
I think Trump meeting Kanye was probably fine.
They had met before.
They were sort of friends.
Maybe Trump thought Kanye was going to say something interesting or useful to him.
So I certainly don't hold that against Trump.
Trump meets with almost anybody.
And I don't think he knew what Kanye West was planning there.
I'm less thrilled about Trump's obsession with relitigating the 2020 election.
I agree.
There was a lot of funny business.
And I don't like what happened.
And I am very skeptical.
And the fact that you're not allowed to question it tells me we have to question it.
But I think if you're going to win in 2024, you can't just talk about yourself.
And I want to do-over.
Okay, you've got a do-over.
Now do it over.
And that's why when people ask me, who do you like, Ronda Sanders or Donald Trump?
Well, I mean, Trump has some amazing qualities, that's for sure.
But on the same day that Ron DeSantis announced he was going to go after vaccine companies for misleading people, Donald Trump says he's got a big announcement, and his big announcement is little trading cards, little Trump trading cards.
Sorry, that's not a big announcement.
That's a gimmicky thing.
I mean, it's fun and funny, but I just, listen, of course I wish Trump won in 2020.
But I'm not sure if 2024 is his time again.
We'll see.
We'll see.
I'm not an American, so I'm not a member of the Republicans, and I have no say.
Live Stream Coalition00:09:43
I'm just an observer from up north.
Glendon Moore says, I have followed rebel news journalism for a number of years.
However, I cannot agree with your protection of the so-called freedom organizers or participants who illegally congested the Ottawa streets or any others who blocked or restricted the flow of goods to and from the USA.
If I overparked in Ottawa, I would be fine immediately.
Yet these protesters were allowed to block the streets with their trucks for close to three weeks.
Where is there any common sense in all that?
Well, I was there for a few days, and of course our team was there continuously.
And my first point to you would be, the trucks did not actually block the streets.
Now, you might be saying, what are you talking about?
I saw them.
Well, no.
I was there.
The trucks always left a free lane.
The truckers left a free lane on all the roads for emergency vehicles and for police.
Did you know that?
Now, what I personally experienced is personal and first-hand experience.
I was at a hotel in downtown Ottawa, and it was late, and I hadn't had dinner, so I ordered some dinner delivered.
The police were blocking the streets.
And I know that because I had to go and walk to a blockade to meet my delivery guy.
The truckers did not block.
And to this day, the police are blocking the streets there.
So that's fact number one.
Fact number two, it is tough when you do civil disobedience, non-violent civil disobedience like blocking your street.
It's tough, absolutely.
And I think part of that is you accept that you're going to go to trial and fight it and do your best to fight it.
But if you're convicted, you do the time.
But I think, and this is why we helped start the Fight the Fliance Project, I always said, if Omar Cotter deserves a free lawyer, surely Omar Cotter, by the way, an accused and convicted and confessed al-Qaeda terrorist and murderer.
If an al-Qaeda terrorist like Omar Cotter gets a free lawyer, surely a trucker should get a free lawyer.
That's my point of view.
Next letter.
Hello, Ezra.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.
You are one of the few bright spots that I see in this dark place of divisiveness in Canada.
I am an immigrant, a Sikh man from India, and have lived in Canada for 12 years.
Even in my brief stay here, Canada has changed a lot and for worse.
I see rebels' work having an impact for good, and hopefully we can turn the tide.
Somehow I see good changes take place lately.
Kudos to you, Tarath Baines.
Well, thanks very much.
And I've gotten to know Sikh Canadians more over the last year.
I mean, I grew up in Alberta, and there was a Sikh temple near where I grew up.
I'm talking 50 years ago now.
And so I'm, you know, I'm being very attentive to the Sikh community, their role in the British Empire, and in the army, and of course, Queen Victoria's most trusted aide, a Sikh man.
And I've become friends with freedom-oriented Sikhs in Canada who I really got to know during the Trucker convoy.
So I'm still learning about Sikhism.
And so I would call myself a beginner on the subject, but I've enjoyed the process.
So thank you very much for mentioning that.
And I'm glad that you care so much.
I'm glad that you care about freedom.
Short letter.
Really missing all the regular shows in the morning and the regular rebels reporting daily.
What's happened to that?
We used to have a 12 noon live stream, but then 12 noon Eastern.
So maybe if you're in the West, that's what you mean by the morning, because that would be 10 a.m. Mountain.
We moved to a later live stream when we had the Trucker Commission of Inquiry.
And now it's the new year.
But I think we're going to get back to a noon hour live stream in 2023.
And I hope to do more of that myself.
You know what?
We had a staff meeting about it to figure out what we're going to do.
I would like to do more TV.
I used to love doing the live stream during the beginning of the pandemic.
I did a live stream for an hour every day in addition to my show at night.
I just got so busy.
When the company doubled in size, when we hired like 10 new reporters, there's a lot of work to do.
There wasn't journalism.
I sort of miss being able to talk for an hour a day at lunch.
Next letter, Ezra, I am also a graduate of the Dr. Bob Schultz School of Events Management.
That was one of my professors at University of Calgary.
My question is, is there no constitutionally legitimate way to halt the tenure of the evil coalition formed between the liberals and NDP?
I'm very concerned that the country may not be able to survive even days more of this anarchistic government.
Somehow Canadians have been duped out of being a democratic nation.
David Hughes.
Well, that's the nature of a parliamentary democracy, is that you can have coalitions and factions.
And as you know, we do not elect a prime minister directly like the Americans elect their president directly.
In Canada, as you know, typically the party with the most MPs, their leader, becomes PM.
But there could be a coalition government.
We have a form of a coalition government.
And that's just how our system works.
And I don't like it any more than you do when it comes to Jack Me Singh backing up Justin Trudeau, but that's how it is.
You know, I mean, that's our system.
Next letter.
Hello, Ezra.
I just want to thank you and everyone at Rebel News.
I'm a public high school teacher in BC and your media is a perfect antidote to the toxic barrage of globalist and leftist propaganda that passes for news in education these days.
Your Twitter feed is especially valuable.
Thanks for keeping that up.
P.S. During the pandemic, Rebel was a voice in the wilderness.
Thank you, Mrs. Teacher.
That's how she signed it, Mrs. Teacher.
You know what?
I enjoy Twitter too much.
I'm a little addicted to it, and I sort of waste time on it.
But it is, I just feel like there's a gazillion things a day I want to weigh in on.
And Twitter, it's like a one-liner.
Like you just, very, very brief.
And you know that the Rebel Twitter account is doing great, over 400,000 followers, and some of our individual talent, well over 100,000 followers.
If you add it all up between me and Avi Yamini and Sheila Gunreed and our other talent, well, you know, a few months ago, I added up all our social media following, including YouTube, where we have 1.5 million.
And I think all of our accounts combined were about 5 million.
If you add all our company accounts on different platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and then the different staff, it's about 5 million followers.
That's pretty good, don't you think?
Hi, Ezra.
This might be a bit late, but after seeing several of your people on Fox News, I was wondering if something was in the works to share more coverage for conservative news on both channels.
You may have state-run media, but we have media corporations that are actually thrown sniffers for liberals.
What does the future look like for you?
I think both of our nations are good people being hectored by tyrannical governments.
Hong Kong, Jerry Purvis in the heart of the American flyover country.
Well, Jerry, it's great to hear from you.
And I love when I get viewers from the UK or the US or even from down under.
I think I might have mentioned to you that when I went to Melbourne for Avi's wedding, I just get out of the cab and I'm looking for my Airbnb and I walk into a bar and say, where's this?
And the bartender says, are you with Rebel News?
And I couldn't believe it.
I love the fact that we have a global footprint.
Let me just see what you asked again.
Oh, you talked about the fact that rebels were on Fox.
Now that's just Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingram and their producers calling us up and saying, hey, we liked your story.
Do you want to come talk about it?
So we don't get paid for that.
It takes up our time.
They often want us to go to a studio for it.
But I think it's just, you know what I like about it?
First of all, a huge audience.
Like you go on Tucker, you got four or five million views, which is amazing.
I go on, I don't go on that often, but every few months I go on and it's live.
So it's very exciting.
And as soon as I get off my phone, it goes blant, lamp, lamp, because I got so many people phoning and texting.
Because when you talk to 5 million people around the continent, you have no idea what old friend is going to see that.
So it was wonderful.
So I like the fact that it's a huge audience, but I like its validation from the top name in news.
So I really like that.
I'm just going to read one more letter.
But you know what?
I really could go on for a while, but I, you know, you probably want to break from my voice, but I'm really enjoying these.
I thought there would be some more personal questions.
There was that one question about what restaurant I like.
And I should probably look up the name of that Thai place and the bagel place.
Anyhow, okay.
I'll read two more letters.
This is the second last one.
To Rebel News, my family attended the Tucker and Ezra event over a year ago, just before COVID shut down, the day before, I believe.
So glad we did.
We were better prepared for the months ahead.
I learned the word legacy media from Rebel.
It's been years since I followed anything but National Post or Toronto Sun.
But I'm overjoyed to be a fan of my favorite Rebel News.
Canada is so lucky to have you and slowly more and more non-legacy news sources.
Rebel will always be our favorite, wishing everyone at Rebel News, your families a very, very Christmas and a happy new year.
The Harper family from London, Ontario.
Well, thanks very much.
And I remember that Tucker Carlson event.
It was a year ago.
And that was through the Democracy Fund.
And he joined us on the big screen in Toronto for what we call the Civil Liberties Town Hall.
I was terrified back then.
And my thinking was, we need to let the world know.
And you might know in that series of Civil Liberties Town Halls, we had a lot of Americans.
We had Glenn Beck.
We had John Stossel.
We had Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And part of the thinking was we need to get people outside Canada alert to what's happening here because I didn't think our Canadian institutions were strong enough to resist Trudeau.
In the end, I was wrong.
The truckers saved us.
Last letter, absolutely, even though there's more in the bag here.
Hi, Ezra.
Online Journalism Age00:06:50
I'm 36 years old, but have always been interested in journalism.
Independent media has really in release that urge in me again over the last year since our beloved Ottawa Convoy.
I don't want to go back to school, but I would be fine with doing an online program if I knew there was a good one.
I don't mind traveling a lot, but I also don't want to move to a big city.
I guess my question would be whether you knew of a good online program, whether it's possible to do the job of a brave truth-telling journalist from a small town, and maybe some top tips for being a good journalist.
Thanks, Megan McKenzie.
Well, what a great letter to end on.
Thank you very much, Megan.
First of all, I think 36 is a great age.
I wish I was 36 instead of half a century.
And 36, you have a little bit of seasoning, a little bit of life experience.
You've done a few things.
You've been a few places.
You had a few bad decisions and a few good decisions.
And maybe you're wiser for it.
So 36 years old is a great age to do journalism.
Now, the problem is, almost no journalism pays.
You're not going to earn a living at it.
So if you need to make money, don't go into journalism.
You can do it as a hobby or as a fun thing.
So I want to dissuade you from changing careers if you're doing it to earn a living.
Seriously, it is not a remunerative pastime.
And as you probably know, there's a lot of unemployed journalists.
However, that said, If you have the ability to do it that does not require you to get paid, then you can be a journalist right now.
Because guess what?
That smartphone you have, even a very modest version of it, it's got a camera.
It's got a still photo, it's got a video camera.
Guess what?
You're a TV journalist now.
Just put it on a selfie stick and you're in business.
Well, where are you going to publish it to?
Well, you have a Twitter account, you have a Facebook account, you have an Instagram account.
Those are all free.
Guess what?
You're now a publisher.
You can write a blog.
And so what I'm saying to you is you have in your pocket the tools to become a journalist and a publisher yourself and an editor.
Now you say, what online programs are there?
Well, I don't know if I would even recommend an online program about journalism.
Now, if you want to learn how to be a bit of a video editor, that's a real skill.
If you want to learn sort of do's and don'ts on editing videos and how to use different software apps, okay, that's a good idea.
But I would never say to someone, go to journalism school for a year or two or whatever.
What are you going to learn?
Can they really teach you to be curious if you're not innately curious?
Can they teach you to be skeptical or contrarian if you're not innately skeptical or contrarian?
I do not think so.
I think those things are inherent.
In fact, I think some of them are drummed out of you if you go to journalism school.
So I think, and now your last point is you say you're in the country or a small town.
Guess what?
Our chief reporter, Sheila Gunreed, lives on a farm about half an hour outside Edmonton.
She is not in a big city.
And she does outstanding journals.
Now, occasionally, she does travel.
She's coming with us to Davos, Switzerland, to help report on the World Economic Forum.
She has in the past gone to global warming conferences in the UN has had.
But every single day from her home, she breaks stories based on access to information requests.
She does commentaries on the world.
So being in, again, this is all because of the age of the internet.
What I'm saying here probably would not be true 20 years ago.
I mean, I suppose you had talk radio that you could do from many places, but really, whether you're in fact, some of our people, our boss of social media used to be based in Montreal.
He has moved to Florida because of the lockdown.
And how would you even know?
Because you can post from Instagram or post from Twitter anywhere in the world.
So in conclusion, in closing, if you have natural curiosity about the world, if you have opinions about the way things ought to be, if you are a good thinker and a good communicator, I would not recommend going to journalism school.
If anything, I would recommend getting a few technical skills.
You probably get those online, watch some YouTube videos, how to be a video editor, how to use some software apps.
And I would start with what you know.
What is your area of expertise?
And I mentioned Sheila.
Well, she's got certain beats, right?
She knows firearms.
She cares about life issues.
She cares about oil and gas.
She cares about farming.
You know, I have a slightly different portfolio of issues.
I love the free speech battles.
I'm interested in World Economic Forum stuff.
A lot of our people are here.
So if you look at our different talent, they maybe have three, four, or five things they like to talk about, a beat, right?
Now, all of us were focused on the pandemics and the lockdown.
It was such a big beat.
So there's a very long answer to a question, but if you're serious about being a journalist, you can start today.
And you're not going to get huge votes, huge views day number one.
No one did.
I didn't.
But the thing is, can you do it every day?
Look at the word journalism.
One of the roots there is jur, which means day, daily.
Can you do it every day?
If you do it every day, and then every day, and then every day, and then every day, okay, now you're building up a rhythm and people come to know it's like 7-Eleven.
You know, it's always open, so you go there.
Anyhow, that's a long answer to a short question.
My friends, thank you for sending your letters.
And I didn't even look at this.
There's still a lot of letters here, but this could go on forever if I don't end.
What a pleasure to be with you.
Thank you for your questions.
I always think there's going to be more personal questions, and I'm always slightly nervous about them.
There wasn't really many personal questions.
We'll try again next year.
Not that I want to give away any private secrets or anything, but you know, it's asking anything.
So I hope you thought my answers were acceptable.
And it's nice to hear from people.
We heard from people in the UK, heard from people in America, heard from people across Canada.
And it was really nice to chat with you.
That's our show for today.
I wish you a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year.
We will have shows with feature-length interviews every day over the Christmas break.
We pre-recorded great interviews with people like Alex Epstein of Fossil Future, Manny Montana, Greeno, Harmeet Dillon, who's running for the leadership of the Republican National Committee.
We've got some great interviews for you coming up over the Christmas break.
I'm going to take my first family vacation out of the country in three years.
Looking forward to it.
I will be back, and our team will be back refreshed, ready to fight the battles for freedom in 2023.