Sheila Gunn-Reid and filmmaker Kian Simoni unveil Church Under Fire: Canada’s War on Christianity, a Rebel News documentary exposing COVID-19-era persecution of pastors like Tim Stevens and Archer Pulowski, who defied lockdowns as acts of faith. Kian’s immersive coverage—sleeping in churches, filming arrests—captures emotional clashes, legal battles (e.g., Stevens’ incitement charges), and the crowdfunded resistance at savethechristians.com. Criticizing compliant churches and Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s abrupt 180 on religious freedoms, they argue this was a systemic assault on faith, not isolated aggression, urging listeners to back independent media via Rebel News Plus to counterstate-funded narratives. [Automatically generated summary]
Oh hey everybody, it's me Sheila Gunread and you're listening to a free audio only recording of my weekly Wednesday night show The Gun Show.
Now tonight my guest is my friend, my colleague, Rebel News' head of documentary filmmaking Kian Simoni and he joins me tonight to give us an update on the new documentary that he and I are working on together.
It's called Church Under Fire, Canada's War on Christianity and we have already started work.
We're very hard at work actually on it in the background.
So we thought we'd let you know what we've been doing.
Now, if you like listening to the show and I'm pretty sure you do, I bet you're going to love watching it.
But in order to watch early and ad-free, you need to become a subscriber to something we call Rebel News Plus.
You get access to our premium paywall content, including the documentaries that we make.
It's only eight bucks a month to subscribe.
Just go to rebelnewsplus.com to join today.
Now, before I let you go, I'm going to ask you to do a little something for me.
Wherever you find us, whatever podcast platform you're listening to us on, can you leave us a five-star review?
It helps other people find us in the podcast algorithm.
It puts us higher in the ranking and makes us more visible.
But for me, it helps us beat CBC in the podcast rankings.
And they just have so much of your money to do so little of any consequence with it.
Thanks and enjoy the show.
Rebel News is a brand new, feature-length documentary project in the works.
Today we're bringing you an update.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Have you heard about our brand new documentary project that we are working very, very hard on?
And I'll tell you, we are working very, very hard on it because I'm in the documentary.
It's called Church Under Fire, Canada's War on Christianity, and it documents the trials and tribulations of the pastors who stood up during the COVID mandates and the attacks on Christianity under the guise of COVID restrictions.
I'm in the documentary, but really the star of the show is our documentary filmmaker, Kian Simoni.
He heads up all the documentaries that we do here at Rebel News, and he is just an incredibly hard worker and very, very difficult to keep up with.
Church Under Fire00:02:51
You know what?
I'll show you right now a little sneak peek from the documentary here.
So here's the situation.
More and more Canadians are getting vaccinated.
But like we know, cases in far too many places are far too high.
We can't ease public health restrictions until cases are way down.
Well, I think there's been a, we're like a boiling frog for a while.
I think our freedoms have just been slowly stripped from us and so slowly over time that we didn't even realize it.
And so when something like a health order is put in place that takes away your freedoms, it's not shocking to people.
And it really should be shocking to people that there is a pastor in jail right now.
Get out!
Praise you for the Lord Jesus Christ as we've experienced the cost of serving him.
He is worthy. He is worthy. He is worthy.
All right, Mr. Stevens.
Right now, we're just doing our job, okay?
This officer can repent today and turn to Jesus Christ!
That's good news.
Now we're creating this documentary a little bit differently than we have in the past.
We want you to be invested in the documentary as much as we are.
So, for those of you who are helping us crowdfund our documentary, because of course we do not rely on any money from Justin Trudeau or the government or the National Film Board, which is also the government, we want to maintain our independence and we want to know if you actually care about this project.
So, we've given perks to our donors at different levels.
Church Under Fire00:04:30
And I think it's an exciting way for our people to also take ownership of this story too, because without you, there is no Rebel News and there are no projects like this one that set a marker down about what was done to the Christians during the pandemic when so many people want us all to forget.
So, joining me now is Kian Simoni, and we're going to talk about our new documentary called Church Under Fire: Canada's War in Christianity.
And for those of you who still want to get involved, you can definitely do that.
If you donate, there are perks at different levels.
You can go to savethechristians.com.
Here's Kian.
So joining me now is the head of documentary filmmaking here at Rebel News, Kian Simone, whom I have the pleasure of working with on this project.
Kian, thanks for coming on the show.
You really joined us at Rebel News right in the heart of the crackdown on the Christians.
I think your first assignment with us was sleeping on an air mattress in Pastor Art's church.
I think that was my first contact with you.
Was this young man has driven across the country and he just started working with us?
We're on a Zoom call with him.
He has completely agreed to sleep on the floor of a haunted church.
Welcome to Rebel News.
That was actually my second, but the first one was basically the same.
It was before I even started.
I was supposed to start on May 1st on April 25th.
A10, one of our bosses up there.
He's like, hey, man, we kind of need you tomorrow.
And I was like, I was like, dude, I have my other job.
I'm starting May 1st.
He's like, well, there's a pastor about to be arrested.
And I remember not going into my other shift.
And I was just like, okay, well, I guess I'll start tomorrow.
And went to Archer Problowski's church and hung out there for a really long time while the cops were all outside.
And I was like, wow, this is what my job is going to be.
This is what it's like.
Yep, that's been exactly like that for almost three years now.
Yeah.
You and I were talking off camera.
You also spent, I think, six weeks at Tim Stevens church in Calgary, just smoking cigarettes in the parking lot, waiting for the police to come.
Saturday would be Archer Boglowski's church in the parking lot, and Sunday was Tim Stevens for, yeah, six or seven weeks.
Yeah, the persecution of Christians in Calgary has done nothing for your cardiovascular health and your lungs.
But let's get into why I know that you and I sort of came up with this idea and then we just announced it before we had anything formalized.
We announced it at a prior documentary screening for another documentary that you had made.
I know why I wanted to make it and I know how I ended up here, but why do you want to make this film?
Well, I think it's just one of the biggest things that has ever happened to me in my life.
And I'm not even Christian.
It's one of those things that I was blessed to be a part of.
I don't know if that's weird to say.
Blessed to be a part of everybody getting arrested, but just blessed to be the one who could tell the story and be the person who could tell it fairly or just be there.
You know, it was just like such a good feeling and so important that everybody saw it.
So I was really just felt really good that I was able to do that.
Do you understand English?
Get out of this property.
I was threatened with a million dollar ticket and arrest.
That became a story because apparently I was the first Canadian to get a COVID ticket during that craziness.
So after that, I were our guest gloves off.
I knew we're dealing with something that we have never seen in this country.
And just because I was able to do that and have everything, who better to tell the story than someone who has all the footage?
So it was one of those, it was just one of those, like, I think I just have to do it.
And the timing of it, it was just, I understand everybody has been in court like the past two years.
So we're just waiting to see what happened.
And now things are kind of blown over, not blown over, but kind of just slowing down a bit to where people can now tell their stories.
People Can Speak Freely00:14:52
Pastors don't have gag orders anymore.
People can speak freely of what happened.
So I think that that's why I wanted to make it.
And that's why now's the time.
You say you're not a Christian, but we'll get you.
Don't you worry.
Yeah, for me, it was crazy to see the persecution of pastors happening in Alberta under a premier who's in a previous career at the federal level made support for religious freedoms internationally a cornerstone of Canada's foreign affairs policy.
Proudest accomplishments in this place has been to have played a role during the previous government in the creation of the Office of Religious Freedom.
And I would like therefore to address, first of all, the reason in principle why this office is necessary.
Secondly, why it is particularly urgent at this time that Canada and like-minded democracies emphasize the protection of vulnerable religious minorities.
And thirdly, I'd like to offer some practical reflections on why I believe this office is necessary, the Department of Foreign Affairs, now global affairs.
And fourthly, I hope to have time to say a word about the reality of a genocide being inflicted against vulnerable religious minorities in the world today.
And yet, when the rubber met the road here in Alberta, Jason Kenney was the harshest locker downer of Christians.
Did that surprise you as someone who fled Ontario because they roped off the grocery store?
Did that surprise you that, you know, while the people were trying their best to live free in spite of the government, the government here in what we like to think of as the freest place in Canada was the harshest on churches.
I remember Jason Kenny said, no one is above the law, no politician, no one who calls himself a pastor after he was caught on Sky Palace or whatever that building is called.
Hey there, Citrus, Art of Bible News.
I'm not sure if my question would be best directed towards you.
But right now, of course, you're investing in religious infrastructure.
But I think many around the province have a concern that you may not be best protecting their religious freedoms, as we've seen with Pastor Arthur Pulowski.
He still remains behind bars.
This is well over 30 days.
If you could just comment on that situation and maybe perhaps ease some concerns or just give some light to that situation.
So in Canada, we have something called the rule of law, where courts are responsible for adjudicating criminal charges against individuals, not politicians.
So we have an independent judiciary.
That individual, I understand, has been detained by the police because of multiple breaches of terms of release, court orders, as well as an incitement to, an alleged incitement to violence at the Coots border crossing blockade.
And so that individual has all of the rights of any individual under the Canadian legal system.
They are presumed guilty and sorry, excuse me, presumed innocent until proven guilty, of course, in our system of law.
And they have a right to access to counsel.
They have all of the, that individual or any other individual has all of the same legal rights as anybody.
So this is a matter that is before the courts.
And, you know, as a more general comment, I would just suggest that going to a very tense, combustible situation and inciting people to be willing to die and commit acts of violence for their cause is very likely to have legal consequences.
And I would suggest that, you know, nobody is above the law.
No politician, no person that calls themselves a pastor is above the law.
The rule of law applies equally to everybody in our system of the rule of law.
But no, it didn't surprise me at all.
You know, like you said, I came out here because of Jason Kenny, really, when he said no vaccine passports.
And then two weeks after I got here, he made me show a vaccine passport.
But just to show that when he said no one is above the law, it's not like these pastors were killing people.
It's not like these pastors were money laundering or just doing something insane.
They made up a law and then made everybody follow it.
And you're going to ask the one kind of person who's not going to follow something so arbitrary because it goes against what they absolutely believe in.
Like, no, I wasn't surprised at any of it.
It just shows how far left or far gone Jason Kenney was by the time that that happened.
I wasn't surprised.
You know, I think it's really important that we tell this story and tell it properly in the words of the pastors, giving the pastors an opportunity to speak their motivations.
And for me, the goal of the documentary is to show that it didn't matter your theology.
It didn't matter your style.
You could be as wild as Archer Pulowski or as gentle as Tim Stevens.
Your theology could be one of Anabaptist or evangelical or Pentecostal or Baptist.
None of it mattered because in the end, their crime was that of being a Bible-believing Christian who believes that their God is above the government.
That is the one thread that endures through all of this.
So, when you hear people say, Well, Art, you know, he's so loud, he's so aggressive.
I don't like his language.
Okay, then tell me about James Coates.
Tell me about Tim Stevens, or, you know, like those Christians in Aylmer, they dress strange.
Their worship service is a little weird.
It's not something that people are used to.
They bring the horse to no-frills.
They bring the horse to no-frills.
That's Old Order Mennonite country.
So it didn't really matter because it happened across all provinces in different parts of the country.
What was the crime was just obedience to God above that of Justin Trudeau and the state.
There's an agenda.
And I said, we won't fall for it.
The police came, they pulled up, and we were in here.
We were singing.
I actually waved them in.
I said, come on in.
I mean, come join us in this thing.
They took their hats off.
They walked in.
The sheriff was up front.
God will bring us through.
And I said, We will not bow down to your God.
We won't.
I said, Wait a minute, wait a minute.
No frills.
People are shopping.
People are going in and out.
This seems very strange to me.
And they said, well, for the sake of the community, you have to stop that.
And I said, I'm sorry.
I don't think we can do that.
They said, well, I think you have to.
And I said, I don't think I have to.
Yeah, I could totally attest to that.
That part of the goal.
I mean, I even think my goal is even just a little bit different, but they both kind of work together so well.
Like I said before, I'm not even really Christian, but I understand and I know that this country was built on the foundation of God and the Christian morals and Christian ethics.
And, you know, I follow those, even though I'm not Christian.
And I want this documentary to be someone or to be something that someone like me who's 24 or maybe they're 20, maybe they're 35 who isn't Christian could watch this and say, oh, crap, you know, if they're going for these people, you know, I know I'm next.
These are like that is, they are the people who built this country, right?
So long ago, like that kind of that religion.
So it's just extremely important that we at least protect that, even as non-Christians, that it's extremely important.
You know, for me, I went to northern Iraq in 2019, late 2019, November 2019.
And just, you know, like three months later, by the time I got back, the lockdowns were here.
And I went to northern Iraq to document the return of the Christians after the ISIS genocide.
And I came home and I was embarrassed.
You know, I was really embarrassed.
I thought, you know, I'm the point of being a Christian is you're not good at it, but it's okay because we have forgiveness built right into it.
But I thought, you know what, like I care about these things.
If I were tested, would I do what they did?
You know, because the Christians didn't want to relocate.
We went there as Rebel News in partnership with Mercury One and the Nazarene Fund, thinking, okay, we're going to raise money to get these people out of here.
They survived ISIS.
They were butchered in their churches.
ISIS dug up their graveyards because even the Christians couldn't rest in peace.
And I thought, how did we let this happen?
How come we never prayed for them once in our churches?
I came home so embarrassed and humiliated.
And I thought, how did it ever get to this?
Like, how did it ever get to we're butchering Christians in their churches?
And it's a slow creep.
And I came home thinking, this is the new thing that I am radicalized against.
I've always been against persecution of religious believers.
I've always been someone who cared in religious freedom.
But when I came home and I saw that, I thought, not only did we do nothing, we didn't even care.
And I thought, no, maybe I can't, I can't undo a genocide, but I can care and I can be aware of these issues when they come home.
And I think that is one of the reasons why it's so important for me to do this documentary is it started here that slow roll down the hill towards something more terrible.
It starts with forcing Christians to close their doors, telling them how they can worship.
And for me, it's just also, I want to make sure that the people who want us to forget are never allowed that from us.
That I, as the good book says, I will forgive.
Maybe one day I'm a far, I'm a far more vengeful Christian than I should be.
But I don't want anybody to forget what these people did in the name of public health.
I just got off the line with our videographer, K2, who was on this team.
And he told me it was the hardest thing he has ever seen.
The family of pastors Tim Stevens was weeping as he was hauled away in cups like some common criminals.
Pastor Tim was once again taken into custody.
Numerous police vehicles arrived and put him in a car, taking him away from his family.
It was an extremely emotional and harrowing ordeal, and we were there to capture it as it happened.
Now to the footage of his arrest.
Goodbye.
You know, my story of why I'm so into this is definitely not as powerful.
But I kind of like found God through Rebel News.
Yeah.
And it was actually before I started Rebel News.
It's because I was applying and applying and applying and never heard anything.
And I kind of, when I left Ontario, I had to get like the exact same job I had, which was basically lifting couches in a warehouse because that was like all I was really good at other than camera stuff.
And I don't like working.
Sounds bad saying this to my boss.
I don't like working for people when I have a camera.
Hey, look, we've given you as much autonomy as we possibly can.
I'm like, you do it.
My mom's like, go film a wedding.
I'm like, I'm not listening to the bride.
I'm not going to listen.
So when I got to Calgary, I was doing the same job.
And then the day after I got here is when I got the Rebel News call.
And that just, I know it's not as like crazy.
And but that to me was like, whoa, that doesn't seem like a coincidence.
And then my first thing is going to Archer's Church.
And, you know, I definitely had like the best internship in the history of internships anywhere.
So that was what kind of got me going.
And I was like, okay, this stuff is, this stuff is real.
Yeah.
You know, for me, my church didn't, I mean, it limited itself, but my church didn't take a stand.
And it left me disappointed in my church, even to this day.
I come from a Catholic church.
We're soaked in the blood of martyrs.
We make those people our saints.
But my church didn't close, and these lockdowns affected me directly.
I could not bury my mother in the way that she wanted in the church that we grew up in because my priest was more scared of Dina Hinshaw than he was of God.
And that really bothered me.
And I know as I know I come across people like that all the time, where they say, you know, I wish my church was like Church in the Vine or like Brace Life.
And I think maybe, maybe part of what we do here is to tell those other pastors and priests, you could have done this.
You should have done this.
You will probably have an opportunity to make this right the next time this comes.
Yeah, I think a lot of the, and I mean, I definitely don't feel for your priest whatsoever for him making you do that.
But I do feel for some of the churches who had really mixed congregations.
Yeah.
When they say, yeah, you can like, come on in, wear a mask.
I don't care.
Here's a hand sanitizer.
Maybe let's make you sit one apart from each other.
And then I understand that even people will get mad at them for doing that.
People Want to Be Part of It00:05:16
It's like, why are you following this BS?
And then the other side is like, this isn't enough.
And it's all inside the same church.
But that was with everything.
That was with every workplace.
That was even in government institutions and stuff like that.
Schools, like I still definitely feel for the people who are kind of stuck in between trying to please both sides because you could not please everybody.
But I do think that when it just got further than just capacity issues and further than just the mask, then I don't feel for the people who didn't stand up for that when they had the chance.
You had the chance.
Well, and you're not to please the people, you are to please God as a pastor.
Kean, I think, and I'm going to pat myself on the back here, you and me.
We're doing something a little different than we normally do with our documentaries as far as fundraising goals go.
We are incurring some substantial costs, production-wise, equipment-wise, travel-wise.
Our travel schedule is grueling, by the way, because you and I are both doing our regular jobs at the company, which are already a lot greater than full-time.
And then we're making this documentary in the background.
Such a religious documentary.
It really is a schedule from hell.
Oh, it is.
It definitely is.
And a lot of it is like fly, fly the whole day, spend a couple hours on the ground, turn, burn, come back, because we both have other jobs to do.
But again, this is an important story to tell.
And we're so grateful for the opportunity to be able to tell it.
But we're doing something a little bit different where we're allowing the people who support our work to become invested in the work.
Why don't you tell us why we decided to do it that way?
Yeah, well, I think it's because of the reason of the reason or the topic, the theme of the documentary.
It's really close to people's hearts.
And I know, at least for me, when there's a big cause, like I want to be a part of it.
I want to be able to do something or anything that I can.
So if, you know, if I could give 50 or 100 bucks and have my name on something, I would do it.
And I feel like that is something that I know our people are rebels would really like.
So it gives people a chance to be in the credits, to help fund the movie and to have your name on it forever, to really be a part of something that I believe will be historic.
I do think you get cool t-shirts, you get other cool stuff that you can just kind of wear around.
And I think that part is fun too.
Yeah, there's a lot of exclusive perks depending on how much people donate.
Because we want, I mean, it's as much their documentary as it is ours.
In fact, it is more theirs than it is ours because we couldn't do them without them.
And so we want to give people, you know, we want to say thank you and to show that they're a part of it.
And they're, you know, they're getting these exclusive perks that nobody else is getting.
And I just, I kind of like that we're doing it this way.
And I hope it's a model for us going forward to really involve our people in the crowdfunding in just a little bit more of an interactive way.
And it seems to show in the uptake.
I think people are really excited to be involved.
Yeah.
And I'm excited too.
And I, for the hardcore people out there, I think another exciting thing is like the bonus content.
Yeah.
I know for a documentary, it's a pain in my butt, like editing through hours of footage.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
But no, no, no, no, it's just that it's cutting down really long interviews is like the worst part of it, but the cool part about it is that I'm saving them.
So when I do make those edits, and basically I'm just like cutting out your ums and buts and stuff and cutting out, let's say, R. Travowski's ums and butts.
I save in those copies and we can put up like full interviews.
So when people only get 15 minutes of it in the final cut, those who donated and who are part of the project can also go and watch the full interviews or longer extended interviews at least.
I think that part is really cool.
Yeah, me too.
Me too.
Because, you know, people for time, you know, you have to edit down these two, two and a half hour, really in-depth conversations about the motivations for why these pastors did what they did and the impact on the congregation.
I pity you having to carve that down and carve, you know, because it's all good.
It's all gold.
And so, yeah, I'm really grateful that we have the opportunity to, you know, offer that to our supporters as well.
Kian, this is a very busy day for both of us because we have to leave to travel in like a day and a half again.
So we're trying to do a whole week's worth of work in a day.
Why don't you tell us where people can go to support the work that you and I are doing to tell the story of the persecution of Christians here in Canada?
SavetheChristians.com.
Very special URL for very special people for a very special project.
A Week's Worth of Work00:03:43
And you can see all the perks there and select your level of involvement in the work that we do at Rebel News, but all of it is vital and all of it is necessary.
And, you know, there's no national film board backing us on this.
That's for sure.
Kian, thanks so much.
I guess I'll see you in about 36 hours at the airport.
Sounds good.
Thanks for having me on.
Thanks.
Well, friends, we've come to the portion of the show where we invite your viewer feedback.
You see on the mainstream media, we actually care about what you think about the work that we do here at Rebel News.
And I know I say it every single week, but it is true.
Without you, there is no Rebel News.
So it behooves me to care what you think.
So if you want to drop me a line, send me some viewer feedback on any of the work that we do here at Rebel News, but in particular the show.
My email address is sheila at rebelnews.com.
If you want to talk about the show, it's gun show letters in the subject line.
That way I know how to find it because, well, yeah, I get a lot of emails every single day.
So, if you wouldn't mind helping me get through them by putting an easy-to-search subject line, I'd really appreciate that.
Now, today's letter comes from Bruce.
He is a regular viewer of the show, he and his cat, and he lives sort of just north of me in Radway, Alberta, beautiful downtown Radway, Alberta.
And I pointed out every time I read a letter from Bruce that they really have an excellent military surplus store in Radway.
It's worth the drive.
Bruce writes on a show from a couple weeks ago.
It was my interview with Tony Bernardo from the Canadian Shooting Sports Association about Justin Trudeau's success of gun bans and what the firearms community can do to fight back.
Bruce writes, Hi, Sheila.
I enjoyed Tony Bernardo's interview.
It's too bad, though, that I can't be a member of the Canadian Shooting Sports Association.
I tried joining online, but the site asked me what guns I have.
Apart from an air pistol, a dozen cap pistols, and a few water guns, I have no guns at all.
You know, I will talk to Tony.
There should be a supporter category of membership where you believe in gun rights, you believe in property rights, you want your membership dollars to go towards legal challenges because you care about the rights of other people, not just your own.
I wonder if there's some tier of membership that would allow you to throw your support behind such a wonderful organization as Tony's.
Anyways, let's keep going.
Bruce says, I love your analogy of cars involved in killings of people leading to confiscations of similar vehicles.
A better analogy is a future ban of fossil fuel vehicles.
Imagine an electric tow truck pulling away your vehicle because it's now on the ban list.
I'm sure Trudeau will try this ban if he gets elected by the East again.
Also, notice my new pronouns in the two field.
His pronouns are ho and hum.
Bruce Acheson and boring old Radway, not brought to you by Pfizer.
Well, Bruce, thanks for the kind letter, as always.
I know that you send me your viewer feedback almost every single week.
I really appreciate that.
And I should let you know I am working on a little bit of a story about Radway and the county that Radway's in.
So keep your eyeballs on that.
Well, everybody, that's the show for tonight.
Thank you so much for tuning in.
I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week.