Ezra Levant exposes the federal government’s June 6th lie about Freedom Convoy protesters vandalizing Ottawa’s CRA building, citing Access to Information records and bureaucrat France Lepage’s admission of "not factual" claims. CBC amplified disinformation, including debunked emails targeting Danielle Smith, while Rebel News independently challenged Jason Kenney’s legacy. Smith’s UCP victory in Alberta’s election defied federal-left narratives, but Levant warns of external pressures pushing her toward leftist policies despite grassroots conservative support. Upcoming: Toronto’s hard-drug needle programs and Rebel News’ court fight against government Twitter censorship, set for Tuesday. [Automatically generated summary]
As you know, they're one of the few independent media groups out there, along with us and True North and Western Standard.
And I subscribe to them.
I really appreciate their work.
And boy, they got a doozy.
An official lie, official misinformation spread by the government about the truckers.
Well, blow me over.
I'll take you through that.
And we'll also have a great chat with our friend Sheila Gunread.
That's coming up.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this podcast.
The reason I'd like to encourage you to do so is because it's eight bucks a month, which is pretty cheap, if I may say, compared to other subscriptions.
But, you know, it really adds up for us.
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All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, the federal government published a lie about the truckers and the regime media just ran with it.
It's June 6th, and this is the Esther Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious thug!
It's June 6th, and before we go on, we have to remember what that day means.
It's the anniversary of D-Day, the greatest invasion in history when the Allies attacked the beaches of Normandy, France, sailing across the English Channel.
Confirmed Protests and Violence00:15:07
It was the beginning of the end for the European front of the Second World War.
It soon became a race.
Who would go faster?
Who would reclaim territory faster?
The Democratic allies coming from Normandy, Canada, the United States, the UK, or the Red Army.
Stallions troops crushing in from the east.
It became very important because where the two armies stopped is where the battle lines for the Cold War would end.
But I think back to the D-Day landings and how they were young men, much younger than me, some of them teenagers, of course, willing to sail onto a beach under machine gun and heavier fire than that to attack and liberate countries.
And I ask, how would they look at us today?
The enormous sacrifices they made, the price that they paid, the freedoms they fought for.
What would they say to us if they could see us now?
I don't know if there's any veterans from that who are still alive.
I doubt it.
They'd be over 100.
I wonder what they would make of us.
That's June 6th.
Let me tell you a story that ran today in June 6th.
I saw it in Blacklocks, which is one of the very few independent news outlets in Canada.
Like us, they take no government money.
This is the headline.
It caught my eye.
Government faked security bulletin.
The Department of Public Safety issued a false security bulletin claiming it had confirmation.
Freedom Convoy protesters ransacked federal office buildings.
Access to information records show the story goes on, the Operations Center on the first day of Freedom Convoy protests outside Parliament Hill on January 28, 2022, issued the security bulletin at 3.54 p.m. Eastern.
We have received confirmation that protesters have started to enter office buildings in the Ottawa downtown core and are allegedly causing damage, said the bulletin.
As a result, Minto Place is going into weekend lockdown mode.
All entrance doors will be locked effective immediately.
Oh, wow.
So they're certainly taking that report seriously.
But here's how Blacklocks explains that there was no incident involving protesters in office buildings.
The public safety department yesterday would not account for the source of the disinformation.
So Blacklocks actually called up public safety and they refused to say who made it up.
Departmental Records earlier released through the Public Order Emergency Commission disclosed that staff sought to discredit protesters as violent, even if allegations were untrue.
Quote, some of their more extreme comments, i.e. calling for a January 6th-style insurrection, are getting more coverage in the media, staff wrote in a January 24, 2022 text.
There could be an opportunity to get in on this growing narrative of the truckers.
To get in on it, eh?
Sort of supposed, it's not about the truth.
Let's get this narrative going.
It goes on.
Let me show you that memo.
I got a copy of this Blacklocks access to information requests.
It's their research, but I was so interested in it.
I took a look at the document myself.
Look at document number 137.
This is the memo that was circulated.
Update.
We have received confirmation that protesters have started to enter our office buildings in the Ottawa downtown core and are allegedly causing damage.
As a result, Minto Place is going into weekend lockdown mode.
All entrance doors will be locked effectively immediately.
The situation is being closely monitored as we are getting updates from various sources and will provide further updates as events unfold.
Signed, Harry Gill, CPA CMA, Assistant Deputy, Acting Deputy Assistant Commissioner and Agency Security Officer, Finance and Administration Branch, Canada Revenue Agency.
And that was a pretty categorical statement by Harry Gill.
Now, wasn't it?
It wasn't just an allegation or a rumor.
The senior bureaucrat, Harry Gill, deputy acting assistant commissioner, whatever, he says that it was in fact confirmed.
Various sources closely monitoring.
Protesters are entering.
They are causing damage.
They're entering the buildings and causing damage.
But then he throws the word allegedly in there, which is weird since he just said it was confirmed and was giving details and said multiple sources said it.
He says Minto Place, which is a large building downtown, says they were in lockdown mode.
This was sent to everyone in the regime.
Take a look at these documents.
Again, this is Blacklock's access to information request.
Look at how many people Harry Gill emailed this lie to.
Everyone got this report that was confirmed.
So this wasn't an allegation or a rumor.
It was confirmed.
Take it from the big boss.
Protesters were sacking the downtown court.
Except it was a wicked lie.
But it was all the regime media needed to confirm their prejudices against the truckers.
Let me read more from the Blacklocks report today.
Records indicate several media corporations acted on advice that protesters were violent.
The Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery, in a February 1st, 2022 letter to the Commons Speaker, complained that the demonstration was unsafe.
Some of our members have been harassed by protesters of the truck convoy in the last few days, and we cannot afford to be left exposed without protection for hours outside the building, wrote Catherine Levesque of the National Post, then press gallery president.
Levesque provided no examples.
CBC TV assigned security guards to protect reporters assigned to cover the Freedom Convoy.
Quote, at CBC, in order to go out, you need one-to-one security guards, reported Judy Trin told the March 8, 2022 seminar at Carleton University.
Your camera would have a security guard, and the reporter would have a security guard, and there weren't enough.
Really?
This was a real threat, said Trin.
No Freedom Convoy demonstrator was ever charged with any misconduct involving a reporter.
But they believe it in their hearts.
Remember all the lies and the hoaxes?
Remember the protesters were committing an arson in an apartment building?
Total lie, total hoax.
Now, that was a media lie.
That was an activist lie.
But this lie we're talking about today is from the heart of government saying it was confirmed.
That is pure disinformation.
How many people to this day believe that lie?
In fact, here's the crazy thing.
The government phoned every landlord in the city and apparently told them that lie.
Update number two.
All downtown landlords were contacted and buildings are on weekend mode or lockdown.
In addition, many of them have put emergency plans in place and are ready to respond as necessary.
The situation is being closely monitored as we're getting updates from various sources and we'll provide further updates as events unfold.
I can imagine if you called a landlord from the government, hello, I'm a senior boss of the government.
We have confirmed reports that truckers are ransacking offices, locked down your place now.
Of course you're going to listen to them, especially it's the government and it's confirmed.
It was a wicked lie.
They made it up.
It wasn't the truckers who planted fear and shut down the city.
They honked a bit.
It was the government who planted the fear, who blamed the truckers, but they were the ones.
Incredibly, there were some more sober-minded people in the regime and said, no, no, that's just not happening.
But Harry Gill never retracted his lie.
They never phoned the landlords and said, hey, you know what?
We scared you about that actually.
Well, why would they?
Why would they retract the lie?
It served Trudeau very well.
Take a look at document 1359.
Here's France Lepage, assistant deputy director, big bureaucrat, who actually pointed out, update, public safety, PSPC, that's the public safety department, advised that all downtown landlords were contacted and buildings are on weekend mode or locked.
In addition, many of them have put emergency plans in place and are ready to respond as necessary.
But look at this.
Also indicated the information about vandalism at Minto is not factual.
They didn't call the landlords to tell them, though.
They didn't put out a press release.
Who challenged the crazy claim that people were sacking offices?
Not the regime media.
Why would they?
They were part of the team.
Only blacklocks when the few independent voices left it.
Look at document 1215.
They inquired with the government.
You can see the government was sort of panicking about the question.
Did CRA management at any point from the start of the truckers protest Friday claim to have confirmation that protesters were looting office buildings?
Does CRA management still believe that to be true?
How did CRA management get, quote, confirmation?
And then they have a proposed response.
The Canada Revenue Agency has no knowledge of any looting in CRA-owned or CIRA-occupied buildings located in Ottawa this past weekend.
But they were talking about other buildings too, weren't they?
They claim they have no knowledge, but is that true?
Because Harry Gill, a deputy boss, said it was confirmed.
He talked about multiple sources.
He was very specific in his language, causing damage, Minto locked down.
Confirmed, he said, confirmed.
Oh, well, you know how it is.
There's a narrative.
Truckers, bad.
Trudeau, good.
And if the truckers actually weren't bad, and if Trudeau isn't really good, well, so what?
You publish the official story.
And when the truth comes out a year later, well, the lie is already well spread.
You literally have to this day liberal politicians saying that the truckers were terrorists.
I mean, I was just aghast this weekend that, you know, there's a bouncy castle and there's a hot tub.
David, I wanted to go up there and poke that hot tub myself and let the water flow out of it and unplug that damn bouncy castle because it's just a symbol of the frustration that's gone on for 19 days in the Capitol.
So yes, we are making changes to do everything that we can do to end this illegal occupation of our city.
This group is emboldened by the lack of enforcement by every level of government.
They are terrorizing our residents, torturing them with incessant honking, threatening them and preventing them from leading their lives.
People cannot go to work or open their businesses.
They cannot sleep, walk, shop, go to medical appointments, or enjoy their neighborhood.
This group is a threat to our democracy.
What we're seeing is bigger than just a city of Ottawa problem.
This is a nationwide insurrection.
This is madness.
We need a concrete plan to put an end to this now.
You know, there was some violence during the convoy, of course.
It was by Trudeau's cops.
It was directed at another one of the independent journalists in this country, our own Alexa Lavoie.
But the violence was not from the truckers.
It was, well, you know.
Yeah, real violence from the government, not fake violence smeared on the truckers.
Stay with us for more.
Well, I enjoyed staying on the studio until it's about 1 a.m. Eastern time on the night of the Alberta election.
Of course, the Alberta election was on mountain time, so I was a little bit pooped, but I had to go early.
And it was a very interesting night.
It was a night of relief for me because I was genuinely worried that the socialist NDP had a real chance of winning.
In fact, there was a while there where the NDP seemed to be ahead in the polls, even incredibly, in Calgary.
That seemed to stop when Danielle Smith had a great debate performance and Rachel Notley was uncharacteristically wobbly.
And even strange things like wearing conservative blue.
I'm not sure why Notley did that.
I'm not saying that was an important or decisive moment, but I think the NDP didn't really know what they were doing in the debate, whereas Danielle Smith knew exactly what she was doing, stopped the bleeding of votes, built up confidence, and went on to win.
I looked at the stats afterwards, and I know it's been a week, but forgive me.
Danielle Smith was only down 2% and change from where Jason Kenney was in his huge unifying victory in 2019.
Let me say that again.
2019, Jason Kenney comes back, unites the Wild Rose Party and the Conservative Party into one.
He comes from Stephen Harper's administration.
He's a very popular guy.
And the NDP were atrocious for four years, brought in the carbon tax, almost destroyed the province.
Kenny has a great success.
Well, here we are four years later.
And Danielle Smith was just a touch, just a fraction below that, despite the most abusive, war room-style, unfair critiques and propaganda I've ever seen by the CBC in Alberta.
It was astonishing.
The reason why the seat count fell, however, is that anyone who didn't vote for the Conservatives coalesced around the NDP.
There used to be sort of a vanity party in Alberta called the Alberta Party that, if I recall, got about 9% in the last election.
It got less than 1%.
The Liberal Party of Alberta, seriously, Justin Trudeau's party provincially got less than 1%.
The Green Party, less than 1%.
The Independence Party's, less than 1%.
What I'm saying is, if you weren't for Danielle Smith, you were only for Rachel Notley's socialists.
So it wasn't so much that Danielle Smith's support fell, but rather that Rachel Notley sopped up the anybody but conservative ABC vote.
Alas, it was not enough for the socialists.
Danielle Smith won.
Would Jason Kenney Have Won?00:15:58
But a question immediately poses, and I'll bring in our next guest in a moment to talk about him.
Would Jason Kenney have won had he remained as premier?
And I mentioned that not just because it's an interesting academic exercise in alternative history, but because there was a moment there where I truly believe Jason Kenney was no longer a conservative.
He was destroying the values that conservatives believe in, property rights, individual choice, freedom of religion, freedom of association, all the things that the lockdowns and the forced vaccines were taking away from us.
But many people in the Conservative Party said, Ezra, you and Rebel News are going to re-elect Rachel Notley.
You're going to destroy Jason Kenney.
Sure, he's not great these days, but he's better than Rachel Notley.
You're wounding him by criticizing him.
Just shut up.
Get with Team Blue.
Be an old loyalist.
As you may know, 30 years ago, I was active in the Conservative Party.
Join the team, or you are strengthening Rachel Notley.
But alas, we could not hold our tongue because we're not partisans.
We had to speak truth to power.
Jason Kenney was defenestrated.
I love that word.
It means thrown out the window.
He was defenestrated by his own party.
Danielle Smith came in, and boy, it looked wobbly for a bit there, but alas she won.
Well, to paraphrase our dear friend Ralph Klein, welcome to another Miracle on the Prairies.
I've got some poll numbers to show you, but first let's introduce our guest who really knows what's going on.
She's our Alberta Bureau Chief, our chief reporter in general, and my good friend Sheila Gunread.
Sheila, great to see you.
Thanks for having me on the show, Boss.
Oh, come on.
It's my pleasure.
And thanks for doing the great work that you do.
I was nervous there about a week out from the election because I was worried that my Conservative Party critics were right.
They're saying, Ezra, you and Rebel News criticized Jason Kenney so hard, you knocked him out of the game.
And now look at you, you went ahead and elected Rachel Notley.
How's that better?
Economically civil libertarian.
How's that better?
And I thought, oh, brother, maybe they were right, but didn't turn out that way.
No, and I think Jason Kenney would have been the person who re-elected Rachel Notley.
And part of that has to do with Jason Kenney hanging on as long as he did before going to a leadership review when it was becoming increasingly clear that he was wildly unpopular with the grassroots within the party.
And he sort of ragged the puck on that leadership review, which left Danielle Smith with really not very much runway for people to get to know her.
And if people had gotten to know her and she was able to implement some policies that didn't cause the sky to fall the way the media and the NDP said that they would, she would have that little bit of cushion where she wasn't this unknown quantity for a lot of people who are new to Alberta or skeptical of her past floor crossing or some of her more wilder musings while she was on radio.
Jason Kenney didn't leave her that cushion.
And so she basically became premier, had a little bit of time to get out of the pandemic and go straight to reelection.
So I think if there were some sort of catastrophe a week ago, the blame probably would have rested squarely on Jason Kenney's shoulders.
Yeah, and of course, our job is to speak honestly and give our opinions.
That's our role.
It's our role to report the facts, give our honest opinions, express our values, and give our viewers the other side of the story.
I mean, my God, if all they consumed was the CBC, they'd be full of Trudopian propaganda.
So it wouldn't be, quote, our fault anyways.
We're not candidates.
I'm not even a voter out there.
I'm out here in the big smoke these days.
But you're so right.
The events that happened were caused by the actors, in the main case, Jason Kenney.
We are observers, and we're not going to be blind to what the actors are doing.
Jason Kenney was acting a lot like Justin Trudeau.
But you know what?
We've got some proof of it.
And Sheila, this is what I want to talk about.
Because in my bones, I think Jason Kenney would have lost because he wouldn't have picked up any voters in Edmonton.
That would have gone all NDP.
I think he would have held most of the rural parts, if not all.
But I think there were ridings in Calgary that people were just, a lot of people, you know, I think a lot of true blue conservatives and Christian conservatives and leave-me-alone privacy conservative libertarians just they would not stomach voting for him.
But here's a study by a company called Research Co.
And their pollster Mario Kinseko, he's been polling for decades, and I think he's pretty good, and I think he's pretty fair-minded.
I think he's based in Vancouver, so maybe he doesn't have a lot of personal knowledge about Alberta, and there's one way that that shows here.
But he published his poll, and he asked, he asked conservative voters, would you have voted for Jason Kenney had he been the leader?
And the number plunges, especially in Calgary and most pointedly in the rural parts.
They hated him, Sheila.
But here's the thing, and I'm just going to spit this on that.
I'd love your reaction.
You take 30% off the conservative vote in some really rock-rib right-wing ridings in rural Alberta, you're still going to win for the UCP.
They will never vote for NDP, just never.
But if you look in Calgary, which was sort of iffy, if there were about five or six ridings in Calgary and one in Lethbridge, that Danielle Smith won by just a few percent, if you look at the closest ridings in Calgary and Lethbridge, I take Mario Kinseco's poll and you chop five, 10% off the UCP vote because people are so mad at Jason Kenney.
All of a sudden, there is no majority for the UCP.
And remember, there's one independent candidate.
Now it would at best be a tie and more likely a notly win.
Mario Kinseco's poll asking the question, would you still support Kenny had he run?
proves that pragmatically it was the right thing to get rid of him.
I've always said morally it was, but even pragmatically it was.
Danielle Smith saved Alberta from Rachel Notley, to whom Jason Kenney was going to hand the government.
That's my assessment.
Yeah, Jason Kenney did two things in his time here in Alberta provincial politics.
First, he united the right.
Thank you.
Good job.
But then he united the left around Rachel Notley.
In Alberta, the progressive vote coalesces around Rachel Notley in the way that the progressive vote coalesces around Justin Trudeau federally.
So it is really a two-party system here, much the same as it is federally, even though they don't want to admit it.
So Jason Kenney did that.
But to prove your point, you look at what happened to a cabinet minister named Tyler Chandro in Calgary, Acadia, which is generally a conservative stronghold.
Yeah.
He's a cabinet minister, or he was a cabinet minister.
He was the chief locker downer under Jason Kenney.
He lost his seat in a recount now that has added to the NDP cushion.
I think it was seven or nine votes initially.
Now it's 25 votes.
The writing has been handed to the NDP.
Chandra has been amazing on gun rights in the last four months, five months.
That's Danielle Smith trying to save his butt because she gave him a file that she knows conservatives believe in.
It's a red meat conservative issue, and everybody will support him on that issue.
But 25 conservatives could not stomach casting a vote for him, and he lost his seat because he was a locker downer hypocrite.
Right.
Can I jump in there for a second?
I know that riding a little bit.
I used to live in Calgary, as you know.
And he had a 20-point lead last time.
Yep.
And he lost it.
You can't blame that on the leader.
The leader held the total loss to 2%.
Why would that one district despise Chandra 20%?
Well, it's obvious why.
He was the chief locker downer.
He was abusive in his personal style.
He was in the Sky Palace.
I used that word Sky Palace.
People outside Alberta say, what are you talking about?
That sounds sort of cool.
Sounds like a hot nightclub.
Well, sorta.
It was built as sort of like a private apartment for the premier of the day more than a decade ago.
It was a scandal back then because it was so luxurious.
Jason Kenney uses it for a dinner party.
And it's called the Sky Palace because sort of a patio on a skyscraper.
How cool is that?
How much fun is that?
Super cool, super fun.
Except for when you banned all the little people from having their gatherings, their weddings, their funerals, their Christmas dinners, their churches.
You can't even go to a gym, a restaurant, a bar, a school.
And then these masters of the universe have this Sky Palace white tablecloth boozy party, and they look down below at the people like ants, and they say, how dare they get together?
And they were photographed.
And Tyler Chandra was in the photograph.
And Jason Kenney was in the photograph.
And all the honchos were in the photograph.
That you can't undo that.
Once you see that, you can't unsee that.
And it changes the character of the entire lockdown from something, hey, let's all pull together.
We're all in this together.
It's a no, no, no.
This is about me controlling you and having different rules for myself.
And it was so gross.
And you cannot get rid of that.
Tyler Chandra was a vestige.
He was the most prominent locker downer, and he had to go.
And I know Danielle Smith stood by him.
I don't, maybe that was the right thing to do just to get the party together.
Sorry, go ahead, Sheila.
No, I'm saying she tried to save him by giving him the gun rights file.
Really, that was her attempt to redeem him from the things that he had done previously, to rebrand him as a Smith conservative instead of a Kenney conservative.
And I think Calgary Acadia would have gone UCP if there was a different person in that riding.
Yes, you're so right.
And the fact that he lost 20 points, but Smith held the total loss to two points, shows that Chandra was the problem.
That's what was weird: Kenny was kicked out, but all the other leadership candidates were part of the Kenny regime, obviously, because they were all MLAs or cabinet ministers.
Sorry, one or two of them had expressed some contrariness.
Let me correct myself.
Drew Barnes, yeah, that's right.
So I correct myself.
One or two were dissidents, but Danielle Smith was most clearly the outsider.
And she was resented she won.
Anyways, I'm pleased to say that Alberta will live to fight another day.
And people say, oh, come on, stop being so dramatic.
When you say Alberta would be gone forever, Alberta would still be there.
The mountains would still be there.
The buildings would still be there.
The people would still be there.
Yes, but it would be deracinated.
It would be like Detroit 2023 versus Detroit 1923.
And places change.
Great empires rise and fall.
Why should Alberta forever be the freest, most prosperous place?
Why?
It's not destined to be.
It's a series of choices.
And, you know, it's ironic because, in a way, Danielle Smith installed Rachel Notley eight years ago.
I won't get into the details of it, but in a scandalous move, when she was leader of the opposition back then, on the eve of an election, she cut a secret deal with the PC party to basically merge and take away the opposition and say to the public, oh no, we're all in agreement.
You really don't need to vote because we all agree.
The public was so outraged by that anti-democratic move, they put Rachel Notley in.
They were so disgusted by Danielle Smith and the PC party of the day.
So in a way, Danielle Smith sentenced Alberta to four years of Notley socialism.
But then, perhaps it's a redemption story, Sheila.
That same person who sentenced Alberta to four years gave Alberta a reprieve and saved it from four more years.
There's something almost like a Greek tragedy here, but maybe in reverse, that Danielle Smith redeemed herself, redeemed the province, saved it, made up for it, and saved Alberta not only from Notley, but from Kenny, who would have handed it to Notley.
It's very interesting.
I look forward to following it.
I look forward to her getting her sea legs under her.
Now, you're right.
Jason Kenney didn't even meet with her to be a transition.
You know, normally a president hands a baton to her successor.
Jason Kenney was in Nepot.
He was in a SNT.
And everyone on his team got that message.
I'm so glad she won.
Your predecessor, did you get?
He made he promised to have an orderly transition, as he called it, with you.
Did you have a chance to talk to the former premier?
Did you get that orderly transition?
I did not.
I reached out to him, and he did.
He has not accepted my invitation for a meeting.
Me too.
And I think my fellow Canadians should be glad that she won too, because Danielle Smith is really sort of Canada's Ron DeSantis in that she is sometimes the first to go out on freedom-minded issues, although our friends in Saskatchewan are quietly leading the way.
They're a little bit more quieter than us.
That's how they do things in Saskatchewan.
But, you know, she's leading the issue on appointing our own chief firearms officer, fighting with the feds on energy issues, on net zero issues, on gun rights, on a whole host of issues.
And the other provinces then have the bravery to say us too.
Yukon says us too, and Saskatchewan says us too.
And then Manitoba says us too.
And then the maritime provinces also agree.
So she tends to be a leader on these freedom-minded issues.
So the freer Alberta is, and the better that Danielle Smith does in leading our province, I think the freer Canada will be at the end of the day.
And while it was close this time, I think, like Ron DeSantis, who won basically by a statistical rounding error in his first election and then blew it out four years later, I think if Danielle Smith now is able to shake off the shackles of Jason Kenney, rebrand that party as something her own, get rid of the Kenney stigma, and start making some changes fast so she can teach those chicken littles in the media that the sky is not going to fall and everything's going to be fine.
I think we will see Calgary return to confidence in the UCP.
Yeah, yeah.
You're right.
And I don't know if Edmonton can be turned around.
Maybe it's like the California of Canada.
Maybe it's just too so fucked on.
I don't know.
Well, I mean, listen, there's a lot of good people.
There's a great city.
It's the blue-collar capital of the oil patch.
It's the gateway to the north.
It really is.
It's the doorway to Fort Mac and the oil sands.
I have some fondness.
I went to school there for four years.
And, you know, I mean, there's a rivalry between Calgary and Edmonton, but you have to love Edmonton too.
And I don't know if that's a problem that can be solved for Danielle Smith.
You don't want that part of the province to feel perennially marginalized or left out.
It is the heart of government and civil service bureaucrats, institutions like the university.
Pulling Edmonton Back00:03:30
And like maybe there's something inherently left-wing about the place.
But anyhow, Alberta has a reprieve.
I'm happy about it.
And I believe that Rebel News had a positive role to play the whole time.
I believe we were candid, honest, ethical critics of Jason Kenney in good faith.
I believe we put aside our personal friendship with them and to speak the truth to it.
I believe we stood by the truckers who made him blink.
And we were their megaphone.
I believe we covered Danielle Smith very vigorously and in our own way, paved the way for her to become leader and then premier.
I think Rebel News has a role to play in Alberta.
We had a big role, actually.
And especially seeing the kind of wicked lies coming out of the CBC.
To this day, the CBC is publishing some disinformation, claiming that Danielle Smith interfered with prosecutors by sending, quote, emails.
But a massive search by the public service, more than a million emails reviewed, not a single one was found.
All 44 prosecutors who worked on the files in questions testified that they had not received such an email.
All 32 staff in the Premier's office testified they had not sent an email.
A former judge named Marguerite Trustler said there is no evidence whatsoever that these emails exist.
And the CBC itself grudgingly admitted they hadn't even seen them.
And yet they published that these damning emails exist.
What is that but state propaganda designed to destroy a political enemy of Trudeau?
I really haven't seen anything as bad as that.
And that problem will not go away.
So you still have a strong Notley opposition.
You have a strong CBC opposition.
So a bit of a breather for Danielle Smith, but the battle starts anew.
I think she's going to have her cabinet in place as soon as this weekend.
Yeah, and just on the flip side of those comments, I think our job remains making sure that Danielle Smith keeps her promises to Albertans, that we are completely independent.
You know, we want Alberta to do well.
And I think for Alberta to do well, it needs a fiscally conservative government.
But at the same time, all the forces of the universe are currently acting on Danielle Smith to pull her to the left.
The mainstream media, the opposition, the federal government, the public sector, the judicial system, all those things are working to pull her to the left.
We need to be on the right, pulling her back in the right direction.
You're exactly right.
And that is why our criticism of Jason Kenney hit home, because people knew that we liked him, that we were friends with him, that we were supporters of him.
And so our criticisms of him were not in bad faith.
They were not gotcha and they were not taken lightly.
And it's almost like a man bites dog versus dog bites man.
I mean, people know we criticize Trudeau every day.
That's easy peasy.
That's not surprising.
But when Rebel News, when Sheila Gunn Reed, when Edge of the Man, when Adam Sows, the rest of our Alberta team criticizes Jason Kenny, let's stop and pay attention because what's going on here, we had the courage to call out our personal friends who were making moral errors.
And I think we, in our own way, helped.
Sheila, it's great to see you.
Thanks for coming on the show.
Keep up the fight out there.
You're our chief reporter and our Alberta Bureau chief, and both of those positions had an oversized role to play in the events we just discussed.
Thanks, Boss.
Thanks for having me on the show.
All right.
There you have it, Sheila Gunn Reed.
Stay with us.
Your letters to me next.
Government Twitter Accounts Influence Brexit00:02:33
Hey, welcome back.
Your letters to me.
Ren 500 says, Europe is controlled by unelected tyrannical bureaucrats.
National governments are pointless.
Well, that was the whole idea behind Brexit.
The UK, which is one of the oldest democracies and the healthiest democracies in the world, despite its warts, it's the best.
Its decisions were being made in Brussels.
And I think that the substance of it and just the emotional realization that the UK was not master of its own home, the UK voted for a Brexit.
I think that was in 2016, if my memory is correct.
I remember it was 2015.
Sorry.
But it took years for the Brexit to be effectuated because the elite said, no, no, no, you didn't really mean that.
So the UK got out, and there are exit movements in many other European countries of a varying degree.
You have political parties, mainstream political parties in most European countries that have a Brexit orientation.
It's sort of incredible that the European Union would seek to rule an American company, but why not?
Johnny Raven says, great news.
And Ezra, I like your new set.
Well, thanks very much.
We're still figuring out a few things, but I think we're getting closer there.
We've got some new lights we're trying out.
And I recorded a video in another space here.
So we're fine in our sea lags.
I'm sorry I was away for most of next week, but I look forward to really inhabiting the place this week.
Peter Story says, hey, man, it is wonderful to see you back in the saddle looking good.
Well, Peter, I thank you for your baseless compliments, but keep them coming.
I kid.
It's nice to be here.
And again, thanks to everyone who held the fort when I was away.
You know, we got some exciting stories coming up in the days and weeks ahead.
An incredible story coming to you, actually from Toronto, that will shock you.
I don't want to give too much away, but let me put it this way.
It's about the pro hard drug-free needle, crazy public policy in this city.
And that's an incredible story.
There's so many stories.
We've got a court case coming up next week.
As you may know, we're suing the federal government for blocking us on their government Twitter accounts.
I don't mean their personal Twitter accounts.
I don't care about that.
I'm talking about official government Twitter accounts.
We're actually going to federal court on, I think it's Tuesday.
So there's a lot cooking, and I hope to cover it either from this table here or from in the field.
So that's our show for today.
Until tomorrow, on behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night.