Ezra Levant hosts Sheila Gonreid and Tamara Leach, detailing Rebel News’ sold-out Canadian tour despite cancel culture threats. Gonreid’s Church Under Fire documentary exposes police intimidation of pastors like Henry Hildebrand (armed raids) and Tim Stevens (child removal), while Leach’s Hold the Line—ignored by CBC, Globe, and others—sold out Surrey venues. Leach, a Métis grandma jailed 49 days for convoy support, credits resilience to prayer and love over hate, comparing her ordeal to Soviet dissident Anatoly Sharansky. Their defiance of government narratives and media blacklisting underscores the fight against systemic bias in Canada’s freedom movement. [Automatically generated summary]
Today, I have a special show for you, Heart-to-Heart Chats with Sheila Gunread and Tamara Leach while on tour.
The both of them have been on tour.
I want you to see, not just hear today's show.
So, please go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe.
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When enough people chips in, chip in, that really helps us pay the bills.
So, go to rebelnewsplus.com for the video version of this podcast.
All right, here's the audio version.
Tonight, Rebel News has been on the road.
I'll give you an update.
It's August 11th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious thug.
Well, hi there.
I'm in beautiful British Columbia.
Oh, it's such a pretty province.
The reason I'm here is because Rebel News is on tour.
We've been doing events.
Maybe you've come to them.
The other day, we were down in Surrey, which is a suburb of Vancouver, absolutely packed.
We had an event at the Seventh Day Adventist Church, although it was not a religious event, even though the pastor there was a very generous and warm host to us.
And I myself am not even Christian, as you know.
We have people of every religion at Rebel News.
Our commonality is that we believe in freedom, including freedom of religion, freedom of association, the kind of things that were steamrolled during the lockdowns and the vaccine mandates.
So, we met allies, including brave churches that refused to close.
One of the things about our tour is that we have to be aware of cancel culture.
Some venues simply will not take anything controversial.
They're so afraid of being attacked, either attacked in the press or physically attacked.
As you may know, I was recently in Portland, Oregon, just for one day, to cover the trial of Andy No, an independent citizen journalist who was brutally attacked by Antifa.
He sued them, and incredibly, the jury acquitted.
And it's my belief that the jury acquitted him because they were terrified and terrorized by Antifa.
One of the lawyers for Antifa said, I am Antifa, and I'm going to remember the face of you jurors.
It's like a mafia trial where the mafia boss looks at the jurors and says, I hope nothing happens to you.
Like it was absolutely terrifying.
My point of referring to this, as you can see here in the footage of Andy No literally being beaten on camera, there is footage of him being beaten by Antifa.
There's no doubt about it.
But yet a jury acquitted or dismissed the case against Antifa.
That's extreme cancel culture.
I don't think we're that far down the road in Canada, but it's clear that policing in Canada takes a different approach depending on your politics.
Anyhow, my point is, even to do events for Rebel News, we face a little bit of cancel culture.
Imagine how hard it would be to have a Rebel News event in Portland, Oregon.
We're not planning to.
We don't have a big support base there, but my point is, cancel culture at the end starts to look like Portland, Oregon.
Anyways, so we've been doing events across Canada, sometimes in churches, sometimes in regular venues.
We had a wonderful event in Toronto recently, sold out in the Eglinton Grand Theater, which is a proper venue.
So it was very nice of them to host us.
My point is, we're getting back into the events business because I believe that Rebel News isn't just watching videos or podcasts or reading written articles.
It's also campaigns.
As you know, we sometimes get involved.
Crowdfund a lawyer to fight a battle, or we we send people on a journalistic mission.
We like to go to Davos to cover the World Economic Forum.
We like to go to global warming conferences.
As you know, we even managed to scrum Greta Tunberg in January, which was a very interesting thing, and we only did that because that's how Rebel works.
We put together the budget for that trip based on crowdfunding.
Here's a flashback to that scrum, that walking interview with Greta Tunberg.
Greta, who was filming your arrest in Germany, because it looked like you did that in several takes, didn't you?
You were posing with the police.
He's answering for you.
He's, he's answering for you.
said you had an agency what I wish I had one it would be much simpler than well who was filming you then I don't know you don't know who is filming you in Germany He said he knows, he says it was an agency.
You idiot, exactly.
Come on, get out, we all do.
You normally have reporters defending you.
Yeah, it's very likely that the German police and our WA fossil fuel company would stage arrest.
How many?
How many times did you were you arrested because you posed for several times?
Didn't you talk about what black people going with you right now?
Sure yeah, I think that's part of what Rebel does too.
We don't just do regular journalism.
We do adventurous travel journalism for special projects that our people really believe in, uh.
But I think events is an important piece of the puzzle too.
I don't want to forget books, which we've recently published.
A ton of books to Mara Leech's book, Abiyamini's biography.
We published an illustrated version of 1984.
We even have two more books in the pipeline.
So books is part of what we do.
Merch merchandise is part of what we do.
I think we've got some really great clothes, and I see them more and more.
Some are very subtle, like just the ball cap with the megaphone on them, but some of them are really audacious.
Uh, as you know, our number one best-selling shirt is Justin Castro, where the two faces are side by side.
People get a real kick out of that.
So we've got a lot going on.
But I think events are probably our most intensive thing, and we've recently been on tour across Canada, and I mean from Vancouver Island on the west all the way out to the Atlantic provinces.
I think the furthest north we went was Edmonton and the furthest south well, Ottawa and Toronto and Vancouver.
I like doing events personally.
I like to get out of the studio and meet with real people and just look them in the eye and say thanks to people for their support and and people are sort of excited too because they see their Rebel stars on the internet, on tv, on their phone whatever, but to meet them in person.
I think people get a kick out of it, and I do too.
It's a way of staying grounded.
When there's so much online twitter hate towards Rebel, it's good to be reminded that actually don't take twitter as real life.
We used to do more of these things.
We used to do big annual conventions called Rebel Live.
We started those again and we're going to do more of them.
We used to do annual cruises, and we're going to start those again.
In fact, we haven't announced it yet, But I'll give you a sneak announcement right now, in March of 2024, which is only about six months away, just over six months away.
We're going to relaunch the Rebel cruises.
We're going to cruise through the Caribbean for one week.
So we start in Florida, cruise the Caribbean, fellow Rebels, and we'll have about half a dozen on-air talent from Rebel to be there, spending time with you, having panel discussions.
It is a fundraiser for Rebel News.
As you know, we have to, you know, the old saying, you can't save the world if you can't pay the rent.
But I think it's super fun.
People like to spend time with like-minded people.
One of the ways they tried to get us during the lockdowns was to cut us off from our communities, to say you couldn't go to church or synagogue, to say you couldn't go to your gym, which is a source of community for many people as well as a source of fitness and health.
They even said we couldn't have family over for Christmas dinner.
They even said you had to limit the number of people going to weddings and even funerals.
They tried to cut us off from each other.
If you know anything about cults, you know that one of the things cults do when they're trying to recruit a new member is to cut them off from their old friends and family so they have no ballast in their ship.
And I think that's what they tried to do to us on purpose.
They said, oh, no, no, just watch Netflix, just watch Disney Plus.
You can be atomized living at home, consuming what the media industrial complex pumps to you.
So, no, I think having in-person meetups is so important.
And it's really the basis for social life.
So we're going to get back into that.
So today, I'm going to have conversations with Sheila Gonreid, who has been on tour event after event with our hit documentary, Church Under Fire.
And if I can pin her down, Tamara Leach, the trucker inspirer and leader and the author of the best-selling autobiography, Hold the Line.
So that's today's show.
Thanks for joining.
Well, I am feeling very serene because, as you can see, I'm in a very serene place, namely the temperate rainforest between Vancouver and Whistler.
It's along the Sea to Sky Highway, which I just love saying.
That's one of the best parts of Canada, by the way.
And I say this as a Torontonian.
Many people think that Toronto is the absolutely most scenic part of the country, but they may making a joke.
In fact, I've never heard anyone say that I'm with my friend Sheila Gunread, our chief report of Greg.
Hey, Ezra, thanks for having me.
Well, I'm here and you're here because we are on what's been going on for more than a month.
Two tours of events that Rebel News is involved with.
One of them, the Church Under Fire documentary series, you're the host of that, the narrator and host of that documentary.
We have been in many cities, sold out crowds, and then we started a second tour, Tamara Leach and her book, Hold the Line.
And tonight, here in this beautiful part of the world, we're having two joint events.
I just thought I'd take a second, tell people about what we're doing, and ask you to maybe summarize your thoughts because we've probably done a dozen events on the Church Under Fire side.
Tell me what you're getting out into the field again after basically being under house arrest, like the rest of the country for two years during the pandemic.
How's it been?
You know, our even just to collect the interviews for the documentary, that was grueling.
But then taking the documentary on the road, back to back, crisscrossing the country.
And when I say criss-crossing, I mean criss-crossing the country.
And I didn't do that as long with Church Under Fire as Tamara Leach has done it with her book tour.
It was exhausting, our first leg of the Church Under Fire tour.
But it was, then we got to go home for a little bit.
Tamara Leach has been just given her every night, back to back.
She's as kind and happy and grateful and gracious as ever, night after night after night, as she takes her book signing tour on the road.
It's astounding for me to watch having experienced just a little bit of it.
Yeah, I saw that yesterday.
We were in Surrey, which is a suburb of Vancouver.
Unlikely Hero Moment00:03:56
She stayed later than I did.
She shook everyone's hand, took selfie with everybody, signed everyone's book.
And I think she's a very genuine person.
What you see is what you get.
She's very humble, and she's quite an unlikely hero.
I mean, I like to joke she's five foot nothing, you know, and she's a grandma.
And you wouldn't think what's going to be, what will the demographics be of the woman who emerges to help break the fever of the lockdowns and the mandatory vaccines.
You wouldn't have chosen, you wouldn't have guessed that, but it was actually perfect.
And her temperament, her control of her emotions and her thoughts is incredible.
I always say, and I always think of it, and I always mean it.
49 days in jail, much of it solitary confinement, and to still be a positive force, I think most people would be either broken or turned sour or bitter by such an unjust treatment at the hands of the law.
You know, you say she's unlikely, but when you sort of draw back and you look at it, she's not all that unlikely because she's the perfect foil for Justin Trudeau, who is erratic, out of control of his emotions.
She reaches across the aisle to the other side.
She's ecumenical.
She's the opposite of Justin Trudeau.
That's why she was public enemy number one.
She was a strong-willed, calm woman who spoke truth to power.
And we know how Justin Trudeau feels about people like that.
Yeah.
And you know what?
It's not a big factor, but she is a Metis woman.
And by the way, the media tried to, they went Obama birth certificate on her.
They tried to say, no, no, she's not really Indian.
Because in Canada, that comes with a sort of moral authority.
And the left certainly plays that card.
And by the way, Tamara Leach does not lead with that card.
Not at all.
But the fact they tried to deracinate her, to try and take away her identity.
And Justin Trudeau has sort of a history of being a fake friend to First Nations.
You know, he didn't do well when Jody Wilson-Raybold actually had an opinion, an ethical opinion.
You know, one of my favorite little video clips in the last month was seeing Trudeau speak at, I think it was an Indigenous Games and just getting boot.
I don't know if you saw this video.
Take a look.
Hello, my friends.
We have been waiting for this moment.
We've been waiting for this moment a long time after the 2020 edition of the North American Indigenous Games had to be postponed because of the pandemic.
You know, he's got that fake tattoo.
And I'm talking too much about it, but there is something about the realness of Tamara Leach versus the fakeness.
Trudeau, a fake feminist.
Trudeau, a fake egalitarian who wears blackface, a fake friend of First Nations.
He's fake in every way.
And I think he panicked when he couldn't control the narrative.
He panicked.
And that little lady started this big fight back, if I may.
You know, one of the most amazing books I've ever read in my life, Sheila, was called Uncle Tom's Cabin, Life Among the Lowly.
It was an anti-slavery book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
And I recommend that book to everyone.
It's funny.
It's heartbreaking.
It's beautiful.
And it is a clever political book.
There was a while it was selling.
It was such a staggering bestseller.
It was second only to the Bible in America.
And when Abraham Lincoln finally met her, he said, so this is the little lady who started this big war.
That's what he said about the Civil War.
Ripped Away00:08:27
And it's quite something.
He was remarking on the implausibility of it.
And Tamara Leach is this little lady who started this big uprising.
And there's something endlessly poetic about that.
We'll talk with her a little bit later in the interview, but you have been on tour while you've been doing your full-time day job as the chief reporter of Rebel News.
Yeah.
Well, as a mom, too.
I mean, I don't know how you do it.
You run your household, which also happens to be a farm.
You're a mom, including when your daughter is very, very busy in sports, traveling everywhere.
Plus, you were the narrator of this documentary.
Plus, you were traveling cross-country.
And then P.S. on top of that, just doing your day job, being our chief reporter.
But you went to some interesting places.
Was there a place on your journey that stands out that maybe you hadn't been to before or that maybe surprised you or you just got a kick out of it?
Because you explored some of Canada.
Yeah, you know, it's all of the places that we travel to are very different.
And all of the pastors that we spoke to are also very different.
And I think that was really the story of the documentary.
It did not matter your style, your theology.
For example, you could be like Pastor Art and fiery, or you could be like Pastor Tobias Tisson and gentle like a lamb.
It didn't matter because their crimes were standing up to the state and honoring God.
But for me, one of the places I had never had the opportunity to go to was the Church of God in Aylmer.
The nicest, kindest people.
You know, they put on a big spread for the entire community when we went to show the documentary.
They had all the time in the world for us when we went to collect the interview from the pastor, Henry Hildebrand there.
And to see these gentle, kind people who sang hymns as the police barged into their church, to have these people treated like public enemy number one, it was so totalitarian.
And, you know, I'll never forget the images of the women singing peacefully as the police came in.
It's one of those standout things from the crackdown on the churches that is akin to Pastor Tim Stevens being ripped away from the clutches of his crying children by the Calgary police.
You know, I don't want to overtax the analogy, but seeing armed police with their sidearm walk into a church while the women and children are praying and singing, I couldn't help but remember images from Schindler's List when Nazis came into Jewish places, schools, synagogues, homes, whatever.
And I'm not saying that those police led to death camps and an extermination of people, but it's pretty chilling in Canada to see in color, as opposed to in black and white, the images of police walking in with guns.
You go in with guns because it's your way of saying, and you send in such a large group, it's your way of saying, if you do not do what I say, eventually I will use this gun.
That's the implication there.
During a church service, which, by the way, in my opinion, violates the criminal code.
There's a criminal code provision that makes it a crime to, quote, disturb any religious gathering.
Well, the cops laws are for the little people.
Very, very frustrating.
Yeah, I was there in Aylmer when we showed the film, Church Under Fire, and the church was amazing.
How about in the Atlantic?
Because Rebel News is, we're strong in Alberta, in part due to your efforts there.
You're a chief reporter.
You're based in Alberta.
And I think Alberta is a conservative place, politically awake.
We're strong in Ontario just because there's so much action there.
And there's so many people.
You're going to have a number of conservatives, even if they're not proportionate as big.
But the Atlantic, I feel that for a variety of historic reasons, we just haven't been strong on the ground there.
And I regret that.
So you went out there to do the story and with the tour.
What was it like in Atlantic, Canada, where we are not as strong?
When we were in Atlantic, Canada, you know, we heard from the people who came to see the documentary.
And the reason we went to Atlantic, Canada is because Pastor Phil Hutchins, previously of our Tabernacle family church, he spent seven days in solitary confinement, ripped away from his family for the crime of not turning away his congregants.
He refused to vaxpass the congregants at his church.
And they barged in and arrested him and his associate pastor, Cody Butler.
They had guns.
And in fact, if I recall, they had a hand on a firearm.
So, I mean, it's one thing to wear a firearm, but to put your hand on the gun, you're touching your gun.
Why are you doing that?
Are you afraid?
Or are you trying to make them afraid?
That was the most infuriating part of the documentary to me.
You know what?
And I said this to Henry Hildibrand when I was in Elmer.
I said, you know, Christians talk about turning the other cheek.
Love your enemy.
Forgive them, pray for them.
You know, that's New Testament talk.
I mean, I'm not a particularly religious man, but when I saw that footage of that cop going into the church with a hand on a gun, it was not love your enemy and pray for them that came to mind.
It was fury and vengeance.
And that's a little bit Old Testament.
You know, I believe in forgiveness and redemption and people coming back to the path.
But first, I think there has to be some sort of recognition, reconciliation, truth and reconciliation, as they would say.
And that's my fear, is there were some political casualties from the lockdowns.
Jason Kenney, Aaron O'Toole, and that's conservatives doing some internal political hygiene.
But I don't think any premier or certainly not the prime minister was politically punished for what they did.
In fact, Trudeau ramped it up for the 2021 election.
That's when he went extra hard.
It was after his election that he felt confident to invoke the Emergencies Act.
I think that other than Aaron O'Toole and Jason Kenney, there has not been a comeuppance.
There has not been a balancing of justice on this.
I think that there are loose ends.
There should be no closure here because it's not closed.
I just want to go back for a second to our trip to New Brunswick because one of the most moving parts, and Kian's behind the camera so he can attest to this, when we showed our documentary to Pastor Phil's family, his littlest one was too young to remember greeting her father at the door when he got home from seven days in solitary confinement.
And as she watched it, she understood and she experienced for the first time what happened to her family.
And her older sister started to cry because she realized that her younger sister was experiencing this for the first time.
That's why our documentary is so important.
It details, it chronicles the damage that these politicians, who are, as you say, never been held accountable, what they did to the Canadian public.
And there must be some sort of reckoning for this country to heal.
On your point with Justin Trudeau, that ramping up of his out-of-control, divisive rhetoric, treating certain sections of the Canadian population like dirty people, that was actually focused grouped out of the Privy Council office.
They basically said, let's pull the Canadian public about how much of this garbage we can get away with, and then let's do it as a campaign strategy.
So Canadians paid for the Liberal Party, for the Liberal Party's campaign strategy of demonizing at least 6 million Canadian friends and neighbors.
You know, I've watched the movie Church Under Fire, I think, four times now.
And if I'm, sometimes I take a break from it because I've seen it now.
I don't need to watch the whole thing again.
Angry Reflections on Mainstream Media00:14:22
If I am in the room in the theater when those police actions are underfoot, I am angry for quite a while.
Maybe that speaks to my own emotional state.
But I think you should be angry about things like that.
If you don't, then you're numb.
And I don't want to go numb to that kind of stuff.
Well, let me pull back a little bit because we were getting a little heavy there, but it's on my mind.
I think the movie Church Under Fire is one of the, if not the best things Rebel News has ever produced.
I think it touches on civil liberties, which we believe in, standing up for Christians, and many people don't.
I think it was, we were helping to set the record straight.
It was sort of the other side of the story.
We were making sure history was accurate.
But I also really like the fact that we've been out in the field because we used to do a lot more events and then like everyone, we were shut down.
So it's good to be out there.
I really enjoyed Surrey yesterday.
I tried to even just say hello to everybody again.
And I feel that is part of Rebel News' mission is to give people a place to go to see like-minded people, a sense of community.
A lot of our events are in churches, not just because churches believe in freedom, but also because those are places where we won't be canceled.
I think it's important that Rebel News build a sense of identity amongst our supporters because they're not just viewers.
So many of them are supporters.
When you're viewer-funded like we are, I mean, someone introduced himself to me yesterday in Surrey and said, I was your 25th supporter.
You told me that eight years ago.
I had sort of forgotten, but he was really proud of that.
He was the 25th guy to chip in to help us get born.
And he's obviously carried that memory with him, which is wonderful.
I mean, I hear that.
I hear that.
People tell me what they sponsored.
I remember once someone said, I crowdfunded a microphone for you or there's some device.
And so it's good to be out amongst the people, not just in our studio.
And I mean, I'm trying to get out and about and do news out there too.
But I really like the fact that we're not just online.
I like doing real life events too.
This is just me reflecting on my own participation in some of these events.
What's ahead?
I mean, you're going to be coming on our trip to Israel.
And again, we're inviting our supporters on that.
In the new year, we're going to start up our seminar cruises again, which is a way for people to hang out and get a sort of a weeks-long vacation, but also to hang out with other rebels.
And it's a fundraiser.
It's not just for fun.
These things do put money in our coffers to help us pay for our journalism.
Do you have any thoughts on that or what events you might want to do in the future?
Or, I mean, it is time away from home and you've got a busy household.
What are your thoughts on the event side of Rebel?
You know, I look at the event side as not only fundraisers for us, but I look at them for selfish reasons.
You know, when we are in sort of the thick of things and we have all the arrows pointing at us on social media, you can sort of get in a weird headspace where you feel like, well, nobody likes us or whatever.
But then when you get out into the field and you meet these people, it really fills up your sort of moral tank when they say thank you so much for telling our story.
When we, we, Kian and I, hear from the churches who say, you told our story properly.
And for some of the churches, I wasn't there.
But to hear them say, that is exactly what happened.
Thank you so much for getting it right because the mainstream media got it wrong.
That gives me the energy to continue to fight.
And that's why I think selfishly for Kian and I, we booked more documentary showings in Alberta at the end of the month.
So if you'll allow me.
And we're in Lethbridge on the 23rd of August.
We're in Red Deer on the 24th.
We're back in Edmonton at Church in the Vine.
So they are not only featured in the documentary, they are clients of the Democracy Fund.
We're in Mirror, Alberta, the site of the whistle-stop.
Oh, that's great.
You know, I finally made it to the whistle stop and I had a delicious burger there.
I met some of the family and that's wonderful.
And what's the date on that again?
It's August 26th.
Wow.
And then from there, we go to Westlock, Alberta on the 27th.
And then Kian behind the camera, did we book Grand Prairie?
We did book Grand Prairie.
So for that date, time, and location, you can go to churchunderfiremovie.com.
All right.
Well, I'm really glad you, and I know it's tough to be on the road like that because you got a family and you've got other stuff.
But I think you're right.
It is encouraging to get that one-on-one feedback because even though we know that Twitter is not real life, if you over consume it like I do, you can start to believe the haters.
So it's good to talk to people in real life.
You know, Sheila, thank you again for holding the torch so high, for taking the movie to the people, for being the narrator and the anchor of the movie, but also for your role as chief editor, which includes helping to bring our citizen journalists along because there is sort of a way to do journalism, even of the amateur citizen variety.
And as we come up, we're approaching our nine-year birthday, and you've certainly helped mold Rebel News in your image as a journalist, which is excellent.
I thank you.
And I know our viewers do too.
Well, thanks, Boss.
And I just wanted to take the opportunity to thank everybody who comes out to our showings because what an opportunity for us here at Rebel News to be able to thank our supporters and the people who cheer for us every day to continue on.
Right on.
There you have it.
Stay with us.
As I mentioned, we have two tours going on at once at Rebel News.
Sometimes we have joint events.
Sheila Gonread was the host of the movie Church Under Fire, and Tamara Leach is the author of the number one best-selling book, Hold the Line.
What a pleasure to catch up with her now.
Tamara, it's nice to see you again here in such a gorgeous setting.
We're on tour for your book.
How's it going?
It's been amazing.
The support has been almost overwhelming.
I never expected to see so many people coming out, but it's been unreal.
You know, I find that heartening because it's been more than a year, about a year and a half.
And you'd think, well, maybe people have forgotten or maybe people have moved on or maybe people were propagandized by the regime media.
But no, like sold out crowd.
Last night you and I were in Surrey, packed.
There was people in overfloor rooms.
There was upstairs is like it was, they couldn't shoehorn any more people into the venue.
To me, that's very exciting.
It's very encouraging, yes.
I think with the evidence that came out at the POEC and the more evidence that comes out.
That's a trucker commission of inquiries.
Yes, sorry.
Thank you.
I think more people are waking up and becoming more aware as to what's really going on.
I love to brag that your book went to number one on the bestseller list the day it was released, even though it wasn't, we weren't even really ready for it yet.
It just sort of popped up and we didn't even, we weren't ready and it went to number one.
The reason I mentioned that is that normally a book about the public interest.
I mean, this was the number one news story of the year, the trucker convoy and the reverberations from it and Trudeau invoking the Emergencies Act.
That was the story of the generation.
And you were in the heart of it.
Whether people love you or hate you, you have a story to tell.
I still can't believe that the CBC, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, even the National Post have not even mentioned your book, even to criticize it.
Like they have book sections.
Why won't they talk about your book, even to disparage it?
Well, I don't think they want to bring any attention to it, primarily speaking.
If they talk about it, they have to acknowledge the existence not only of me and my book, but of also the Freedom Convoy in general.
The counter narrative.
I mean, our model at Rebel News is telling the other side of the story.
And I think that's really why the pandemic and the lockdowns and the convoy was our time to shine.
You don't, people don't necessarily look for the contrary and take all the time on anything.
But during that era of fake uniformity, of fake unanimity, people said, no, no, no, there's got to be another side.
I think there's still sort of a blacklisting of any sources that counter the regime narrative.
And I don't think that's paranoia on my part.
I think it's just an observation.
I think it's obvious, actually.
I mean, I'm not on social media anymore, obviously, till my conditions are gone, but you won't see that in the mainstream media.
They just won't, they won't talk about it.
Your trial is coming up, and I want to be very careful not to get you to weigh in because I don't want you to prejudice your case.
And obviously, we don't want to violate your bail conditions.
We were careful with your book.
Your book was lawyered in advance.
Not that there was anything wrong with it, but we just didn't want to take the chance because the government, I think they have a vendetta against you.
And again, we'll never be able to know all their motivations, but I think the government didn't like the fact that you challenged their narrative.
And they didn't, if I may, they didn't like you personally because you broke their caricature.
Their caricature of the Trucker Convoy was angry, male, shouting, maybe a little verbally abusive.
You are, I like to say, a five-foot-nothing Métis grandma from Alberta who answers hate with love.
In fact, you turn the other cheek more than I ever could.
I think that's why they had to go after you is because they said, we can't let Tamara Leach be the foil for Justin Trudeau.
And they wanted to punish you because you were effective.
That's my personal theory.
You can call that paranoia, but I don't think so.
I think it's just they wanted to take you out of the public conversation.
I think you're right.
I think what really scared them the most was the unity that happened across Canada.
It was very obvious and still is to me that they were dividing people by every label they could think of for the last few years.
And I think that's what really scared them the most was seeing Canadians just drop those labels and just be so proud to be Canadian.
I want to ask you a personal question.
I have never been to prison as a prisoner.
I've visited people in prison and I can sense how stressful it is, how it makes you feel completely helpless.
That was the chief feeling I had when I would sometimes visit people in prison.
You were treated roughly, in my view.
You were put in isolation.
You were arrested and jailed for ridiculous reasons that judges later said, but still 49 days.
I just want to ask you, how did you keep your sanity when all around you were losing theirs?
It's like that poem by Kipling, if to keep your what's while all those around.
Where did you reach into?
Was it religion?
Was it family?
Was it a code, like a personal philosophical code?
I don't know if I could have held out and been as positive as you are.
I think I might have cracked.
I think I might have turned bitter or sour.
Can you tell me where you went in your heart or your mind to survive what I think was an abusive detention?
That's a great question.
I often talk about how for me, a lot of this has been like a divine journey, a divine adventure.
And I just recognized the things that were inadvertently exposed, byproducts of the convoy, you know, like the mainstream media, the banking systems, the corruption at corporations like GoFundMe, government, all levels of government.
And I just felt like that was divine, you know.
And so when I got arrested, I just felt like, okay, you have more work for me to do.
And, you know, I prayed a lot.
My mantra was thy will, not my will.
Are you Christian?
I was raised Christian.
I also have my native spirituality.
And yes, and I've done energy healing and stuff like that.
So I have a really nice hybrid of beliefs that really work for me, a kind of a combination of all of them.
And at the core of all of them is love.
And I truly believe that that's how we win.
You know, in your book, and I heard you tell this story the other day that some police officers, some prison guards, were actually supportive of you.
And they said that it must be hard.
I mean, for those, that would have felt like a secret friend.
But I think you were kind even to the cops who were not nice, even to the cops who were abusive.
I don't want to overstate their abuse, but they were cruel.
How should anyone, how do you meet hate with love?
Like, how do you do that?
How do you don't people take advantage of you when you do that?
If you meet, and Henry Hildebrandt was the same way.
He's the pastor in Aylmer who talked about loving and praying for the officers who shut him down.
Meeting Hate with Love00:04:07
Where do you come up with that?
Like, I know that's what you're supposed to do.
I know, turn the other cheek, that's Jesus would say that.
But it's easy to read that.
But how do you do that?
Well, fundamentally, for me, it just comes down to being respectful.
You're being disrespected.
How do you fight disrespect with respect?
Well then I, I guess, because it's not taking up space in my head.
And that's what's important for me is to stay focused and stay positive.
You know, of course there's been, you know, lots of terrible things written about me and i've been called horrible, horrible names.
And when we were coming across Canada, I remember a friend of mine kept sending me these articles, these terrible articles, when they were calling me horrible names and tweets and hate tweets and stuff like that.
And I just had to say to her one day, you know, please stop, i'm not going to read them.
I need to stay focused and I need to stay positive and this is not going to help my mental health, and so I just have to let that stuff fall away.
And if there's one thing i've, i've learned out of this whole thing, is that i've developed very thick skin.
So, you know I, I.
To me, it just comes down to being respectful and even if they're not going to respect me in return, I can say that i've done my best.
In the book you quote a poem called In Victus.
I remember reading that um in school and it's it's a very dramatic poem and it ends, I am the captain of my fate, I am the master of my soul.
If I is that, did I get that right?
Or the other way around, I am the master of my fate, i'm the captain of my soul.
So part of that is, you know, being religious and thinking of god's plan, but part of that is, like how it ends, I am the captain of my fate.
Maybe I got the wrong words, but I mean, when you are in someone else's jail, to still believe you're the captain of your fate, that takes a confidence.
I just, I know i'm asking a lot of questions, but I just don't.
I just don't know how you do that.
And if there's a secret, I want to learn it.
Because uh, I wouldn't think by looking at you that you are so powerful.
You could make the prime minister of a country blink.
You don't look that powerful.
No disrespect, you look like a regular grandma.
You know a very young grandma.
I should say I mean i'm.
I'm saying that because you're, you're not.
I wouldn't think you're built for fighting, but your style of fighting made the, the giants collapse.
How do you, when you're in shackles, still say I am the captain of my fate?
Well, because I still I, I still own me.
They can I mean and that's the whole thing, with all of this experience too, you know how the narrative that against the convoy, but I, I know what it really was and they can never take that away from me.
You know that's inside of me, and they can put me in jail, but they still don't own me and I, and this is still belongs to me.
And God you know, I met once a Soviet dissident uh, named Anatoly Sharansky, who was sent to the gulag for contradicting the Communist Party OF THE Soviet Union, and he was in prison for longer than you obviously, and I think his treatment was worse, but I still found it miraculous that he, within him, like he, he did things just to keep his mind sane,
but I think it was just like what you said, he always knew he was the master of who he was.
There's a similarity between you and him.
And again, I'm not comparing the Soviet gulag era with Canada, but you were jailed for a political crime.
You were abused.
And the way you responded reminds me of Anatoly Sharansky.
By the way, when he was finally let out of prison, he made his way to Israel and he ran for parliament and he was elected to the Israeli Knesset.
So his moral example, I think, led the way.
Planting an Idea00:06:20
Let me close with this.
Listen, I wanted to talk to you about the book tour, but I'm just asking these questions that I've been thinking about.
So let me ask you the Sharansky question.
Would you ever consider, I'm not saying make the decision now, but would you ever consider once we're through the trial, once, God willing, you're acquitted, once your life sort of goes back to normal and you're no longer being hunted, would you ever consider doing what Sharansky did and seeking a public role in public office or something?
Or do you just want to go back to normal life?
Normal life?
You know what?
I won't rule it out.
I definitely won't rule it out.
It's never been something that I really wanted to do because I think that when you get into politics, there's so many rules and restrictions that you're so hobbled.
But I definitely won't rule it out.
I guess we'll see what happens in the next year or so and how everything is after it shakes out.
But I certainly won't be afraid to if that's what's necessary.
Well, for folks who want to know how they can connect with Tamara, we have a website called theConvoybook.com.
There's obviously a link there to the book itself, but there's also a link there to the Democracy Fund crowdfunding page, which is covering Tamara's legal fees for the battle that's about to come in Ottawa.
We didn't talk at length about that, but we will cover that very intensively when it happens.
Let me put one last idea on the table, and you don't have to respond to it, but I just want to put an idea down and sort of memorialize it on camera.
Every once in a while, Alberta has a Senate election where the whole province votes.
So it's not just Medicine Hat or Calgary.
It's the whole province.
So people with name recognition have a real bonus because you have to be known in Calgary and Edmonton and the rural parts and Medicine Hat.
And, you know, Trudeau does not respect those Senate elections, but whenever a conservative prime minister is in office, he typically appoints those people.
For example, Stephen Harper appointed elected senators from Alberta into the Senate.
And I just want to float the idea there that Tamara Leach as a candidate for the Canadian Senate running for the whole province of Alberta would have a real chance of winning in my view because it's every Albertan.
So you're going to have name recognition.
You're going to have touched people all across the province.
But the biggest reason I want to plant that seed of an idea with you, I just want the idea to germinate, is because the things you just mentioned, all the ways the politicians are hobbled, being a senator in our system, you're not under the same strict party discipline as the MPs because you don't have to continuously suck up to the party leader to be renominated because if you're in the Senate, you're there till you're 75.
So I just want to put on the record now, I have an idea and I'm going to try and, you know, let's see how things go.
I think you're going to be acquitted, God willing, in Ottawa.
I think the world is not done with you.
You might say God is not done with you.
Fate, karma, whatever people want to say, I think there are more chapters in your story to be written.
And I think that one way to do it would be to go back to that city of Ottawa, the city where you were arrested and abused, to go back to that city, not as a grandma from medicine hat in a truck, but to go back as the honorable senator from Alberta with a mandate for freedom and a democratic, legitimate mandate.
I just want to plant that idea.
I'll tell you one thing.
I would be a supporter, and I think many rebels would be.
So I just threw this at you.
I gave you no notice of this idea.
Do you have any reaction or you just want to cogitate on it?
I will definitely think about that.
That hadn't crossed my mind before.
Well, I mean, you've already served your country more than most, not in military service, which we have to give tremendous respect to those who actually serve, but to serve in the public square.
And you've suffered for that.
And I think there's something Christ-like about suffering for your fellow man.
This is turning into a love-in, not even an interview, but I've, but it's been fun hanging out with you a little bit.
I've attended some of your events, and it's remarkable to see.
So thanks for working so hard on these tours.
You stay till the end.
You sign everyone's books.
You pose for selfies.
That's hard work, I know, to be as friendly to the last person as to the first person.
So thanks for doing it.
And thanks for working with Rebel News and the Democracy Fund.
I've got a real kick out of hanging out with you lately.
It's been great.
And it's been a great experience for me.
And thank you guys so much for all your help and all your support.
And, you know, as I said last night, making the whole process with the book so seamless and easy and therapeutic.
I'm glad you feel that way because, you know, we've got a whole team and I'm proud of the work they've done.
Well, folks, there, you have a Tamara Leach, one of my favorite people.
And yeah, I know I was a little bit, I was a fanboy there, but that's how I honestly feel.
And I feel like sometimes people really do extraordinary things.
They rise to the occasion.
And maybe they're not the central casting image of who you might think a freedom fighter would look like, but that makes it all the more wonderful.
And let me go on the record right now that if there is a Senate campaign for Senator Leach, I'm going to be a volunteer and I'm going to break my rule against donations.
I never make political donations, but I would make a donation for a Tamara for Senate campaign.
I'm just having a chuckle, but let me tell you, let me look you in the eye and tell you I mean it.
Stay with us.
Some final thoughts are next.
Well, there you have it from all of us here at Rebel News on the road to you at home.