Sheila Gunn-Reid and journalist Alexa Lavoie question Maui’s wildfire narrative, citing RAN Electric’s solar panel transition failures, potential land grabs by BlackRock/Vanguard, and lawsuits against the utility. They highlight police blocking evacuations, selective destruction patterns, and Josh Green’s emergency power authority prioritizing rebuilding over historic preservation. Gunn-Reid contrasts this with Italy’s Miss Italy pageant’s tradition-based transgender exclusion, criticized by activists despite no aesthetic surgery rule violations, and Montreal’s trans march where she claims media suppression. She also critiques Alberta’s carbon tax affordability issues while opposing farm subsidies alongside Max Bernier, framing energy policies as hypocritical and politically weaponized. [Automatically generated summary]
The truth about Maui with Rebel News journalist Alexa Lavois.
I'm Sheila Gunn-Reed, and you're watching The Gunn Show.
Behind me, we can witness one of the terrifying scenes of devastation caused by the fires.
The historic and multi-generational town of Lahena has been reduced to ashes within a matter of hours.
On the morning of the 8th of August, Lahaina resident woke up without electricity due to powerful wind resulting from the end of the hurricane Dora.
School was cancelled, leaving children at home.
A fire broke out early in the morning around 6.30, only to be declared fully controlled about two hours later.
Community members were not alarmed as brush fires occur frequently.
However, the 13,000 residents did not anticipate their town to be obliterated on the same day, leaving nothing but ashes behind.
That clip you just saw there is of Rebel News journalist Alexa Lavoie when she went to Lahaina in Hawaii to weed through the misinformation, the government half-truths and hyperbole, but also horror to get the truth about the wildfire that raised the town.
And I think she did incredible work in spite of the conditions she was working in.
Devastation, lack of infrastructure, lack of resources, no internet.
But she was committed to the mission of bringing the truth to people who needed it.
Because as you know, you just can't trust the mainstream media and you definitely can't trust the government.
So joining me tonight to discuss her trip to Lahaina, but also her mission to tell the other side of the story with regard to transgender people taking over women's only spaces and the trans march in Montreal where she was victim blamed by the police for the aggression of the protesters is my friend and colleague Alexa Lavoie.
Take a listen.
So joining me now is my friend and my colleague, Alexa Lavoie.
And we're going to talk about some of her most recent work, including her trip to Maui to investigate the Lahaina Fire.
But Alexa's never been on the gun show before.
We co-host other stuff together all the time.
Just now we just jumped off the Rebel News daily live stream together so that we could film this.
And I can't believe it's taken so long to have you on the show, but thanks for agreeing to this interview.
Thank you for having me.
And it's always an honor because I know that your show is so like people like it so much and always good to be like on a show that is appreciated by Rebel viewer.
Well, and I try to keep the show to more of a like a casual conversation instead of an informal or instead of a formal interview.
That's why I never do my intros and outros until I film the video because I never know where it's going to go.
But I wanted to talk to you about heading to Lahaina.
You were one of the few skeptical journalists on the ground there.
And when you went there, you know, you had to wade through not just the chaos of a wildfire sweeping through this community, but what the government was saying versus what the people were saying versus what the clickbait conspiracy theorists were saying.
You had, it was just absolute chaos and you had to find the truth.
What was it like when you first landed there, like seeing the devastation?
Well, first of all, when we land, we were not like, we didn't know if we would be able to reach the town.
And especially we were kind of afraid because we had a place to stay, a really small Airbnb that was in the area.
So we were, okay, let's check if like the road is open now because we know that the road was blocked for about a week.
And by the way, blocking that road by the authorities blocked also the supply chain for the people.
So people were like venting FEMA and Red Cross.
I'm so sorry, but the community did all the bigger work because some people are not aware, but on Maui Island, to reach Lahaina, it's really difficult.
So you have the main road that is actually really easy, but that road was blocked.
Or you have another road that had like a lot of dead accidents that happened on that road because it's a single one-way road where they have a hill and it's really dangerous because the car go on both sides when the car is facing each other.
So you need to go backward with your car when it's like raven hill and rock that are falling.
So the community took that road to take the supplies that was coming from FEMA and everything because they let all this in Kaului.
In Kaului, it's like where is the airport?
They just let it there and the community needed to drive all these dangerous roads, pick up all the supply and bring it back when they have also like boats full of supplies from other island or other places in the island coming to bring to them.
So it's when we look at the conspiracy theory, I can understand that some people were believing on direct energy since Maui and I think in Mexico, there is two stations, two place where they actually work on direct energy.
So, you know, when you have like a part of the information and you know that the mainstream sometimes have misinformation and disinformation towards the viewer and the public, you are always skeptical to know, is it really true what they are saying and why this old town that used to have brush fire, why this time this old town have passed to finish in ashes?
So first of all, we find out that the first brushfire that was ignited by one of the power lines that collapsed into the ground was supposed to be 100% contained.
But the thing is, instead of monitoring the fire, firefighters had another brush fire to fight.
So they just all left to fight the other fire because they had a lack of employee and firefighters, as we experience everywhere, like in Canada and a little bit everywhere around the world, we have a lack of employee.
But the thing is, with the hurricane Dura that was passing by, with the big wind, this fire sparked up.
and they actually burned down the whole town.
And by the way, some people were saying like, oh, some houses of rich people are still there, standing up.
But it's not only their house.
A lot of houses was intact.
Churches, some churches was completely intact.
It was kind of strange, but a firefighter was explaining to us that with the wind that was going back and forth, the fire had burned in zigzag.
And so letting some houses perfectly intact, same if they are made with wood, perfectly intact and untouched.
So you can see the pattern of the fire burning like back and forth places.
And it's so like disgusting to think that in the morning, since they had no power and no electricity and the wind was so powerful, so it was supposed to be the first day of classes for students.
But all the students did remain at home taking care of their sister and water.
And so all of them were not worn.
So a lot of children passed away that day.
And the horrible story of this mother who did a celebration for the anniversary of his 15 years old's adopted son, who they found in back, burned, cuddling the dog inside of their house.
Oh my gosh.
So it's terrible.
It's inaptitude.
It is negligence.
And we know that Royan Electric was pushed to change their sources of energy to a green energy.
We know that RAN Electric spent all their money to change and to have green energy, like solar and wind energy, because when we land, we see a whole land of solar panel.
With that, they spent so much money there that they didn't invest in the infrastructure of their power line.
They knew there is a high risk of ignited fire.
They did nothing.
And this is new, like since many years.
And now they are being sued by the county and by, I think, class action of people.
And they actually believe that AYN Electric will probably do bankruptcy because now they are being sued for too much money.
And when we think that the biggest owner, because there is a lot of owners that own AYN Electric, is BlackRock and the Vanguard group who own this company, who have so much money on their hand, who were able to rectify and solve the situation with the power line and did nothing knowing that it was dangerous for the resident there.
I saw, I think it was Matt Walsh from the Daily Wire was talking about this on his podcast.
said the people who survived this fire were the ones who defied the government because that road was closed and they were not letting people through the road and the people people died in their cars on that road because they couldn't get through because government officials were telling them no the roads closed you can't get through there are reports of people who are just burning around that roadblock to get out of there And those are the people who survived the wildfire.
That's really been the moral of the last three years is those who defied the government are the ones who are faring far better than the ones who just complied mindlessly.
According to Resident, they were explaining that since the wind have collapsed a lot of power lines, they actually collapsed in the middle of the road.
So police officers were blocking the road.
And when people were trying to evacuate the town, the police officer were telling them to go back, but that was towards the fire.
And people were like, what are you talking about?
Because you are actually sending us into the fire when we try to evacuate the town.
So people have choose to take like some land, just avoiding the electric cable that was on the ground.
So I just don't understand why the police officer just tell them, you know, escape by the land, escape by the field or escape by the property of a house, just right there.
So you will like avoid the power line and you will save your life.
Instead of that, they were just blocking the road and sending them back into the fire.
And it's why a lot of people die into their car.
And I heard like a woman that was telling me a full family was into their car waiting to evacuate and a tree in fire fall into the top of their car and the whole family burned inside.
It's just terrible.
And I really feel for you having to wade through the devastation in the aftermath just so you could try to bring Canadians.
And I know your reporting was relied on by people around the world so that you could show people firsthand the truth.
So I'm just, I'm grateful for that, but I'm also grateful to all the people who donated to send you there because they knew they couldn't trust the mainstream media or the government to get the story straight.
And the biggest thing on this is like a lot of people are really afraid that now investor is going and take over their land when we know that Josh Green have now the emergency power on his end to rebuild faster.
And same, if you look at the emergency power, you can see that the historic side of Lahaina, it's not a priority.
So he can actually step over it, rebuild as he wants.
And we know that he wants a sustainable housing.
It wants to build mostly like apartment because they have a lack of housing in Maui and especially in Lahaina.
So a lot of people are skeptical because Josh Green wants to purchase a part of the land and he say that is for protecting from investor.
Threats to Public Expression00:15:26
But a lot of people are like, we are actually don't know about the motivation of Josh Green to really take our land because some of the people were mostly renter.
So they were renting apartment or house.
So right now they are really scared because there was not their land for this for some of them.
That was rental places.
So who owned those land?
Do they will let the land go to investor?
Because right now it will cost a lot to rebuild Lahaina.
So it's a question that we probably need to have a check on Lahaina maybe in a couple of years to come.
Yeah.
You know, a lot of people are, what do they call them?
Disaster capitalists.
And I mean, they're really just economic vultures and everything is an opportunity for them, including other people's tragedies.
Now, I want to move ahead to something that you've covered.
And I think it's very fascinating.
Italy seems to be female-led Italy, by the way, really seems to be leading the charge on being pro-family and protecting women's spaces, even at beauty pageants.
Like I'm old enough to remember when the left was against beauty pageants because they said it sexualized and idealized women and we're so much more than that.
But then all of a sudden, men pretending to be women got involved in beauty pageants and the left was pro-beauty pageant again for some reason.
They used to say it was enforcing negative gender stereotypes about women until like guys show up with boob jobs and win the pageant and they're like, look at that diversity.
This is a beautiful thing.
Tell us about what's happening in Italy.
So recently Italy announced that transgender women will not take part of the pageant, not only because the pageant was already on this way, so classification and everything, but the fact that since the creation of Miss Italy, that was born in 1940 something, I don't remember the date exactly, but it's been 84 years.
And the rules are you need to be born as a woman.
So the rules are clear.
The rule stands since the creation of Miss Italy.
And unfortunately, when she announced that, and she was really clear from the beginning that she had nothing against transgender.
This is not against them.
This is because the rule is in place.
And anyway, what she was saying is like since the whole story of like Miss Italy, she had two trans people who apply, who try to get into the pageant.
Only two.
And now, since someone tried to do and was refused, all the activists came and tried to challenge the fact that, first of all, you cannot have any surgery.
If you go there, they have a ban on aesthetic surgery.
So most of people.
Wow, I like that.
I like that because you watch Miss America and Miss Universe and you're like, well, anybody can look, anybody can do this if you have enough money.
Yeah, right?
Like if you have enough money and enough time to do all sorts of things to your face and body.
So it becomes a pageant about wealth and the quality of your cosmetic surgeon as opposed to your genetic features.
I think that's great.
I'm glad to hear this.
So not only like the trans activists wanted to challenge that ban of aesthetic surgery, but they wanted also to challenge the fact that trans woman was not allowed to take part of that pageant.
So she received death threat.
She received so many backlash.
She received and she said, I don't deserve to receive this when I'm actually really open mind.
I'm open to discussion.
I'm really open saying to change the rule if I really need to, but in a matter that is not exploit in a bad way and to take over for not the great reason behind it.
So she said that I don't understand why I receive that much debt threat to explain my own opinion freely as a woman.
And she said that nobody should deserve that.
And if the trans women are really a woman, they should be more like into discussion and find a way to communicate to each other since you're supposed to be a woman, you're supposed to communicate with other women.
Well, and this is something I asked Faye Johnstone, the biological male who was hired by the YWCA, the women's YMCA, to give the keynote speaker at the Nutrient Women of Distinction Awards.
And that was one of my questions to him when I found him on the street, thanks to the help of my friend Lise.
I said, you know, like you care about safety, like you're all about safety.
What do you say about the death threats being leveled at biological women who are getting threatened and doxxed for speaking out against you?
Wouldn't say anything then because safety is just a baloney word that they use to shut you up.
You can't talk, it's dangerous to me.
But if people are actually getting real-life death threats, you can't, you don't even have the ability to renounce them.
Like I think everybody getting a death threat is a bad idea.
But they couldn't even say that because it's not really about safety.
It's about using the threat of safety to shut people up.
But my only concern is like, do those death threats will go and make change in the idea of Patria Merigliani, that she's the director of the pageant that she took from her father.
But do that will coerce her to change because she had a family and she added a really big background of like issue in her own personal life that I don't think she deserves to receive like these kind of backlash and death threat.
So of course, like at one point, she would be, and she will not probably say it like that, but it would be a way of coercion from the trans activists.
And by the way, where are the feminists who supposedly protect those women who receive those threat from activists?
Yeah, they don't care because those women, they have the wrong politics.
So it doesn't matter.
They don't care.
But yeah, it's bullying and coercion and bullies people into silence or it bullies people into political change.
And that sounds a lot like terrorism.
It is, you know, like threats of violence to make political change is the definition of political terrorism.
Now, before I let you go, I want to ask you about the trans march from Montreal.
That was where you were victim blamed.
You had the wrong opinions in a public place.
And the police treated you like you were the bad guy.
I get a lot of emails about what happened to you that day.
Have you heard anything from the police?
Have they followed up with you?
Because you were being, you know, bullied out of the public square, but there was some physical intimidation leveled at you and Guillaume behind the camera.
Have the police done anything about that?
Or they just, you know, like you don't count because you might have had some sort of uncomfortable opinions in a public place and that's just not allowed in Canada anymore.
Yeah.
And so when I arrived there, I was not at the beginning because at the beginning, there was, I didn't see any like really activists.
Like they were just normal people who were there for the transmarch.
And they were happy to talk to me.
They were happy to answer my question.
And it's just like at one point when I had like these weird people like asking me for which media outlet I work, I say, What is the matter?
Why do you need to know which outlet I'm working for?
And because I just told them I'm an independent media.
Because if I was telling them I was with Ribbon News, because by the way, on their website, they banned Ribbon News to take part of the Trans March same before the event.
Those questions that I ask are public interest.
If I was saying for who I was working, I would not have reached my goal as a journalist to get and gather information from them.
So when I had these people bullying me and harassing me, I say, but okay, there are only two.
Before everything is carried, I'm going to tell the police that I'm being bullied and harassed and to try to engage conversation with them to stop them to stop me to do my work.
I went to talk with them.
I told them with who I was working.
And I told them I'm not, I don't want to challenge nobody.
It's why I'm keeping my outlet under confidentiality.
The only thing that they need to know is I am an independent news online only.
What else they need to do?
Like if they want to retrieve the work, they can just like check all the independent media that are out there.
Anyhow, the police say that they will have a look at them, like making sure everything is okay.
But when everything is calendar, because they never stop, I was the bad person.
I was the one not at my place.
I was the one arresting them.
I was the one who had like a different ideology.
I was the one who were perturbing the peace.
When I was like, okay, but I'm not even asking them a question.
I'm not even asking them to obligate them to do anything.
I'm just doing my job.
And all the people who actually talked to me were open-minded and they wanted to answer to me.
And I never forced anybody to answer to me.
So this is really outrageous to hurt the police.
Now, instead of protecting normal citizens or journalists to do their job, because we are in a free country, we have freedom of press here and every kind of media should be allowed to cover whatever it's happening in Canada.
But instead of that, not only I was telling to not come back there, but to live because I was the bad person there.
Yeah, but that's why we only see reporting on these events one way.
And it's always favorable, nothing critical.
These people are just benevolent and they don't mean anybody any harm and they're just wonderful and they want acceptance.
And the only reason you see that is because those are the only journalists allowed to cover these events because skeptical journalists are run off by the cops.
Or at least if you go, you know, you're not going to be protected from violence by the cops who are standing four feet away.
But this call being in a socialism communism country.
And by the way, those people in their pamphlet that they are distributing to people, they tell people to not talk to any media.
If media wants to engage conversation, to refer to the person in charge of the transmarch.
In which society people wants to have a censorship and a cancellation of your own voice over the person in charge of an event.
In a free country, we should be free to express ourselves and not being always like suppressed by the people in charge.
And so that really represents the kind of activists from the left that took over and really wants to enter in a tyrannical like country.
Yeah.
We just want to be able to do our jobs.
If you don't like us, that's okay.
I don't need anybody to like me.
Just leave me alone to do my job.
And if you don't want to talk to me, then don't.
Then just don't.
Alexa, I know that you have other things to do and you've been very generous with your time today.
What are you working on next?
Can you give people sort of a hint of some of the things that are on the horizon for you?
Yes.
So I don't know if you remember I was covering this young teenager who did face criminal charge, still facing criminal charge over taking down LGBTQ plus from his school.
Now is facing to be transferred to another school for some action he did as giving just an interview and just like speaking out what is going on with like his situation because it's totally unfair because not only he was treated by LGBTQ community members because he was religious and he was wearing a cross in his neck.
And now those people are not facing anything, but him facing to lose all his friends, all his own community, and being transferred and separate and from and isolate from where he used to go as a student.
So this is really important because that show how school are intolerant over the people who go against their narrative and who go in the side of Christianism.
Because it's all about that.
It's people who are really, really religious who go to that school.
But you need to suppress your religion and let LGBTQ plus thing like going all over.
But this is okay.
Yeah, it's personal expression for the left is only valid in one way.
So you need, if your personal expression conflicts with the feelings of other people, then you have to suppress yourself while allowing the other side to express themselves in the most hedonistic and public ways sometimes.
So again, back to what you said earlier, double standard.
Oh, yeah.
Readers' Letters00:02:20
Alexa, I'm so proud of the work that you do here at Rebel News.
You go places and talk to people that nobody else will.
You're incredibly hardworking.
Like I'm pretty sure you and Lincoln didn't sleep all that much when you guys were in Lahaina.
And it's a very long flight from Quebec to Hawaii.
Not so far for me, but far for you and multiple time zones.
But you hit the ground running when you were there.
You were dealing with infrastructure challenges and no internet, trying to stay in contact with us, trying to let us know that you guys were working.
And it's not easy to do.
And I think you did great work.
And you did our journalistic mission here at Rebel News.
You found the other side of the story.
So on behalf of myself as the head of journalism and everybody else who just cheers for you to continue to do the work that you do, just thank you so much for your dedication to the truth.
Thank you.
And by the way, don't forget the truth about maui.com if you want to see more about what happened there.
Yes, and if people want to support the work that you did on the ground there, because we did incur quite a few expenses, a last-minute flight to Maui from Montreal, it's a little bit, it's a little bit of something.
But Alexa, thank you so much.
And I'll talk to you later, like probably later this afternoon.
See ya.
Well, we've come to the portion of the show wherein I read your viewer feedback, your letters, your hate mail, even sometimes.
That's why I give out my email address right now.
It's sheila at rebelnews.com.
If you are going to send me a letter that you'd like me to read on air, put gun show letters in the subject line so it's easier for me to find.
I do get sometimes, depending on what I've done that day, for better or for worse, sometimes hundreds of emails a day.
So gun show letters in the subject line make it real easy for me to find.
But don't hesitate to leave a question, comment, story idea wherever you're watching us.
For example, if you're watching the free version of the show, thank you for sitting through the ads on YouTube or Rumble.
Leave a comment there.
And I go poking around there sometimes for comments as well.
And actually, that's where the comments come from today.
Alberta's Carbon Tax Pause00:05:40
They're on YouTube on the free version of the show from last week that I did with my friend Chris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
We both have an affinity for mid-century modern architecture and Pyrex dishes and cryptids, Bigfoot or as she says, Sasquatch specifically, but any and all cryptids, actually.
Anyway, our show is on how the carbon tax is hurting Canadian families and how in Alberta we have pushed pause on the provincial portion of the gas tax.
I hope we do it forever.
And that is to help Albertans who are struggling with affordability in the times of out-of-control inflation.
And we were talking about how we're cheering for Saskatchewan to do the same because why not?
Two conservative premiers doing conservative things, fighting back against Justin Trudeau's inflationary policies.
Seems like a win-win-win for me.
And if the province of Alberta can make it without the gas tax now, why ever bring it back?
Just don't do it.
The same reason you don't have it now is the same reason you should never bring it back.
Anyway, lots of vigorous comments on that show on YouTube.
Janie Stokes 1806 says, oh, and I should preface this by saying, we talked about how Albertans don't buy electric vehicles.
And that is true.
And the reason I know that is because in Alberta, you can just go online and Google vehicle registration by fuel type.
And you'll know exactly how many diesel cars there are, how many hybrids, how many fully electric vehicles, and how many gas-powered vehicles are registered for the road.
So that doesn't include, you know, like quads that don't get license plates because you only ride them at home or vehicles under 50 cc's, my golf cart, and farm trucks that are not registered for the road.
So anyway, we have all that data so we know exactly how many fully electric cars are in Alberta.
And I think it's around 3,500.
It's definitely under 5,000.
Anyway, Janie Stokes, 1806, writes, Albertans are not buying electric cars because our electricity costs are through the roof.
We don't have Niagara Falls to make it.
That is true.
Not a lot of hydro here.
We rely on natural gas because the NDP shut our coal industry down.
That is true.
We have 800 years of clean burning coal under our feet here in Alberta.
And I think if you're in the developing world, you would look at us like we are insane by leaving that in the ground.
And we are, obviously.
We definitely are.
And now we're paying through the roof.
That is true.
It was an NDP thing that they decided to phase out coal-fired electricity production, even though if, and you can do this for yourself, you can actually, we have these air quality monitoring stations all around the province.
And I know here out by Refinery Row, our air quality is often better than it is in Edmonton, where the decision makers of these things are.
But by the coal-fired generating stations like Genesee, you can check the air quality there and it is almost always, you can put money on it, cleaner than Edmonton, cleaner than any of the municipalities.
And actually, Fort Mac is often frequently cleaner than Edmonton.
Where all the hippies are and the decision makers.
I mean, I guess if they think it's, they must think that everywhere is as bad as it is there.
But maybe they should take off their Birkenstocks and get off their bike and get in a car and go see how the other half lives.
Anyway, Nicklin, 1961, writes, Vancouver is the only city in the world who claimed to be concerned with the cost of living in the city than added 10 cents a liter to gas and 15 cent fees on all cups and bags sold in the city.
Yeah.
Like you can't complain about affordability and then do things to make basic living more expensive.
Like as Pierre Polyev says, these people actually need calculators.
Like if you are adding 15 cents to every bag of groceries that you buy, you're going to have 15 fewer cents in your pocket at the end of the day.
Why can't they figure this stuff out?
User, TT6SQ1FT1M, if that's even your real name, writes to me and says, Sheila, why don't you debate Max Bernier on Rebel?
He's against farm subsidies.
What's to debate?
So am I. Like, really?
What do we just have a debate?
You just don't stand around and agree with each other when he says, you know, like handouts are bad.
And I'm like, yep.
And quotas are bad.
Me too.
I think that too.
Just because I'm a farmer doesn't mean I want handouts from the government.
I want the government out of my way so that I can do what I do best.
And I just, in the same way that I can't do journalism by taking handouts from the government, I think we can't be a farmer, a self-reliant, capable farmer, jangling around for money from the government.
Just yuck.
No thank you.
No thank you.
And then How Not To 523 says, not being able to get to Edmonton with an electric vehicle is a selling point.
Government Handouts: No Thanks00:00:57
That's true.
I often joke about how horrible Edmonton is.
And I think as a city, the government is terrible.
But there are very many good people living in that city.
And we should just airlift them out.
Just save them from the city.
Although I understand there are many people who are like, I'm never leaving Edmonton to the progressives.
I'm going to stay here and fight for accountability forever.
And I love that attitude.
But Ralph Klein said it 30 years ago, late, great visionary, former conservative premier Ralph Klein.
He said that Edmonton, and I'm paraphrasing here, Edmonton is a beautiful city with too many mosquitoes and socialists, and you can do something about the mosquitoes.
It's evergreen.
It remains true to this day.
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.