Ezra Levant recounts Rebel News’ five-day legal crusade: Pavlovsky’s "time served" conviction for a 20-minute vaccine-mandate sermon (appeal needed), Levant’s Toronto case over The Labrano’s Book—a $6B Trudeau government exception—Derek Reimer’s Calgary protest trial, and Tamara Leach’s precedent-setting fight. Calgary police’s flawed production order, quashed after $9K in legal fees, reveals systemic targeting of independent media, with groups like CJFE silent. Levant warns costs could hit $20K more as battles escalate, framing these cases as a frontline defense against speech suppression under Canada’s increasingly weaponized justice system. [Automatically generated summary]
Today's show is about various court battles that Rebel News is either crowdfunding or actually defending ourselves.
I'd love it if you got the video version of today's podcast.
Just go to rebelnewsplus.com and click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
But that not only gives you the video version of the podcast, it helps pay our bills.
Because as you know, we will never take a dime from Justin Trudeau.
All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, five days in the week, five different court battles for Rebel News.
It's September 19th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you sensorious bug.
Hello, my friends.
As you can see, I'm actually in an airport.
I'm running around so much.
Yesterday, I was down in Lethbridge, Alberta, covering the sentencing hearing of Arthur Pavlovsky.
He's a very important newsmaker, both in terms of freedom of speech and freedom of religion.
We're also crowdfunding his legal defense, although his sentencing yesterday, as you know, was for time served, so he doesn't go back to jail.
He doesn't have any more fines or any more penalties.
He still has the conviction, the criminal conviction.
And we can't let that stand.
We cannot let it be that giving a peaceful sermon is considered a crime, inciting mischief.
In Court for Rebel News00:06:05
And I just find it astonishing that that happened.
We must appeal it.
And I think we've got a good chance on appeal, by the way.
So that was what we did yesterday.
Today, I was in court myself on behalf of Rebel News.
As I mentioned to you the other day, the Calgary police sent me an email demanding that I hand over all sorts of footage that they didn't actually particularize.
And they said if I didn't do so within 30 days, I could be imprisoned.
The gall of them.
And by the way, today's day 49 in that 30-day time limit.
I'll show you a lot more about that subject.
Tomorrow, the trial of Derek Reimer, the pastor in Calgary, who protested against the Drag Queen Story Hour, a peaceful protest.
He's on trial for breaking some bubble zone law.
Calgary now has a rule you can't protest within like 100 meters of a drag queen story hour as if that's some protected space like a military top secret location or something.
Again, we are crowdfunding his legal defense on Thursday.
I'm on trial again.
I tell you, it's not my week.
The Labrano's book that I published four years ago is still on trial.
We're before the court in Toronto.
The Trudeau government says it was an illegal book, that it wasn't a real book, but because it criticized Justin Trudeau, it should be treated as a campaign expenditure or something.
And I should have to register with the government before publishing a book.
By the way, there were 24 books written that same election season about Justin Trudeau.
Mine just happened to be the only critical one.
And surprise, mine was the only one that was charged, investigated, prosecuted by Elections Canada, those crooks.
So we're battling it out in court on Thursday.
On Friday, I'm losing track of all the trials.
Well, of course, there's Tamara Leach's trial, which is going all week.
It's been going on for several weeks.
I think I'm missing a trial in there somewhere.
There's so many of them going on.
And it falls to Rebel News and our friends at the Democracy Fund to lift the load.
And it wasn't always this way.
It used to be that other people cared about civil liberties.
There are a few who do.
I take my hat off to our friends at the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms.
And I'm pretty much done on my list.
I mean, there used to be a lot of Canadians who cared about the free press, but not so much now that they've been colonized by Justin Trudeau's media bailout.
When I was young, I remember reading legal cases about freedom of speech, and there was often a lawyer in court representing what they called a consortium of media companies.
So CTV and CBC and Global and the newspapers and would all get together, chip in maybe a thousand bucks each, and they would hire a lawyer to represent all of them to go to court to fight for free speech.
It made a lot of sense.
It spread the burden out for all the companies and it really packed a punch.
When someone would show up in court and say, Your Honor, I represent 100 different newspapers and TV stations, and we're here to talk about freedom of the press.
It actually made a dent.
Well, the big companies don't do that anymore.
I think partly because they only care about one reader now, Justin Trudeau, not about anything as abstract as freedom.
And the so-called civil liberties groups, where are they?
I mean, listen, they took a long snooze.
Like, you know, what who's not Rumbles Philson?
I just, I just forgot the name of the guy who went to sleep for 80 years.
What's that fable?
That's what happened to our civil liberties groups.
They just went to Rip Van Winkle.
That's who I'm thinking about.
Our Rip Van Winkle civil liberties groups just decided, you know, everything's fine.
They'll just go on holidays, even while the pandemic and the lockdowns and the vaccine mandates came about.
They're certainly not going to get involved over something like freedom of speech.
So today's show, I told you a few things that are coming later this week.
And believe me, I got a lot more to say about my trial on the Libranos.
But today's show, I'm going to show you a few things.
I'm going to show you my discussion with Sarah Miller coming out of Arthur Pavlovsky's hearing.
And that's a hearty interview.
We talk about the importance of the case and we talk about how much it's going to cost.
And then I talked to Sarah.
I literally went with her from her office to the court of King's Bench in Calgary, where I was worried that the police were going to fight us.
But Sarah tells me that at the last moment, the police said, all right, we won't fight you.
We agree that we did it wrong.
And so the hearing in court was actually very brief.
I'll show you some videos about that.
But it's only buying us a little bit of respite.
There is no doubt in my mind that the police will be coming for us again and they will demand my footage, our footage.
And if we don't give it, they will threaten to imprison me.
And I do not want to go to jail, but there are some principles I think that especially someone like me who talks a good game, I think if push comes to shove, I think it behooves me to show that I mean all this and I don't want to go to jail.
But there are some things that I would go to jail for and our freedom of the press and the fact that I do not believe a cop should simply be able to grab our footage.
I think that is one of those things.
So let me say goodbye now and hand you over to me earlier today when I interviewed Sarah Miller three occasions.
Once finishing up what we talked about with Arthur Pavlovsky, a second time before we went into court against the Calgary police, and a third time when we came out of that court hearing.
So it's a day full of court cases in a week full of court cases.
And I feel self-conscious that I'm always asking for help with this, but I really think it's fallen to rebel news to do most of the civil liberties law in Canada.
I mean, I love the guys of the JCCF and they're fighting like hell on a bunch of files, but all the free speech stuff, all the media stuff, the freedom of the press stuff, they do some of that, but so many of those burdens fall to us.
And I think we have to live up to the occasion.
I hope you agree.
All right, here's today's show.
Wow, what a day yesterday down there in Lethbridge.
There was a bit of a jubilation when Arthur Pavlovsky stepped out of the court.
52 Days in Custody00:10:47
Time served.
He will not have to pay a dollar's fine.
He will not have to go back to jail.
Sarah Miller, you led the charge to beat the sentencing.
Give us your thoughts as a lawyer of how things went down yesterday.
Yeah, so of course it's great that Arthur is not going back to prison, but it is very disheartening to know that he spent 50 days, over 50 days, 52 days in custody for a 20-minute speech.
And so this is definitely a message from the criminal justice system.
If you're going to speak at protests, your speech will or could at least attract criminal and penal consequences.
And so although yesterday was a happy moment for Archer because he wasn't returning back to jail, he wasn't going to serve additional time, which is what the Crown was seeking, up to 12 months.
And then at court, you heard up to 10 months, which would mean he would have returned to custody.
That's positive that he didn't, but it's a significant sentence, 60 days.
If he had not been detained, if his bail had not been refused at first instance, he would have then been facing 60 days in jail.
He would have been there until November.
That's crazy.
You know, the judge referred to a number of cases for a lot of environmental cases, anti-logging cases, climate cases.
And in most of those, and these were persistent day-after-day roadblocks blocking a bridge, and there was no custodial sentence.
I remember there was a case of some old growth forest bridge blocker who got a suspended sentence.
So if you're bad again, you'll go to jail maybe in the future.
But it felt like a double standard for justice.
Most of the cases that the judge seemed to cite, now you correct me if I'm wrong here.
Climate protesters, logging protesters got off with a slap in the wrist.
He would have done, like you say, two months prison had he not already done two months prison.
Yeah, so like we don't know what would have happened with the sentence had Arthur not had such a considerable amount of pre-trial custody time.
So there's a possibility that he may also have been conditionally sentenced, which, as you say, doesn't mean you're returning to jail, but means you're going to serve it in the community under, you know, very strict conditions, like house arrest.
So there's a possibility that that would have been the outcome if we didn't have so much pre-trial custody time.
But yeah, you're exactly right.
Like people who had been charged multiple times with actual mischief, not inciting mischief, people who had injunction orders issued against them, people who had ignored police, people who had been engaged in the civil disobedience for over a year, you know, doing the same activities for over a year, are getting essentially, you know, what we heard was 75 days, right, of conditional sentence.
Or we have one where, you know, there's a tower, the Calgary Tower has climbed.
A bunch of Greenpeace organized, the court had said to military precision.
Oh, and fundraising.
Yeah, I mean, the Greenpeace commits these crimes to make money, make no doubt about it.
Yes, exactly, and has crowdfunding available just the same as Arthur would to pay a fine.
And they were fined $2,000 each.
What a laugh.
You know what?
It's not just that Arthur was convicted for saying things like hold the line and stand for freedom.
Really, any pundit, any journalist, any commentator, anyone with a Facebook page who would have said the same thing, if those would have been read or heard by a protester, they would be on the hook the same way.
Because the judge and the prosecutors never claimed that Arthur blocked the road.
They never claimed he did anything.
He didn't even go on the road as far as we know.
He just incited them to keep going.
And the bulk of the proof was he talked about the solidarity protests in Poland 45 years ago or whatever.
The sentencing, as you pointed out, is outrageous.
But the conviction is even more terrifying.
If giving a sermon that gives encouragement is a crime, then frankly, I'm in deep trouble because I encourage civil disobedience all the time.
And I think half the pundits in this country, both on the left and the right do.
I think the conviction itself is dangerous.
Now, you tell me, are you appealing the conviction itself?
Yeah, so Arthur has given us instructions to appeal the conviction itself.
And for that exact reason, right?
Like we are now in a world where we speak, we can have it live streamed.
We can be far removed from being in Coutz and say similar things that Arthur said, right?
Similar words of encouragement or support.
And what distinguishes what Arthur said compared to what anybody else is saying online?
And how are we going to police speech in that manner?
And this is really the first time that we're aware of that somebody has been convicted of simply speaking, not participating.
And not only did they not allege or suggest that he participated, they admitted in the agreed statement of facts.
It's a fact that Arthur did not participate or block the road.
It is simply his speech that we are talking about, the words that he said while he was in Coupts.
You know, I've covered a lot of trials around the world, and I was there for the trial.
What was so interesting to me is there were really no witnesses.
It was just the YouTube video that Arthur himself posted.
That's it.
We had a whole trial going through word for word of his sermon.
That's insane.
By the way, Martin Luther King would have been imprisoned for his sermons alone if that were the standard.
I mean, Martin Luther King mustered the power of the English language and the conviction and the principle that he of the Bible.
And he appealed to people through their hearts and their minds.
Under the standard set for Pastor Arthur, Martin Luther King would have been jailed for his sermons alone.
He was jailed for other things, but he would have been jailed for his sermons alone.
Yeah, absolutely.
And that's the concerning aspect of this particular decision is that what you say can result in criminal charges.
So you don't have to participate.
You don't have to be a leader.
You don't have to be an organizer.
You don't even have to really explain how somebody should continue.
And by the way, and there's no need for proof that you actually caused anything to happen.
There's no proof that anyone listened to Pastor Arthur and said, oh, I'm going to go down to Coups now or, oh, I'm going to stay here.
There's no proof at all.
In fact, we don't even know for a fact that the people who listened to that sermon were blockaders themselves.
He gave a sermon at a saloon in town.
I think there probably were some truckers there, but none of that was proven.
I think this is a very dangerous precedent.
And of course, it's not against Stephen Gilbo, the environment minister who shimmied down the CN tower.
He got off with a slap on the wrist too.
Of course, it's not.
And I think a lot of people who were there yesterday in Letbridge feel in their bones that the justice system is not even-handed.
And this ruling against a right-wing Christian pastor who was against vaccine mandates, this ruling, in the eyes of many conservatives and freedom-oriented people, will be proof that the justice system is unfair.
And you know what?
Given the comparison, I mean, the judge talked a lot about parity with other cases.
There was no parity with other cases.
People, and let me say, my point of view, Sarah, is I'm trying to keep conservatives in the Democratic tent.
I'm trying to prove to conservatives or freedom-loving people, don't give up on the system.
We can work within the system.
We can work within the courts.
We can work within independent journalism.
We can work.
Like, I'm trying to tell people, don't give up on the system.
We can make it work.
Yesterday's disproportionate sentence makes it bloody hard for me to look those truckers in the eye and say, no, no, the system's actually fair.
You'll be treated as gently as a greenpiecer because that's not the case.
Yeah, I mean, there's a big range of sentencing and sentencing is certainly an art and not a science.
So, and there's going to be implications of having so much pretrial custody time, right?
Being detained at first instance, having that much pre-trial custody time gives the court a lot of latitude to say 60 days, seven days, which is what we were saying.
It's really the same outcome as Archer's walking out of the courtroom at the end of the day, right?
So I believe still very strongly that the courts are doing their work, that, you know, sometimes we don't agree with decisions.
Sometimes we have to go to court of appeal, right?
So, I mean, why have a court of appeal if they're never going to get it wrong at the lower court?
And that's, you know, I told a lot of people yesterday in the courtroom, outside the courtroom, I said, who said, we've got to get the judge.
We've got to impeach the judge.
I said, no, judges are allowed to get it wrong.
And that doesn't prove that they're evil if they get it wrong because we have a court of appeal to fix it and we have a Supreme Court of Canada to fix that.
So just because a judge got wrong doesn't mean he's corrupt.
Doesn't mean he's evil.
It just means you got it wrong.
That's why we're counting on the court of appeal.
And last time you represented Arthur for keeping his church open, the trial judge made an appalling ruling.
You went to the court of appeal, got a three to zero ruling by the court of appeal that was beautiful and actually legally binding.
Like it's like when the court of appeal makes a ruling, it's binding.
It sets a precedent for the whole province in a way that had he just won a trial, it wouldn't do.
So I actually think you've got a real opportunity to take this loss, this conviction, go to the court of appeal, and God willing, overturn it and set a precedent for freedom.
It's a painful, lengthy process, but I'm actually trying to find the silver lining here.
If you can win this thing at court of appeal, that is actually a huge win for freedom for everybody, including for Greenpeace.
I hate to say it.
Yes, absolutely.
For everyone who wants to protest and engage in democratic processes, like this case is important.
Whether you agree with Archer's position or not, whether or not you think he should have been there, you thought it was stupid that he was there or what have you.
This decision impacts everybody from every political stripe.
And so if we go to the court of appeal and have a decision, it's going to be precedential, not only in Alberta, but it's going to be influential across the country because inciting mischief has never been dealt with by a court of appeal.
Rich Person's Rationality00:07:35
Really?
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
There's just not very much case law in the world of case law regarding incitement.
I had no idea.
I'm going to ask you.
I'm going to ask you a question that I have never asked you before on camera, and I hope you'll answer it because there's a point to the question.
Let me quickly show you a beautiful thing that Arthur said yesterday.
I was in the crowd filming and he said, hey, Ezra, come on up here.
And then he made a special thank you to me, but really what he meant is to rebel viewers for crowdfunding his legals.
I don't want to say how much we've spent so far on him because it's a very big number.
And I think we've gotten value for money.
We've had a lot of great wins.
Here's just a quick shot of Arthur saying some nice things about how we've crowdfunded.
Let's take a quick look.
Ezra Levan and Rebel News.
Ezra is there.
You see, this is a man that I have differences with.
Very public, head-on collision, but that's how I like it.
I'm a Polish emigrant.
I believe that the heroes in the Bible were not Jews, were Polish emigrants.
That's the truth.
I can't prove it yet, but I'm working on it.
And this man stood with me.
And I'm telling you, I fought many battles alone, and I lost my houses.
I lost my properties.
They almost took my home away for closure.
I couldn't pay taxes because I fought lawyers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And one man cannot do it.
One family cannot do it.
And this man stepped in and says, I'll crowdfund for you.
So it doesn't matter what differences we may have today.
He and his effort paid for our lawyers.
And that's the truth.
Ezra, I want to thank you for that.
I am not in prison because you were willing with crowdfunding, with good Canadians, with good Albertans, to fetch the bill.
And I'll always remember that.
You know, I really am grateful to him for his gratitude through me to our donors.
We do have that one last battle.
We do, I mean, you could walk away right now.
Arthur's free.
There's nothing else hanging over his head that I know about related to the convoy or the pandemic.
But we have this last mission to do.
We have to get his conviction overturned.
We have to do it at the Court of Appeal level to set the binding precedent in Alberta and the persuasive precedent in the other provinces and territories.
I actually think in some ways this is the most important battle of all.
It touches on freedom of religion, freedom of speech.
And if we let it stand, it's the criminalization of dissent.
I really believe that.
So here's the question I haven't asked you on camera before, and I hope you'll answer it.
How much money do you and your team expect it to cost to take things from now, prepare the appeal, go to the appeal, argue the appeal, fight the appeal, and win the appeal?
How many more dollars do you need us to crowdfund?
And they're just rough numbers, because I want people to hear it straight from you, because we got to do one last mission for Arthur.
So I would hope that this would be possible less than $100,000, but we're going to need two counsel.
We're going to need to do factums.
We need to recreate the entire trial record for the Court of Appeal.
We need to attend the Court of Appeal.
The Court of Appeal, you're not messing around when you go to the Court of Appeal.
You need to know the case law in and out across the country and in other jurisdictions, which means we're doing research in the U.S. and the U.K.
It could be up to $100,000.
That's a lot of money.
There's no two ways about it.
Through the Democracy Fund, we're able to issue charitable tax receipts for these donations.
So that lightens the burden a bit.
That's a lot of money.
But I do believe for Arthur's own sake, we need to appeal because I don't like the fact that he's now a convicted criminal.
You know, there was some jubilation yesterday because, woo, no more time in jail.
Yeah, okay, but he's still branded a criminal.
There's the stigma of that.
It may even cause him problems traveling to other countries, for all I know.
We have to get that stain off of him.
But much more important, we have to set the precedent for freedom.
I feel the same way about Jamara Leach's case in Ottawa right now that the Democracy Fund and Real News are also crowdfunding for.
The government is seeking to criminalize in retrospect the entire trucker convoy.
And they'll do so with a conviction, whereas an acquittal will vindicate the entire protests.
I think what hangs in the balance right now with Arthur is the difference between night and day, dark and light.
If we can overturn this trial conviction and get an appeal for freedom, this will perhaps be the most useful thing we have ever done.
And so thank you for that.
I did not know your answer before.
I just asked it now.
It's a large number.
You're a winner, though.
You won in the court of appeal before three to zero.
I have a saying, it's a terrible saying, there's nothing more expensive than a cheap lawyer because you don't want to do this and lose.
You want to do this and win.
I trust you.
I've gotten to know you over three years now.
You've been battling for Arthur for three and a half years.
Can you believe it?
I know, it's wild.
It's crazy.
There you have it.
That's a large number.
I'll stop saying that.
But I think we have to do it for the reasons I said.
And many hands make light work.
And this is what I said to Arthur yesterday.
No poor person could do this.
No regular person could do this.
And no rich person would do this because they wouldn't be rich anymore.
You know, if a millionaire, if Arthur was a millionaire, well, Arthur is an unusual case.
A regular person being a millionaire would just say, how do I get out of this mess?
Just cut a plea deal.
Let me get out of this.
This is like a rich person is rich for a reason because he's rational with his money.
The only way to fight this is with Arthur's natural stubbornness with an excellent law firm and with crowdfunding.
There's no other normal way to win this.
And I really believe this.
So please go to savearthur.com.
If you have come to love and trust Sarah as much as I have, oh, three and a half years ago, we were strangers.
I'd never met you before.
And we've had some wins.
I'm not going to say for a sixth time that that's a lot of money.
That's a lot of money, Sarah.
Lord Thunder and Jesus.
But we've got to do it.
Last word to you.
Yeah, I mean, this is more than what is happening to Arthur.
This is going to be precedential case law, and we need to do it right.
And it needs to be argued right.
And we need to have it presented to the Court of Appeal right to have it come out the way we want.
There's no one else that I would want in the Court of Appeal other than you and your team.
You know Arthur inside out.
You've worked with him for three and a half years.
You know the facts of this case intimately.
You know the law.
I've seen your work.
It's excellent.
And the judges have said so.
Every case I've seen you argue, the judges take time to compliment your representations.
Precedential Case Law00:15:48
And I don't think they do that if they don't mean it.
So there you have it.
We had a win yesterday.
There was jubilation yesterday, but it is not actually done.
I think Arthur would walk away right now, frankly.
Oh, I don't think so.
You know Arthur?
He wouldn't walk away.
What I mean by that is he would go back to his life.
Yes.
Well, he's going to go back to his life, right?
Like now it's a matter for the courts to sort out what the appropriate application is.
I said that wrong.
Arsenal fights to the end.
He's got that stubbornness in him, which is why he's so unusual.
You know, they say reasonable people conform to the world.
Unreasonable people make the world conform to them.
Therefore, all progress depends on unreasonable people.
And we need a stubborn man with a stiff neck.
And all he needs is our help to lawyer this thing.
So there you have it.
This is a heavy pitch, but we've got one more mission to do.
All right, there you have it.
Sarah, great to catch up with you.
I was glad to be down there at the trial, and I will be there at the Court of Appeal.
I need your help, though, to crowdfund it.
Go to savearthur.com.
Thanks.
You serve us.
I do not.
You serve us.
You don't serve us.
You don't serve us.
I see.
Ah, Jesus!
Hands off!
Dude, police!
You should be arresting Antifa.
They're the ones that attacked him.
What are you cowards doing arresting this guy?
Just for those who are wondering, well, what's this all about?
What's the video involved?
We had a couple of journalists on the scene in front of Western Canada High School, my old alma mater, when there was a tussle between different young people over, I'm not even sure what the issue was.
I think it might have been over a trans issue.
So I don't know.
But we covered it and there was some pushing and shoving.
And we aired, I think, 25 minutes worth of footage.
Like it's all there.
And for these cops to say, no, no, show us the rest of it.
I can't help but think that they're actually trying to find some dirt on Josh Alexander, who we would consider the good guy here.
He was, I think, the victim of this assault.
I think that the cops are trying to dig up something on the victim.
I've seen this happen by police before, and I want to fight it.
I don't think that Rebel News should have to cough up our material to the cops just because they didn't do their own work.
It's 9:19 a.m. at 10 a.m. I have a hearing here at the Calgary Court of King's Bench.
The Calgary Police Service has issued a production order through a judge saying if we don't hand over certain materials within 30 days, we could be subject to punishments, including, it says right there in the order, prison.
Well, it's been more than 30 days.
Today is day 49.
Sarah, Sarah Miller, our lawyer, let me say hello and thank you for being here.
We know you from your excellent work with Arthur Pavlovsky.
The court and the law treats seizing records from journalists in a special way.
Police just can't come and seize our files, can they?
Right.
So they do need a production order, but they also need to get the production order from the right level of court and they need to satisfy certain questions to get that production order when they're talking about evidence from a journalist organization.
So that's the issue for today's appearance is the judge that issued the order didn't have the right sections of the criminal code in front of him to know that he didn't have the jurisdiction, so it seems.
So we're going to go in.
We have Calgary Police has endorsed my consent order.
Clearly they finally did because when we spoke a few days ago, they had not yet signed on that.
So we were going to have a tussle today.
Yes, so we've got the Calgary Police Service, their director of legal services, has signed the consent order now.
They've agreed that, you know, what we've put forward to them, we wrote a letter to them saying this is how it should have proceeded.
We don't think the jurisdiction is correct, that kind of thing.
They've conceded to that.
And so they've now signed the consent order.
We're going to go in and explain it to the court.
Hopefully get the previous order that you're now overdue on, so to speak, overturned and quashed.
And we'll go from there.
Can I ask you when they finally signed this consent order?
Because last time we spoke, they hadn't done it yet.
So I don't know exactly what day.
I was obviously in court yesterday with Archer.
I think I had it on Friday.
It may have been earlier than that, though.
I honestly don't recall.
Okay, so it was pretty close to it.
Anyways, I'm glad to hear that.
That's basically the Calgary Police Service admitting that their court order to seize our materials was invalid.
Am I correct in saying that?
They're basically admitting what they tried to do had no basis in law.
Frankly, it was illegal.
Yeah, I wouldn't use the word illegal, but certainly that they missed up.
They didn't follow the right procedure.
And so they're agreeing that that order is no longer valid.
Now, I mean, I understand what an ex parte hearing is.
In Latin, that means the other side's not there.
Only one side is there.
That's used for very special reasons when you don't want to give the other side notice.
If you're doing a raid on a biker gang, for example, you don't want to let them know that the raid is coming.
So I can understand that.
Why would the Calgary Police Service have an ex parte hearing in secret and use secret documents to get a production order against rebel news?
I don't quite understand.
And I understand you asked the cops for their secret documents.
You asked for what they showed the judge.
Have they gotten back to you yet?
I remember when we spoke about this a week ago, they had not.
Have they yet disclosed to you the secret information they told the judge in a secret hearing?
Right.
So when we asked for the records that they had produced to the judge in support of this, they said they wouldn't give them to us or that they couldn't give them to us and that we should go to the courts.
Well, we went to the courts and of course it's all under seal.
We can't access anything.
They're saying there's nothing there.
And this is not unusual for this type of production, right?
Remember, we are talking about a criminal investigation, some fairly serious charges that have been laid, including sexual assault or that we understand have been laid based on the order.
Has nothing to do with rebel news, but they don't necessarily want to have criminals have a heads up about the evidence that's being collected or any opportunity for the evidence to be destroyed before they get the order in place.
Right, but this was used to get an order against us, frankly, against me.
When the order said there could be prison, I presume that that would fall on me.
So the likelihood of me being in prison today, you're saying, is now gone, that I will not be in prison.
I didn't think it was very high, but if the police were not consenting to it, there was a chance of it.
You're saying that I will not be jailed today.
That's right.
There should be no jail today, as far as I know, unless you've been doing something else that I'm not.
Not that I know.
It was just a little bit startling to get this order from the police, a surprise, hand over all your files or go to prison.
I'm not used to that.
Well, and the way that they purported to serve it, right, which was part of our correspondence to the police, they just sent it to a generic rebel news email address.
That's not real law.
There were so many things wrong with it.
I counted five things wrong with it.
Wrong court, wrong burden of proof, wrong way of serving it, wrong standard of law.
There were so many things wrong with this.
Is the Calgary Police Service just that useless?
Or do you think that there is a little bit of a, let's get rebel here, no matter how?
Well, I actually think that, you know, maybe I'm naive or maybe I have too much faith in the system.
I actually think the criminal code changed a few years ago.
And although a couple years ago sounds like a lot to you or I, you know, we're talking about police officers who are front of line who aren't necessarily dealing with obtaining evidence from journalists.
Surely this cop worked with a lawyer.
Like the Calgary Police has lawyers.
The Attorney General is lawyers.
Surely this was a lawyer before they went after rebel news.
I can't help but think, Sarah, you know, we fight with police forces around the world.
Seriously, we've sued police in Toronto, in Montreal, the RCMP, even in Australia.
We fight with police all the time, but the only police force that has tried to seize our documents with a punitive production order are the Calgary police.
And I wonder if that's a coincidence because we have scrutinized their misconduct in Arthur Pavlovsky's case, like that gangland-style arrest of Arthur on the highway.
That's not policing.
That's shock and awe to terrorize people.
The way they arrested Tim Stevens in front of his family, the way they threatened to taser Ocean Weisblat, this is one of the most abusive police forces in the country in my books.
And we have documented every step of the way.
I can't help but think this was some cop who said, squash rebel loose.
No other police force in the world has tried to seize our documents other than these.
I don't know.
This is all my speculation.
We don't know what's in the mind of these guys, but clearly knowing the law is not in their mind either.
Yeah, I'm of the sense of, I don't know if they got legal advice before.
I don't know that they do that as practice when they're getting production orders.
I think that it was ignorance of the law rather than anything purposeful.
But we'll see how they proceed going forward.
If they go and get an order from the higher court, there's no reason at this point, in my estimation, to keep it ex parte, right?
So they should, we've asked for notice.
Hopefully they'll give us notice going forward and we'll see how they conduct themselves.
You know, just for those who are wondering, well, what's this all about?
What's the video involved?
We had a couple of journalists on the scene in front of Western Canada High School, my old alma mater, when there was a tussle between different young people over, I'm not even sure what the issue was.
I think it might have been over a trans issue.
So I don't know.
But we covered it and there was some pushing and shoving.
And we aired, I think, 25 minutes worth of footage.
Like it's all there.
And for these cops to say, no, no, show us the rest of it.
I can't help but think that they're actually trying to find some dirt on Josh Alexander, who we would consider the good guy here.
He was, I think, the victim of this assault.
I think that the cops are trying to dig up something on the victim.
I've seen this happen by police before, and I want to fight it.
I don't think that rebel news should have to cough up our material to the cops just because they didn't do their own work.
There were plenty of cops there.
They witnessed things for themselves.
They could have videotaped it.
I do not work for the Calgary police.
I don't work for any police.
And for them to think they can just take our journalists' stuff and throw me in prison as the order threatened if I don't give it, I think this is something we have to stand firm on.
And we aired 25 minutes of the crime.
And I think the cops were just twisting the knife in.
And I'm going to fight them every bloody step of the way.
I don't think they're done today.
We'll find out soon, but I don't think they're done with us.
Yeah, I suspect that this is only step one.
We'll see what kind of production order they get in the future, what other steps they want to take against you guys.
Certainly, I don't know what's in their minds, but it's unlikely that they're completely done with this.
Other media companies in the country have been raided by the police before.
Vice has been, the CBC has been, and all the journalists, NGOs come to their aid, the Canadian Associations of Journalists, the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, all these do-gooder groups swarm to help Vice, swarm to help CBC.
I wonder if any of them will give a damn that it's rebel news being raided by police, even though the precedents we are going to set in this case will redound to the benefit of every journalist in the country.
Yeah, like I said, this is new law, really, like new sections of the criminal code only implemented a few years ago.
There's very limited case law on this.
So absolutely going forward, all of this is going to be precedential new case law that helps every journalist.
I want to ask you a question that I asked you before for the first time, and I want to ask it again because I feel like I'm fighting here not just for rebel news, but I really do feel like I'm fighting for any independent journalists who are left in this country.
And I know that CBC journalists are really government journalists, like they literally are.
And these days, most newspaper journalists are paid by Trudeau.
They literally are.
But there are some independent-minded journalists left, and we're one of them.
And it falls to us to bear the burden of these legal battles, which is not how it always was.
I remember when I was young, all the media companies would get together, pool their money, and hire one lawyer to represent like 10 media companies.
And they'd go to court and say, Your Honor, we represent these 10 media companies, and we're here for freedom of speech.
That doesn't happen anymore.
It falls to rebel news to carry that burden.
And I don't want to put you on the spot, but I want to tell our viewers how much this fight for freedom has cost.
I received your first bill for $9,000, and that was before we even set foot in court today.
If they file another production order, if they keep going at us, this will be expensive.
And I just want people to know that.
We're fighting this because of our own principles, but we're fighting this to set a precedent, because if we don't, who will?
And I don't want to live in a country where the cops can simply send you an email and say, give us all your private information or go to prison.
That is not the Canadian way.
And I'm not covering up for any criminal.
We aired the footage of the crime before the cops even got back to their office.
What kind of a legal fee are we looking at to fight this for freedom because no one else is?
So today, obviously, hopefully will be very short.
So very small incremental legal costs.
But if they are going to bring another application, if they're going to give us notice, if the court wants written submissions, this could get up to a $20,000 legal bill because of the work that would be required to respond and to make novel arguments that just haven't been before the court yet.
So.
What do you think?
I mean, I feel like I have to, I feel like I can't roll over.
I feel like anything you give away to the state, you'll never get back.
I mean, when I sued Stephen Gilbo for blocking us on Twitter, people said, oh, that's small.
What are you doing?
That's ridiculous.
No, it's the principle that if you let them get away with this and with that, then they'll just, it's like a camel's nose in the tent.
Soon they'll be inside.
I feel like you have to fight these incursions all the time.
Even if you lose, you have to fight them because every once in a while you'll win.
And I truly believe, Sarah, that we are in a dark age when it comes to media freedom.
I feel like most journalists have been co-opted.
The Civil Liberties Associations have been hitting the snooze button on their alarm clock for three years now.
And I, you know, I don't think it's just my quarrelsome nature.
I think that this is crazy to get an email from a cop, an email from a cop saying, hand us over all your files in 30 days or go to jail.
And that just pricks something in me.
And I feel like I have to fight it.
And, you know, no one has an extra 20 grand kicking around.
Fight for Files00:05:21
And so I always go back to our viewers and say, please help.
But I'm sure they are tired of it.
But I just think that if we don't fight this, it'll be more and it'll be more and it'll be more the next time.
Well, and today is a perfect example, right?
Like they went and got this order.
They didn't follow the procedure that's set out in the code of criminal code.
Why not set them in their place, right?
Not to say you're against the investigation or undermining the investigation, but to say there are rules in place that you have to follow.
And if you don't, maybe the next time it's going to be a bigger impact, right?
And if they're not held to the standard of law, the rule of law that's set out in our statutes, that's what this is about, right?
It's just to follow the law that's set out in our statutes.
And if that means eventually that evidence is seized by journalists, at least it is done through a rule of law and through the right legal tests.
Well, there you have it.
Let me check my watch.
It's now 9.33.
Our hearing is in 27 minutes.
It sounds like at the last hour, the police said, oh, okay, fine.
We didn't do it right.
But they're obviously going to come back again.
We have to fight them.
I believe that this is my duty.
If I were simply guided by rational commercial thoughts, I wouldn't fight any of these legal cases.
Very few media do because they're expensive.
I mean, you know, there's a Jewish saying, if not you, who?
And if not now, when?
I mean, if we don't fight this, then who will?
If we don't fight it now, when do you fight it?
I really feel we have an obligation.
And if you agree with me, please go to defendrebelnews.com.
And I wish other media companies would help us.
I wish these so-called free speech groups, the Canadian Association of Journalists, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Penn Canada, Amnesty International, that's a handful of so-called civil liberties groups, all of whom are silent here.
I wish they'd help because I could use the help, but I can't count on their help, so I have to make my own help.
And if you can help me, please do.
Thanks very much.
I'll give you an update later on.
I just got out of court.
Look at that big, tall court there.
That's the Court of Kingsbench.
That's actually all the courts are here.
It's the court center in Calgary.
Standing next to me, of course, is Sarah Miller, lawyer for Arthur Pavlovsky.
And today, lawyer for me and Rebel News.
Now, sir, we were in court pushing back on a Calgary police production order that would have compelled us to hand over all sorts of files on pain of imprisonment.
But you did the background legal work and you filed an affidavit.
And the judge actually read the whole file and she agreed with us today to quash that improper court order by the Calgary police.
Why don't you give us a minute on what happened in court?
Yeah, so as you saw, I was very quick in court today, very brief.
The judge had obviously read our application materials, read our affidavit material, and granted the order, which we weren't 100% sure was going to happen today.
There is case law indicating more superior courts have been hesitant, were refused or delayed on quashing the order.
So we had our consent order signed.
We presented it to the court.
She said that she had done her homework and was used the materials and was ready to grant the order.
She said she thought it was the appropriate outcome.
Yeah, so that's good because we didn't know until just a few days ago that the police were going to consent to this dismissal.
And of course, because I mean, the judge's words, this isn't a run-of-the-mill case, asking a superior court to quash a junior court.
That doesn't happen very often, and judges don't want to do unusual things without care.
So I'm impressed that the judge did her homework, read all the materials, and said that what you had proposed, a consent order, was appropriate.
I've got one last question for you, though.
Did the Calgary police agree to pay any costs for this?
Yeah, so they agreed to pay costs per cent of Schedule C.
So we have a tariff in the Rosa Court that set out for surgeon applications, what costs could be awarded.
It's not written in stone by per se, but they've agreed to pull those.
And approximately how much is that?
I have the order here.
It's going to be $675.
All right.
So we spent about $9,000 preparing for today because the police don't know what the hell they're doing.
We spent $9,000 because a cop wanted to seize our materials but didn't do it right.
And the Calgary Police Service will pay us $675.
Thank you very little.
But we're going to fight back.
I'm sure the cops are going to come back with a proper order this time because they were humiliated today.
They signed an order consenting to their work being thrown out.
The judge said she thought it was appropriate that their work was thrown out.
The judge ordered them to pay us $675.
The Calgary police are embarrassed by what we do anyways.
I'm certain they're going to come back.
Cops Pay Up00:01:02
If they come back, will you be there to fight for us?
Of course I will.
Of course you will.
Right on.
There you have it.
I'll wrap up there.
Look, it is my belief that the police should not be able to seize journalist material just because they don't like the journalists.
And that's exactly what happened here.
And the judge signed on the line that is dotted.
I believe the cops are going to come back.
They're coming for Rebel News, but they got to get through me and Sarah Miller first.
If you want to help us out, go to defendrebelnews.com.
It's nice to have the cops be ordered to pay us $675, but that's just a fraction of what we've really paid to defend freedom of the press.
Thanks for your help.
Well, that's the show for today.
Thanks very much for watching.
And if you were able to, thanks for chipping in.
It's going to be a week of trials.
And I want to catch up on Tamara Leach's trial, perhaps the most important trial in the country, from Calgary International Airport to you, wherever you are.