Ezra Levant critiques Joe Biden’s chaotic speech on WWIII, dismissing his $100M Gaza aid as naive while pushing Ukraine funding without ceasefire demands. Canada’s Freedom Convoy trial—featuring Tamara Leach and Chris Barber—exposes emotional witness testimonies over facts, with redactions of Ottawa Police emails raising legal doubts. Meanwhile, "Death to the Jews" protests at Toronto’s Miles Nadal JCC reveal rising religious intimidation, underscoring Canada’s civil liberties crisis amid state-funded media dominance and crowdfunded defenses. [Automatically generated summary]
I want to talk about Joe Biden's atrocious speech yesterday, sort of a State of the Union speech about World War III.
I was not consoled.
I was not comforted.
I was not given confidence by it.
I think it was a disaster.
Then we'll have a change of pace and talk to Robert Krachik, our reporter on the scene of Tamara Leach's trial in Ottawa.
That, on the other hand, is going well.
We'll talk to him.
That's ahead.
But first, let me invite you to subscribe to what we call Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this podcast.
Just go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
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All right, here's today's show.
Tonight, Joe Biden returns to America to talk about World War III and to ask for more money for Ukraine.
It's October 20th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
I'm astonished by Joe Biden's big speech last night.
The world is on the brink of a world war.
It really feels that way to me.
Joe Biden's $100 Million Bet00:13:19
America's role in the world is being challenged in ways it hasn't been in two generations.
I saw this tweet today by a thoughtful technology entrepreneur and investor and thinker.
I'd even call him a philosopher.
Balaji Srinivasan is his name.
He loves America very much.
He's very successful.
And I think he's a thinker.
And this hit me hard about the state of the world and America in particular.
But doesn't this apply to Canada too?
And I think maybe it takes a foreign-born guy like him to look at us in a way that we can't see.
I'll just read a bit of it.
He says, let's be real.
U.S. political leaders since the Gulf War are perhaps the worst leaders in the history of the world.
In 1991, they had inherited a hyperpower that wins everywhere without fighting.
But by 2021, they produced a declining power that fights everywhere without winning.
Isn't that clever?
It's 30 years of unmitigated domestic and international failure from San Francisco to Syria, from financial crisis to coronavirus.
With every inherited advantage, U.S. leaders nevertheless produced historical collapses in life expectancy.
And you can see he's got footnotes later on.
He proves all these things.
Life inspections and manufacturing capacity, in patriotic loyalty, in involvement in community.
They also delivered concommitment rises in drug overdoses, out-of-wedlock births, and homeless encampments.
And he goes on making the case at length.
And I couldn't help but think of the Roman Empire collapsing.
And it was probably really fun living in Rome right until those last days.
There's some similarities.
I mean, there are millions of migrants crossing the border into the U.S. with no impediment.
Most are probably just economic migrants, of course.
But how many are, I don't know, Iranian agents like Hamas just walking in?
I mean, do you doubt that some of them are?
I hope and pray that we don't one day have a violent event in America by people who just walked across the border.
Rome was destroyed from within as much as from without.
It feels that way in America now, too.
There are times when eloquence from the president helps to give citizens a boost to their spirits, to show them a plan, to help them understand things, to show the way to go.
Reagan was famous for that.
And remember, he became president during the Cold War, when there were real risks to America.
He took over an economy in recession when gas prices were skyrocketing and stagflation when the Soviets were on the march around the world.
But he matched philosophy and eloquence with principles and a strategy, and he rebuilt America.
He took it to its best decade in memory, really.
But words have to have ideas behind them to be meaningful.
Can you remember a single Barack Obama speech?
He had little turns of phrase, but the ideas underneath, not so much.
So what did Joe Biden, Obama's vice president, say yesterday?
It was so weak, I've forgotten it already, really.
Let me show you a few clips.
Take a look at this.
More than 1,300 people slaughtered in Israel, including at least 32 American citizens.
Scores of innocents, from infants to the elderly grandparents, Israelis, Americans taken hostage.
As I told the families of Americans being held captive by Hamas, we're pursuing every avenue to bring their loved ones home.
As president, there is no higher priority for me than the safety of Americans held hostage.
Really?
Every avenue?
The leaders of Hamas are holed up in Qatar, a so-called U.S. ally.
There's even a U.S. air base in Qatar.
And yet when Secretary of State Anthony Blinken went there, he didn't say hand over the hostages from Gaza and kick out Hamas' leaders or we'll put, I don't know, a no-fly zone over Qatar.
We'll declare you an enemy.
We'll ban your banking from America, whatever.
He could have pushed Qatar around in a second if he wanted to, but instead he said, hey, guys, we really appreciate you.
Thanks so much.
What do you think Trump would have done if 32 Americans had been killed and more were held hostage?
What do you think that he would have done?
And that's it.
That's all Biden had to say about that.
Here's what he said next.
Like so many other, I'm heartbroken by the tragic loss of Palestinian life, including the explosion at the hospital in Gaza, which was not done by the Israelis.
We mourn every innocent life lost.
We can't ignore the humanity of innocent Palestinians who only want to live in peace and have an opportunity.
Okay, but do you know what Biden did?
He announced $100 million more dollars for Gaza, which is run by Hamas.
There's no other government there.
It's Hamas.
Let me say that again.
Joe Biden just gave another $100 million to the bad guys here.
And he says it's because Hamas promised they won't steal it and use it for more rockets.
Seriously, here's Deputy National Security Advisor John Finer.
The president pledged $100 million in an aid package to Palestinian civilians, innocent civilians in Gaza and the West Bank.
How is the United States going to ensure that none of that ends up in the hands of Hamas?
Well, as you know, this was a primary focus of the president's diplomacy yesterday, both in Israel, where he met with the entire Israeli security establishment, but also in his phone conversations with regional leaders, including President al-Sisi of Egypt.
Getting assistance into Gaza is a complicated undertaking.
It involves essentially securing an understanding among Hamas fighters who control the checkpoint on the other side of the border, among the government of Israel, and among the government of Egypt.
And the agreement the president secured will enable these trucks to flow as soon as the roadway can be repaired.
But the president was also quite clear that if this assistance goes in, it cannot be misappropriated, cannot be taken by Hamas fighters for their own purposes.
And so we're going to be watching that very closely.
It has to get to Palestinian civilians who need it.
It has to.
But the question is, from what you just said, is the U.S. then essentially in a position where it has to take the word of Hamas that it will not be taken?
I mean, what other guarantee can there be?
We believe there is an understanding now among all of the players who control that crossing, the Rafah crossing in Egypt.
Oh, we believe there's an understanding.
That's not a gaffe.
That's not an error.
That's their line.
Here's another American spokesman, State Department spokesman, Matt Miller.
I think the concern the Israeli government has, and they've said this publicly and they certainly said it privately to us, is that any assistance that goes in will be diverted once it's inside Gaza.
That there's not an Israeli military force in Gaza.
There's not a UN peacekeeping force in Gaza.
The people with guns inside Gaza are Hamas.
And so Hamas may try to divert this assistance and keep it from getting to the civilians who it is intended for.
We think that's a legitimate concern.
We've made clear that this aid needs to go to innocent civilians and not Hamas.
We're going to be watching very carefully how it's delivered because we want to be sensitive to those concerns, which we share.
So Biden is really, really super mad at Hamas.
So mad.
Not mad enough to tell Qatar to hand over the terrorist leaders, not mad enough to send in special forces to extract the Americans.
Not mad that he's going to give them a tenth of a billion dollars.
He's going to give them $100 million more because they pinky swear they won't use it to attack Israel or America, which they do and have done.
But that's really all Biden had to say about Israel.
Then he switched gears and made a pitch for more money for Ukraine.
I'm serious.
He just came back from a massacre in Israel by Hamas, which was organized in Qatar and directed by Iran.
And he's done talking about all that pretty much.
Here's what he said next.
You know, the assault on Israel echoes nearly 20 months of war, tragedy, and brutality inflicted on the people of Ukraine.
People that were very badly hurt since Putin launched his all-out invasion.
We've not forgotten the mass graves, the bodies found bearing signs of torture, rape used as a weapon by the Russians, and thousands and thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly taken into Russia, stolen from their parents.
It's sick.
Now, I'm not here to argue degrees of evil, if this war is worse or better than that war, if these victims are more victimized than those.
Obviously, there's horrific losses in both wars, but I think there is something unique and particular about the evil barbarity of what happened in southern Israel two weeks ago.
Live streaming, murder, and rape, and hostage taking and acts of torture.
Literally, no national army in history that I know of, not since, I suppose, Genghis Khan.
Not even the Soviets, not even the Nazis bragged about their cruelty to women and children.
I do know this, the White House would never, or at least has never, condemn Ukraine as to how it fights back.
When Ukraine sent missiles or drones into civilian areas, such as when they sent an attack into downtown Moscow, which is a civilian area, there is no denunciation by America.
There was no call for a ceasefire applied to Ukraine only.
In fact, the opposite.
The U.S. often tells Ukraine, never ceasefire.
If, coming out of this meeting, there's some sort of call for a ceasefire, well, that's just going to be unacceptable because all that's going to do, Mike, is ratify Russia's conquest to date.
All that's going to do is give Mr. Putin more time to refit, retrain, reman, and try to plan for renewed offensives at a time of his choosing.
So Israel has to stop fighting back, but not Ukraine or really anyone else in history who's been attacked.
And here's our own Justin Trudeau on how Israel really has to stop fighting back.
The protection of civilian life, whether it's hostages being held by Hamas or civilians in Gaza or elsewhere, needs to be at the forefront of everything we do, not just in the region, but as an international community.
And that is what our diplomatic efforts are focused on, whether we're speaking to the leaders of Israel or the Palestinian Authority, whether it's my conversations with President Sisi or the Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or any other leaders in the region, the King of Jordan, we are going to continue calling for peace and calling for the protection of all civilian lives.
So yeah, there are lots of different perspectives, but there are shared fears and concerns amongst all parliamentarians and a commitment every single day to keep everyone safe here in Canada and everywhere around the world.
Got it.
So some liberals support Hamas terrorists.
Some oppose Hamas terrorists.
Some liberals support Jew killing and some don't.
And that's all fine.
Viv la difference.
Diversity makes us stronger.
He's for peace, don't you know?
Except for when he isn't really for peace.
Canadians know that yes, it is incredibly hard for Ukraine to continue to stand against Russian aggression.
And let's be honest, it's hard for the democracies around the world who are there to support their citizens, who are investing for the future, who are challenged with a challenging economy around the world to continue to step up as Canada has with close to $9 billion in aid for Ukraine.
But we will, because the cost on Canadians, on our lives, on our world will be so much greater if Putin wins this war that we will and have to stand every single day until Ukraine wins this war.
So by this point, I mean, the contrast actually between Israel and Ukraine is quite incredible.
But by this point in time, Biden, in his speech, was pretty much done talking about Israel.
He wanted to talk more about Ukraine.
Russia is very bad, but not a word about Iran.
Not a word.
There were two references to Iran in passing, but none hanging Hamas around their neck.
Here's one reference.
Meanwhile, Putin has turned to Iran and North Korea to buy attack drones and ammunition to terrorize Ukrainian cities and people.
So Biden's man at a man at Iran for helping Russia, but not for helping Hamas.
Here's the other reference.
Iran is supporting Russia in Ukraine, and it's supporting Hamas and other terrorist groups in the region.
And we'll continue to hold them accountable, I might add.
That's it.
That's it.
That's all I have to say about Iran.
Iran is building a nuclear bomb right now that they say will be used against Israel.
Iran funds and arms Hamas in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
This is all Iran's plan to destabilize the Abraham Accords, the realignment between Israel and the Sunni Arab countries.
This is Iran.
Biden doesn't think so.
In fact, he literally gave $6 billion to Iran just a few weeks ago and another $100 million just promised to Iran's proxy.
Biden's Iran Dilemma00:08:51
And that's it.
And then he just used the rest of his speech to ask for money.
He's asking for $100 billion, most of which is for Ukraine.
I don't think he's even awake, by the way.
I don't think he even knows what he's reading off the teleprompter.
I mean, here he was just dozing off in front of reporters on Air Force One.
Virtually every mass shooting, every circumstance where a large number of people have been victimized and lost, I spoke with.
I learned a long time ago what you've all learned in your life.
When someone's going through something that is beyond their comprehension, they've never thought they'd had to go through.
If they see someone who they think understands, or maybe they're doing something not the same, similar, it gives them some sense of hope.
And I always get criticized sometimes when I stopped because I go to these events.
I stay for three, four hours to answer all their questions.
But it matters.
It matters a lot.
And look, I'm talking, some of you have gone through a hell of a lot more than I've gone through and a lot more than other people have gone through.
And you understand.
So it's just, it's just people are looking for just something to grab.
Something that gives them some sense, a sense of hope.
That's if I can do a little bit of that now.
It's, you know, it's worth doing.
Not for me.
Oh, my God.
And then he had the chutzpah to say this.
American leadership is what holds the world together.
American alliance is what keeps us, America, safe.
American values are what make us a partner that other nations want to work with.
To put all that at risk, if we walk away from Ukraine, we turn our backs on Israel.
It's just not worth it.
Is that true?
Is America really leading the world?
Is it really?
Economically, I don't think so.
I think China is ascendant.
It's the largest economy now.
Militarily, I'm not sure if America is number one anymore.
I don't know.
Is America respected around the world, number one?
Is America feared around the world?
I don't think you can say it is with a straight face, and that makes me very sad to report.
You know, I saw a funny old tweet from the late Norm McDonald.
You know that comedian?
He passed away a few years ago, but his Twitter feed is still up.
He said this seven years ago.
It was a joke.
It was a joke.
He said this.
What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans, imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims.
That's a joke.
That's pretty dry humor.
Well, Joe Biden said as much in his speech, but it wasn't a joke.
On October 7th, terror attacks have triggered deep scars and terrible memories in the Jewish community.
Today, Jewish families worried about being targeted in school, wearing symbols of their faith, walking down the street, or going out about their daily lives.
And I know many of you in the Muslim American community, the Arab American community, the Palestinian American community, and so many others are outraged and hearty, saying to yourselves, here we go again with Islamophobia and distrust we saw after 9-11.
Well, I don't distrust my Muslim friends.
In fact, I'm sort of counting on them, but I do distrust thousands of Muslim extremists who are marching, chanting death to the Jews, waving the flags of actual terrorist organizations like the Taliban or the Islamic State, Islamic Jihad.
I'm not going to bore you with any more Joe Biden's speech.
It was immediately forgettable.
It was just really another transactional Washington speech, a budget speech, really.
It was noteworthy for what it lacked, not for what it had.
No demand that Hamas release the hostages or face annihilation.
No demand that Iran abandon its schemes.
How could Biden say that after giving each of them money just recently?
America is the best country that is, the best country that has ever been.
But that can be lost.
That's not forever.
The Roman Empire lasted for centuries, but it fell.
Nothing's forever.
Biden is presiding over the decline of America.
I hate to say it, Balaji Sweeney Vassin is right, and I fear that Biden is presiding over the fall of the wonderful, great, modern, global era of freedom, peace, and prosperity.
Boy, I hope I'm wrong.
But what do you think?
Stay with us for more from the trial of Tamara Leach.
Well, big show today, and I was really glad to go deep with Robert Krejcik because I hadn't had a catch-up on the Tamara Leach trial in a while.
We've been talking so much about, you know, World War III, really.
And I'm becoming increasingly concerned for the Canadian front of that war.
It's just nuts to me that there are now protests in front of Jewish kindergartens in Toronto.
Here's a clip from the Miles Nadal JCC, which is not an Israeli embassy.
It's nothing to do with Israel.
It's like a YMCA, but it's Jewish.
You don't have to be Jewish to go there.
It's in the heart of Toronto.
There's a kindergarten in there.
There's exercise and meeting rooms.
It's just a place.
It's Jewish, but you don't have to be.
It's not like a synagogue.
There's a kindergarten in there.
There have been religious services in there.
Hamas protesters are outside chanting their death to the Jews chants at a Jewish place in Toronto.
Not an Israeli place, a Jewish place.
Here's some more video.
That's what I'm worried about.
Israel, I think and I hope, can take care of itself.
But here in Canada, who's taking care of us?
On that note, I'll bid you a good weekend.
On behalf of all of us here at Rebel World Headquarters to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.
Hello, my friends.
Big show today.
I want to talk about Joe Biden's atrocious speech yesterday, sort of a State of the Union speech about World War III.
I was not consoled.
I was not comforted.
I was not given confidence by it.
I think it was a disaster.
Then we'll have a change of pace and talk to Robert Krachik, our reporter on the scene of Tamara Leach's trial in Ottawa.
That, on the other hand, is going well.
We'll talk to him.
That's ahead.
But first, let me invite you to subscribe to what we call Rebel News Plus.
It's the video version of this podcast.
Just go to RebelNewsPlus.com, click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
It's not a lot of money to you, but it's a lot to us.
It really adds up for us.
So thanks for helping us out because that's how we pay the bills because we don't get any money from Trudeau.
I can guarantee you that.
All right, here's today's show.
I'm interested in Israel because that is the center of the world in many ways.
It's the bridge between Europe, Asia, and Africa.
It's the biblical land.
Some people believe that in the book of Revelations, the final battle will happen in Armageddon.
There's actually a place called Armageddon, Harmegido, in Hebrew.
You can visit it yourself.
And look at this, how all the nations are converging there.
United States, Russia, China, Iran, Israel itself.
I certainly hope that the end is not near because I'm not done yet with the different things that I want to do.
Putting that aside, the world does go on.
In the meantime, here in Canada, we care very much about our civil liberties and we care about the battle that happened a year and a half ago, a peaceful battle, I must add, in the streets of Canada, where peaceful Canadians peacefully protested against the government that was forcing them to get a jab of an experimental vaccine against their wishes and punishing them if they didn't do so.
Not only were they not allowed to fly in planes or get on trains, but truck drivers were told they could no longer cross the border.
Truck drivers.
I can't think of a more solitary profession than a truck driver, perhaps a lighthousekeeper.
Imagine telling them they cannot work without a jab.
Trucker Convoy Protest00:15:30
Well, it was just too much.
And so, truckers across the country had a convoy, a freedom convoy, converging on Ottawa in a most Canadian manner.
They were honking their horns, and well, that's about it.
But just their moral courage, and it broke the false consciousness in Canada that everyone was fine with lockdowns and forced vaccines and losing your jobs over it.
Those truckers got the world's attention.
Perhaps for the first time, Canada was the center of the world for a civil disobedience, completely peaceful, that in the end made Justin Trudeau overplay his hand, invoke a form of martial law, seize bank accounts of his political enemies.
And if you look at the polling, that was the inflection point from that point onwards.
The spell that Justin Trudeau seemed to cast over Canadians was broken.
I see a new poll today saying that amongst millennials, Justin Trudeau is now in third place in the poll, something unthinkable, a couple of years ago.
And I believe it was the courage of the truckers.
Well, one woman who was a kind of, I call her spiritual leader, more a role model, a mascot is too demeaning a word, a guide, a Sherpa, an encourager.
The chief encourager of the convoy was a woman from Medicine Hat, Alberta named Tamara Leach, who would take to Facebook and make very heartfelt pleas to them to keep the peace and to stay focused.
Well, of course, the regime couldn't stand her.
They arrested her, held her without bail for 49 days.
And now she's been on trial.
Well, it's been about a month now she's been on trial.
A trial that is clearly political in its nature.
But Rebel News, we cover that news just like we covered the Trucker Convoy.
Not just covering it, we published Tamara Leach's best-selling autobiography called Hold the Line.
I recommend it to you if you haven't yet read it.
Even if you think you know all there is to know about Tamara Leach, you will learn much more about her.
I thought I knew her pretty closely.
I learned so much, and my admiration for her was deepened by reading the book.
And our friends at the Democracy Fund have crowdfunded one of the best criminal lawyers around to represent her in this case.
I've had the chance to get to know the lawyer, Lawrence Greenspawn, a little bit, talking to him one-on-one and visiting with him briefly when I was last in Ottawa.
I admire his legal brains and his patience, and I think he's doing an excellent job.
But that's me sitting here in Toronto.
The trial is actually happening every day in Ottawa, and I'm delighted to say that the newest rebel, Robert Krachik, is attending this trial every day in person, and he is live tweeting the ins and outs of it.
And he joins us now live outside the courthouse via Skype to give us the latest.
Robert, it's great to see you again.
I can't tell you how glad I am that you are there every day, covering it, not just with your written stories, but literally minute by minute.
So, on behalf of rebels across the country, thanks for doing that.
Okay, thanks for the kind words.
It's a labor of love.
Well, that's great.
And I know you've really gotten to know the details of the case.
And every day you talk to the lawyer, Lawrence Greenspawn.
I think you've really got a good grasp of the case and how it's going.
Can you give us a report?
I think today is technically day 20.
And of course, that's just counting weekdays.
So this thing's been going on for more than a month.
How's it going?
Day 21, technically.
I actually put it at missed information.
I put 20.
I get confused with the day sometimes.
Oh, yeah.
As far as how it's going, it's very similar to what I was saying last time I joined you on your show.
In that, as far as I'm concerned, the prosecution is still really struggling to make its case because they've got this impossible task of saying that two plus two is four.
It's very hard to prove these claims of mischief, obstruction of police, intimidation, when there's no real specific instance that they're pointing to where Tamara Leach did this at this time at this location.
Let me prove it to you.
Or Chris Barber did this obstruction or this intimidation at this time, at this location, and let me prove it to you.
It's very difficult for them.
Yeah, you know, I was only there for one day, and frankly, I didn't have the patience to stay any longer.
I had thought I would cover more of this trial.
And I salute your patience, Robert.
But when I was there, I listened to a witness for the entire day who very early in his testimony admitted he had never met Tamara Leach, never spoken with Tamara Neach, never seen her, emailed, phoned, meant nothing, had no firsthand information, which is what a witness is called to do.
A witness is called to say, I saw this, I heard this, I read this, I took a photo, I took a video, here's the letter.
And I sat there for a whole day as a witness who was some city bureaucrat, said, no, I don't have any information, but let me tell you how I felt about the whole thing.
And I thought, I don't need to listen to an amateur pundit whine about, you know, horn honking for a day.
What's that got to do with the guilt or innocence of Tamara Leach?
So that's why I just, I didn't go back.
Forgive me, Robert.
I was planning on being there with you.
How has it been censored?
For example, tell us who was on the witness stand today.
Was there anyone who had first-hand knowledge of anything Tamara Leach did?
Okay, okay, just before I get to today, you actually had the good fortune of probably having the most unbearable witness.
I think it was Serge Arpin.
So you took the heaviest load on that day.
That guy was, again, if you were to do a Google image search of city bureaucrat drone, that's the guy that would pop up.
He is beyond parody.
He is beyond caricature the way he looks, the way he speaks, the things he says.
But anyway, here's the theme.
As far as you said, he had no direct communication with either of the defendants.
That's true for basically all of the witnesses, except the most recent one who had some direct communication via text message with Chris Barber in the capacity of her job as a police liaison officer liaising with Chris Barber.
But I'll give you a little breakdown of the past week and a bit.
So the most recent slate of witnesses are a bunch of Ottawa residents who are testifying to what they claim are harms that befell them as a function of the convoy.
And they're saying that, you know, they had sleepless nights, they couldn't concentrate at work, they were obstructed from enjoying and partaking in their property, couldn't have full access to their vehicles and so forth.
So this is basically how the prosecution is seeking to demonstrate how certain people were intimidated by this demonstration and trying to lay it at the feet of Chris Barber and Tamara Leach.
I'll share one noteworthy one with you, which I think you remarked on on Twitter, which is this guy, he's a federal worker, like most of the witnesses are.
And he was testifying about how he literally said this, that he cried with his partner.
That's the word, he used partner, as a function of the sleepless nights, the honking, the horns.
And he was basically being dramatic about the harms that befell him.
He said he was bullied as a kid.
He was intimidated by these protesters who sort of jeered at him or mocked him for wearing a mask outside.
And here's one thing that jumped out at me, which was so interesting.
And this will relate to the way you and I and many in the audience, I think, would feel to use that word, whoever joined in the Freedom Convoy.
He said that he partook in this counter-demonstration where he was engaging in civil disobedience with like-minded people who, in my view, support the COVID-19 enterprise.
And he was obstructing traffic.
The goal of this counter-demonstration was to reduce the flow of people supporting the convoy, to reduce the number of supporters that could participate in the peaceful demonstration in downtown.
And he described it, these are quotes, it was a meaningful experience for him amid what he described as a god-awful time, and that he got to sort of commune, I'm using that word, with like-minded people who were sharing stories of how they were victimized by the Freedom Convoy.
And that's how a lot of us would describe the Freedom Convoy itself.
It was this beacon of light, this inspiring, reinvigorating moment at a time of great despondency, of great despair, because we saw how dark the government could be.
So, that was a really interesting contrast, despite the fact that this guy is on the side of an issue that we think is awful.
You know, there is a place for that kind of testimony, believe it or not.
And that's if, God forbid, Tamara Leach is convicted, then there's something called a witness or sorry, a victim impact statement.
So, that's typical across Canada.
If a crime is committed and that's tested, you know, what are the facts?
What is the law?
Did you commit the crime?
And then the judge, right before the sentence, any victim can say, Well, I would like to make a statement, Your Honor, because the guilt is already done.
And now the judge is sort of calibrating, well, is this a good guy?
Do we have letters of recommendation and letters of reference that he's actually first-time criminal?
He's great in the community.
And then there's letters of aggravation.
You know, he made me feel sad.
So, there is a place for these kind of therapy sessions that you're talking about.
But I don't think that place is before guilt is found and going on at such length.
If someone wants therapy because they heard some horn honking, I don't think a criminal trial of Tamara Leach is the place for it.
But what you described there was a guy having his own blockade, his own blocking traffic moment.
I'm not sure what any of that has to do with Tamara Leach, though.
And she's got to be rolling her eyes thinking, why do I have to basically give up a month of my life to sit here listening to people who have nothing to say on my guilt or innocence?
Like, put you, I mean, our charter, Section 11B, if I'm going from memory, says you have the right to a speedy trial and it's got to be a fair trial.
And having every single political activist in the city coming to say, I hate her.
Well, I've never met her, but I hate her because I hate those horns.
I think that's, as Woody Allen would say, a travesty of a mockery of a sham.
Like, at what point in time does this judge take control of her courtroom?
Or, let me throw this at you.
Is the judge giving the prosecution a lot of leeway because maybe she's going to acquit and she doesn't want to give the prosecution anything to hang their coat on for an appeal?
Because I think it's clear that the case against Tamara Leach will not be upheld.
I think the judge is going to acquit.
So I think maybe the reason she's tolerating such BS is so that there's nothing at all the prosecution can point to if they try and appeal an acquittal.
That's my speculative theory.
What do you think?
I entirely share speculation.
You're reminding me of so many things.
So Lawrence Greenspawn, again, the defense attorney for Tamara Leach, said basically what you said with respect to these testimonies that we're emoting and a lot of speaking about feelings rather than testimonies to this happened at this place at this time.
That guy that you mentioned that you listened to, that witness, that Serge Arpin guy, former chief of staff, that bureaucrat drone, literally said, this is a quote, I felt uncomfortable walking around the Freedom Convoy demonstration.
That's not a statement of fact in the regard of, oh, I saw this thing happen or this happened to me.
That's like how I felt about things.
And the judge herself said, I think in week two, this is almost an exact quote, that feelings are not substitutes for findings of fact.
So, Lawrence Greenspawn also said that these amount to victim impact statements, and they're premature because victim impact statements are meant to be delivered at the conclusion of a trial in the event of a determination of guilt to help the judge or jury determine the consequences, whatever the punishment or sentence will be.
Now, as far as as far as your speculation of the acquittal and why the judge is being very free in terms of allowing this testimony that is so irrelevant and unspecific,
I can't read her mind, but I can tell you objectively through lawyers that I've spoken to, been fortunate enough to coach me up as a layperson as to what the impact of this can be, is that allowing witnesses and evidence to be entered that is irrelevant removes a potential ground upon which the prosecution can submit an appeal in the event that not guilty verdicts are rendered for the charges against the two defendants.
In other words, if the judge is going to come in and say, you know what, this is irrelevant.
We don't care about your feelings.
We want good, relevant, germane, apropos testimony and evidence, the crown could appeal that decision at the end of the trial and contest it.
So you're right.
Pragmatically, the judges potentially, the judge is removing that deliberately or otherwise.
Yeah, very interesting.
I want to talk about one more witness who was there this week.
And I might say she's a famous witness, at least famous in the 2023 definition of that word.
She's sort of Instagram famous.
She's sort of an Instagram influencer.
She's a young woman.
Her name is Zexie Lee, if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
She works for the government as a bureaucrat.
She lives downtown.
And she was one of the very first witnesses at the liberal run public inquiry into the martial law project.
And I covered that, I was there for that, for part of that.
And she had this very emotive, it felt like she was doing an Instagram video, dear diary.
And these people hurt my feelings.
And I felt like it was just what you're talking about, a lot of emotion and therapy.
And again, there might be a place for that.
I don't think a public inquiry is a place.
And I definitely don't think a criminal trial is a place.
She is also an influencer of fortune.
She sees an opportunity and she's going for it.
She is the lead plaintiff in a proposed class action suit for hundreds of millions of dollars against these truckers.
Like she wants to get paid, as any young influencer dreams that they can leave their boring job and just be an influencer.
So she has this lawsuit against all the truckers for millions of dollars.
And so she is doing this rounds of the media and they ask her softball questions.
And she was a very gentle witness in the public inquiry.
But, and I think she made a mistake here, Robert.
She went to a real trial and she was cross-examined by a real lawyer, not a liberal, gentle lawyer, not a CBC, you know, those butterfly kisses that they call interviews.
Tell us a little bit, because I was following it through Twitter, how Zexie Lee crumbled under cross-examination.
And I wasn't there, so you can tell me.
I presume that Lawrence Greenspawn, the lawyer, was polite but firm, not mean, not tough, just really methodical.
Because I understand that at the end of it, she left the courthouse crying.
And I have my own theory about that.
Tell us about Zexie Lee.
Yeah, well, I described her as a sort of celebrity activist witness.
In terms of celebrity, she was receiving fawning news media attention.
We saw outlets like the CBC write up these fawning articles about her.
Here's a profile of the woman that got the injunction and her heroic attempts to end this evil anti-vaxxer, anti-science convoy of right-wing supremacists or whatever nonsense terminology they wanted to use to denigrate Canadians that oppose the COVID-19 enterprise.
PLT Emails Wiped00:14:34
She was also deliberately using terms like occupation.
Now, was she coached into doing that?
Is she just programmed by CBC to use this sort of martial language to describe the convoy?
She also used words like intimidation, said that she had been sort of intimidated by protesters that jeered at her for wearing a mask.
And you're right, the metaphor that I would use is it's very different to get in the ring against an opponent as opposed to hitting a punching bag, right?
So this inquiry that she attended or an interview with the outlaw, like a CBC, is very different from being in a trial where being cross-examined by a lawyer challenging your premises, challenging the veracity or believability, credibility of your claims.
So, you know, without going to boring specifics, some of the things she said were sort of like contradictory.
She said that she was hit by a car or a truck had backed into her maliciously, deliberately, but then conceded that she'd actually gotten out of the way of that vehicle.
It didn't really hit her.
She didn't produce video evidence of these things that she had claimed happened to her.
I didn't see the crying.
I heard that it happened.
But yeah, it was a very sort of emotive thing.
And again, like in terms of physical attributes, you know, she's young, she's good looking.
So she's got that sort of appeal to her in a very superficial way to be this sort of latest news media hype creation.
And I'll get on my commentary soapbox for a moment.
We do live in a time where the institutions of power manufacture and fetishize and commodify victimhood, real or imagined, or in this case, manufactured.
So she sees herself as a beneficiary of that in terms of celebrity status.
And as you mentioned it, she's the lead plaintiff in a class action lawsuit seeking $290 million from Tamara Leach, Chris Barber, and other people that are going to be defendants in that lawsuit.
Yeah, she wants to get paid.
I mean, here's an example.
And I read this in the CBC story.
And the reason I cite the CBC is because they're so anti-trucker and so pro-Zexi Lee.
If they're reporting it, I know that that's the best spin from Zexi Lee's point of view.
They said that one of the exchanges was Zexie Lee said, oh, and the honking, it never stopped.
And I had nightmares and I was bracing for it.
But on cross-examination, she admitted it stopped when the injunction came in.
And I think it was like a 10-day period.
Not a single horn was honked.
And then, you know, one day, 10 days later, like just between her BS spin that the CBC had run uncritically for a year and a half.
And finally, when she was pressed for details, when did this happen?
Where did this happen?
Did you see this for yourself?
A lot of things that she said, she witnessed, she admitted, and you correct me if I'm getting this wrong.
She admitted under oath, well, she hadn't seen them.
She had just heard about them.
And, oh, yeah, I wasn't hit with the car.
I might have been had it come from, like, just so many things she said turned out not to be true.
I got to think that's going to hurt her civil claim for 300 million bucks.
But here's what I think made her cry.
You tell me if I'm wrong.
I mean, a lot of the things that Lawrence Greenspawn poked a hole in in cross-examination.
But I know from, I used to act as a lawyer.
I haven't been a lawyer for years, practicing lawyer.
When a witness is giving testimony, no one can coach them.
They got to give the testimony and not get any input into what they're saying until it's over, not even from their own lawyer.
So if let's say there's a lunch break, let's say someone's on the witness stand all morning and then there's a lunch break.
They can't huddle with the lawyers.
How's it going?
Am I doing okay?
You can't because that would alter what you're saying.
And Zexie Lee was saying so many awful things.
She was blowing it because Lawrence Greenspawn was poking holes in it.
But the lawyer of Fortune who's seeking this $300 million payout, he was there.
Yeah.
And they met and they talked.
And Zexi Lee said they talked for 10 minutes.
And Lawrence Greenspawn objected to that.
She said, oh, no, no, we were just saying where would we go for lunch for 10 minutes?
That's a 10-minute conversation, is it?
And there were questions about would her testimony even be allowed?
And just her conduct.
My theory is she left crying because she had never had a tough question before.
And she realized her antics have seriously jeopardized the chances of success in her $3 million get-rich quick scheme.
That's my theory from here in Toronto.
You're on the ground in Ottawa.
What do you think?
Well, like you said, Paul Champ, who is the lead attorney representing her class action lawsuit, he was in attendance on that day of her testimony.
And clearly, he has a vested interest too.
I don't know what his cut would be of whatever damages they might procure through that lawsuit, assuming they're somewhat or fully successful.
But he's got a lot riding on the line in terms of his ongoing investment in that lawsuit and his desire to see it turn out lucratively.
So he was there in attendance.
They spoke.
Did she cry over that?
Let's presume so.
Because again, she's got a lot on the line potentially as well.
There's actually one thing I want to sort of interject with something that happened today, which I think is very interesting.
And you can probably share some insights in given your legal pedigree.
Today has actually been a very unusual day.
We've mostly been out of the courtroom while the prosecution and defense attorneys sort of informally seek to resolve this ongoing disclosure issue.
Now, what is the disclosure issue?
There are these emails that came to the attention either through disclosure or some other means to Diane Magus, who is the defense attorney for Chris Barber.
And she took a moment today during proceedings to give specific instances of emails.
So this person emailed that person and this portion, this paragraph was redacted.
That's the word she's redacted.
And she wants those emails to be fully disclosed.
She thinks that the information that was redacted in the emails that she has obtained, and these emails are from the PLT.
The PLT is the acronym for police liaison teams.
PLTs are the sort of division of the Ottawa Police Service that liaise with relevant stakeholders in the context of special events.
Let's say there's a bunch of foreign officials coming into Ottawa and they've got to organize security and close off certain roads.
The PLTs will coordinate with their security staff.
Let's say there's a freedom convoy in downtown.
The PLT will coordinate with the events organizers to ensure public safety in the interest of the Ottawa Police Service's stated mission, okay?
So the PLT had a bunch of emails corresponding between themselves and others germane to this trial.
And Diane Magus, again, wants those emails fully disclosed, no redactions.
And the witness that was going to testify today, she's a police officer with the PLT.
Her name is Nicole Bach.
And she didn't testify at all because the defense does not want to proceed with cross-examination until they have full disclosure of these emails.
Their position is that they cannot fully prepare or plan or arrange their cross-examination strategy without full awareness of what those emails entail.
Now, here's where it gets interesting.
The prosecution is contesting those requests to remove the redactions.
And there were several grounds provided for their justification to keep those redactions redacted.
And one of them was executive privilege.
And another one, and this is where I think you can elaborate here as a lawyer, one was solicitor privilege.
So to give a specific here, the Ottawa Police Service has a legal department.
They got Ottawa Police Legal Counsel, I think is their title.
And Tim Radcliffe, who's the lead prosecutor, at one point during today's proceedings, had to say to the judge, look, I can't proceed on this disclosure dispute until I communicate with Ottawa Police Service's legal team.
He wanted their green light or red light or whatever before it could decide what to disclose.
So what's so interesting is that you've got a defense team, two defendants, who want information from the Ottawa Police Service, but the Ottawa Police Service refuses to disclose it because their legal team is claiming that this stuff is somehow privileged on an executive level, like reveal sources and methods or compromise existing investigations or reveal stuff to the public that we don't want revealed.
So that, I don't know, I found that very interesting.
Yeah, that is interesting.
And I was reading, I think it was your coverage today, that one of the cops wiped their phone clean and, quote, lost their notes.
Well, isn't that convenient how these things just get wiped?
You know, I've had cell phones for more than a decade.
For 20 years, I've had a cell phone.
I've never had my cell phone wiped clean.
Like, that's just not something that happens.
Oh, I dropped it.
It was wiped clean.
And even if your cell phone is lost, it's all backed up to the cloud.
Like, I've never heard of such an excuse before.
You know, one of the possible outcomes, I'm just daydreaming, I was not there for this, I'm guessing it was called a voir dier, where the lawyers were going back and forth.
One of the outcomes could be that the judge herself reads these sensitive passages and the judge herself sees them and then decides whether or not they should be released.
But I tell you, the whole idea of disclosure is you're up against the unlimited resources of the state.
They have a duty to turn over facts that exculpate you, not just inculpate you.
Of course, the police are going to disclose things that make the defendants look bad.
That's easy.
You don't have to coach them to do that.
But they've got to release the things that might make the government look bad.
And let me tell you a little anecdote about this judge, Robert.
I don't know this judge personally, but I was Googling her.
And if I recall, she was the judge for the case of Vice Admiral Mark Norman, really a senior brass in the military who was charged with some trumped-up charge by Trudeau because he politically rubbed Trudeau the wrong way.
And they put this great patriot on trial for months.
But then at the last moment, there was a late disclosure by the government that absolutely nuked their case against him.
He was completely vindicated.
It was a huge embarrassment for Trudeau.
And this was the same judge, Robert.
And so I've got to think, just as a human, not even as a former lawyer or political person, just as a human, if you're a judge who has this enormously politically charged case and you see that the prosecutions were playing games with disclosure, and when they finally came clean, it resulted in an immediate acquittal.
I think this is the perfect judge for Tamara Leach's case.
If you've got the same police playing the same games, refusing to disclose things, all these shenanigans.
Look, I don't want to get too far ahead of things, but I have high hopes based on the weirdness of the witnesses, the sketchy conduct of the cops and the prosecutors.
Boy, I'm getting a good feeling about this trial.
I mean, listen, what do I know?
What do I know?
But it doesn't seem to be going poorly, is what I'm saying.
I want to share one anecdote from today's proceedings that corroborate your speculation about the nature of this judge.
So you mentioned the wiped phone.
That was the term used by the police officer in explaining how she lost data on her work phone, that her phone went through this upgrade update, and that her relevant work details, the so-called PLT logs, were lost in that process.
It's actually worse than that.
There was a police officer prior, another lady working with the PLT, and she said the same thing, that her data was lost via this upgrade update to the phone systems.
Now, also, the police officer did acknowledge.
This was Nicole Bach.
Again, she was meant to testify today.
She began testifying yesterday.
She did acknowledge that it was her duty, her responsibility as a police officer to back up this information, but that she failed to do so.
She tried to go through the process.
It didn't work.
She lost it.
So she acknowledged that much without really saying, I'm sorry, or what have you.
Now, as far as the judge goes, this is what's so interesting.
Okay.
It was the judge, her intervention, interjection, I don't know what the right term is, that elicited that revelation that the phone had been wiped.
She basically said to the witness yesterday during proceedings about some piece of information that was being sought, can't you just check your work phone?
Can't you check your mobile records?
And she's like, well, I wiped it.
So it was the judge's own activity.
Now, here's what gets even more interesting.
The prosecution yesterday, actually, no, that was, yeah, it happened where the prosecution said the word delicate.
This is a delicate measure in which the judge is entering into the free.
That's basically an exact quote.
So the judge entering the fray was delicate.
And Tim Radcliffe also emphasized, this is almost an exact quote, that the prosecution team has years of experience.
Now, I can't say this with a lot of authority.
I had a lawyer who advised me that he observed those proceedings.
And he viewed that as an instance where, in a meta-sense, the state is cautioning, chastising the judiciary and saying, don't overstep your bounds.
This is what we want to do.
Insofar, again, remember, it was the judge's questioning that elicited that revelation that the phone had been wiped.
And that can be potentially fatal or very damaging to the prosecution's pursuit of guilty verdicts.
Isn't that interesting?
I tell you, it takes a lot of chutzpah to say to a judge, you back down.
We've got a lot of experience here.
Don't you get all up.
Abri, she's a judge.
She has been elevated to the bench.
That's the phrase they use, elevated to the bench.
And for a prosecutor to chastise a judge like that, I think that's a sign of desperation.
Well, listen, Robin, it's great to catch up with you.
I'm so glad you're in there.
You're making me think that maybe I should go back and take in a day or two of the trial if it's not as awful.
If you say the day I attended was the worst day in the whole trial.
Well, I should come back there because it sounds like it's getting exciting.
Now, before I let you go, what is the future for this trial?
How many more days are expected?
How many more weeks or months before we get to the end of it?
Because by the way, this is hanging over Tamara Leach's head.
She can't work.
She can't be in her home.
She has all these conditions on her still.
How much longer is this whole circus going to take?
It's unclear, but a wise man once told me that the process is the punishment.
So clearly, that's what's going on.
The defense, sorry, the defendants are being punished regardless of whether they're found not guilty or not.
We will have proceedings next week.
Thanking Viewers for Staying Tuned00:02:39
I think Wednesday for sure.
I did ask Greenspawn yesterday whether he wants to introduce witnesses and things like that.
He didn't want to disclose that.
He doesn't want to reveal any of his strategy.
So I can't say with any confidence or certainty what the timeframe would look like for the defense to do its counter arguments in the form of witnesses or testimony if they seek to do so.
But we're definitely going to be on for next week for a bit and definitely for some time after that somewhere, maybe in November to be determined.
Wow.
Well, listen, thanks again for logging all that time in court.
And maybe I should go and sit there.
Maybe it's not, maybe I should show a little bit more attention span, but oh, I could not stand.
I just couldn't stand a bureaucrat telling, well, and I went here and then I heard a horn honk and I got scared and I wanted to go for a coffee and I got, I just, I just couldn't stand it.
I just could, I just had to walk out, Robert.
So I thank you on behalf of all our viewers for having the tenacity to live through this.
I'm grateful to you.
And I want to say there's two ways people can help.
As you know, the Democracy Fund is crowdfunding the legal fees for Tamara Leach.
And I've met the lawyer, Lawrence Greenspawn, as you can hear.
Robert talks to him every day.
I really think very highly of him.
And I've gotten to know, I probably know 30 lawyers who were involved in things over the course of the pandemic.
And I really think that Lawrence Greenspawn is truly one of the best.
And God forbid, if I ever had a criminal matter, I would go to him.
I'm just telling you, I really would.
He's the top of his game, top of the profession.
To help pay for that, we have a website for the Democracy Fund called, I think it's called HelpTamera.com.
And that is a donation, not to Rebel News, but to the Democracy Fund.
And to crowdfund the cost of Robert and our cameraman, Lincoln Jay, who's also doing some great reporting while he's in town, that one is tamaratrial.com because we incur costs on that side too.
So two different ways you can help.
You can help Tamara and her lawyer at helptamara.com.
You can help Robert Lincoln and Rebel News at tamaratrial.com.
We're operated this way.
This is how we do business.
That's how we do it.
We're not the CBC.
We don't get $1.5 billion that way.
We've been demonetized by YouTube.
We have no big corporate advertisers.
So we rely on you.
And thank you for helping.
Robert, keep up the great work.
I really like talking with you.
And I feel like you're really there on behalf of all rebel viewers.
And I'm just grateful that you're there.
You know what?
You're going to have a book inside of you when this is all over to tell the story.
Protests in Jewish Kindergartens00:01:56
God forbid.
You really will.
Anyways, great to see you.
Thanks very much for your time.
Sure, it says we're nice to speak with you.
Bye.
Right on.
There you have it.
Robert Krachik on the ground in Ottawa, just doing a great job out there.
I feel like I've got a real update on what's going on.
Well, there you have it.
Stay with us.
We have a big show today, and I was really glad to go deep with Robert Krejcik because I hadn't had a catch-up on the Tamera Leach trial in a while.
We've been talking so much about, you know, World War III, really.
And I'm becoming increasingly concerned for the Canadian front of that war.
It's just nuts to me that there are now protests in front of Jewish kindergartens in Toronto.
Here's a clip from the Miles Nadal JCC, which is not an Israeli embassy.
It's nothing to do with Israel.
It is a, it's like a YMCA, but it's Jewish.
You don't have to be Jewish to go there.
It's in the heart of Toronto.
There's a kindergarten in there.
There's exercise and meeting rooms.
It's just a place.
It's Jewish, but you don't have to be.
It's not like a synagogue.
There's a kindergarten in there.
There have been religious services in there.
Hamas protesters are outside chanting their Death to the Jews chants at a Jewish place in Toronto.
Not an Israeli place, a Jewish place.
here's some more video that's what I'm worried about Israel, I think and I hope, can take care of itself.