Ezra Levant counters The Globe and Mail’s dismissal of David Menzies as a non-journalist, citing his 40-year career and street reporting—like his January 8, 2024, arrest at an IRGC Flight PS752 vigil—while accusing legacy media of elitism. He contrasts Rebel News’ public accountability with The Globe’s billionaire ownership and past RCMP assaults on reporters, including Alexa Lavois in 2021. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s video questioning Ottawa’s policies—carbon tax exemptions, unenforced emissions targets, and extremist environmentalists like Stephen Guibot—exposes federal hypocrisy, framing direct public engagement as journalism’s true purpose over traditional media’s reliance on press releases. [Automatically generated summary]
I've had an interesting back and forth with the Globe and Mail, which is sort of the snobbiest newspaper in Canada.
They're having a tough time dealing with David Menzies because they know what he did was real journalism, and they know what Christopher Freeland and the Mounties did was atrocious, but they just can't say that without it embarrassing them because we're so low class, you see, and they're so fancy, you see.
So they're denying that David's a journalist.
And I've gone back and forth with him a bit over that.
And it's, well, I'll show you actually our back and forth.
That's today's show.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
I'm going to show you a couple of videos today, and I'd love you to see them with your eyes, not just hear them in a podcast.
Go to rebelnewsplus.com, click subscribe.
It's eight bucks a month.
And we do need the money because unlike the Globe and Mail, we're not owned by Canada's richest oligarch.
All right.
Here's today's show.
Tonight, the Globe and Mail opposes the arrest of David Menzies, but they just can't help themselves about being snobs about it.
It's January 12th, and this is the Azure Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
As you know, on Monday, David Menzies tried to put some genuine public policy questions to the Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland.
She wouldn't answer them, but her bodyguards arrested David and assaulted him.
The video that our videographer Lincoln Jay recorded has been viewed more than 15 million times on Twitter alone.
The Globe, to their credit, well, like everyone else, saw that video and realized it was atrocious.
I think literally 99% of observers said what was done to David was wrong.
The Globe and Mail fancies itself as newspaper of record for Canada.
They think of themselves as high-minded, and in some ways they are.
They wrote an editorial about the subject today, four days later, and I'll just skim a little bit of it to you.
Their headline is, an RCMP arrest that assaults common sense.
It's a boring but accurate headline.
I'll read just a little bit of it to you.
The man approaches Finance Minister Christia Freeland quickly, thrusts a microphone toward her, and blurts out two questions about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as they walk a few paces.
Then he and another man run into each other.
And that is the moment when a publicity stunt masquerading as journalism turns into a debacle for the RCMP.
The first man is David Menzies of Rebel News, the right-wing website.
The second is a still unidentified plainclothes RCMP officer.
How is it a media stunt to ask those questions?
What was the stunt part?
I mean, I suppose David did blurt it out and he did thrust the microphone.
It's just, boy, they're working hard to make it seem nefarious, aren't they?
I'll just read a little bit further.
One needn't be a fan of Rebel News.
We aren't.
Or think that Mr. Menzies' activities constitute journalism.
We don't.
To be concerned about the incident, he was asking Ms. Freeland a legitimate question about the IRGC.
She didn't exhibit any great enthusiasm for his questions and declined to answer.
There's nothing in the video of the encounter to indicate that he posed any threat to her.
His tone was rude, but rudeness is not an offense under the criminal code.
I don't know if his tone was rude, but so they just said twice there That he's not a journalist, that they don't think we're journalists, that he's not a journalist, that it's a stunt.
They said that twice there, but they literally described what he did: put a microphone to a public person in a public place, asking about a public controversy, and record the answer.
That is literally the definition of journalism.
And they don't make any argument or explanation why they don't think so, other than they just ought to be able to say who is and isn't a journalist.
They don't even try to be convincing.
That's sort of pitiful.
I mean, yeah, thank you very much for saying you disagree with our guy being roughed up for asking a question.
Appreciate that.
But holy moly are they being defensive snobs about it.
And then last night, I got an email from one of their columnists, Shannon Proudfoot.
I'm not going to read her entire email to you, but I wrote a lengthy reply to her and I shared it with the team here at Rebel, and they said, Oh, that's a good read.
And I thought, well, you know, maybe I'll do a monologue on it.
I'm going to show you my back and forth with another Global Mail writer.
And you'll be able to check her column in the Globe tomorrow.
I haven't seen it, obviously, but here's what she said: She said, Hi, Ezra.
I'm writing a column for the Globe about David Menzies' arrest and Rebel News' related fundraising campaign.
I want to seek a few more details and also give you an opportunity to add comment if you wish.
My questions are as follows.
Now, it's a lengthy email, but I'll just show you some of it.
She says, How much money and donations have you raised for this appeal?
It's one of her questions.
She goes on later to say, Are there any updates there as far as the grounds on which you expect to pursue legal remedies?
More broadly, the position I take in my column, she says, is that the arrest of Mr. Menzies was ridiculous and should not have happened because it's pretty clear in the video he bumped into the RCMP officer by accident.
But my contention is that this is a problem of an overenthusiastic police officer, not about freedom of the press or police doing the bidding of a strong-armed government.
I think it's cynical to suggest it's either of those things, and I will say so in my column, but I wondered about your response to them.
Okay, finally, it's also my contention that Mr. Menzies is not a journalist, and Rebel News is not a journalism outlet, but rather a sort of performance art that generates fundraising.
That's not intended as a slur, but a simple statement of my opinion.
What Mr. Menzies was doing on Monday did not warrant police intervention, but neither is Rebel's work journalism in the sense of seeking real answers to real questions, or even advancing an ideological argument.
Well, I mean, if you don't think we have an ideology, I think you're missing it because we pretty clearly do.
I realize that's a provocative position that you certainly won't like, and I'd like to give you a chance to respond.
My deadline is around noon tomorrow to file for Saturday papers.
Thank you, Shannon.
They literally describe what David did.
They even talk about his question: why is the Islamic Republican Guard Corps, this terrorist group, and all that?
Aren't you curious the answer to that question?
They describe point by point how it's journalism, but then they just say, I don't think that's journalism.
Anyway, here's my reply.
I'm going to go through it.
And in my reply, I linked to a few video clips.
So I'll stop and show you those videos here.
And I show you this because I think it's fascinating that the group of journalists who regard themselves as the elite journalists in this country, the most high-minded, the most Canadian, they just can't bring themselves to share their job description with a working-class schlep with a fedora who's got a sense of humor like David Menzies.
They're so fancy, they just can't stand unfancy people being part of the guild.
It's actually sort of sad.
So here's what I wrote: I said, Hi, Shannon, oligarch.
I said, I think it's unseemly that your first question is about money.
You work for Canada's richest oligarch, David Thompson, who nonetheless takes millions of dollars in journalism subsidies from the taxpayer every year.
Rebels has no such benefactor, and we don't take money from the taxpayer.
And then I made a little joke.
I said, I note that Christia Freeland used to work for Mr. Thompson, but even he couldn't afford her losses for long.
That's the story of what Christia Freeland did before becoming an MP.
She burnt up tens of millions of dollars in a Reuters in a Reuters-Thompson project that just she destroyed a huge part of that company.
Here, I continue.
Crowdfunding.
As a rule, we don't disclose the amount we raise for legal battles as it is privileged information that we do not want the opposing party to know.
As well, we don't know in advance how much any litigation will cost because the liberal government has shown a willingness to spend anything necessary to fight us.
I believe there is little chance we'll raise it up to cover our legal fees.
Police misconduct.
But we absolutely plan to litigate.
Besides being falsely arrested and detained, David was physically wrapped up, handcuffed, frog-marched to a police car, handcuffed again, and driven away and dropped off at some strange location.
Why did they smash his face against the wall?
Why did they handcuff him?
Is a 61-year-old man with two artificial hips repeatedly saying he means no harm really such a threat to half a dozen armed police?
Take a second, watch the video again.
Just take three minutes and watch the video again.
Ms. Freeland, how come the IRDC is not a terrorist group?
Why is your government supporting Islamo National?
You've been missed.
What are you doing?
You're under arrest for assault.
Why are you pushing me?
You're under arrest for assault.
Who are you?
Under arrest?
Police, you're under arrest.
How am I under arrest?
You bumped into me.
You pushed into me.
I was just scrubbing.
I've got my credentials here and you just bumped into me.
So police.
You're under arrest.
What is your name in your badge?
What is your name and your badge?
You've been told you're under arrest.
Why am I under arrest?
He blocked my race.
I was just scrumming Christia Freeland.
I'm a police officer.
You're under arrest.
What is your name in your badge?
How is that possible?
You assaulted me three years ago when Blackface contracted.
I was very aggressive in the traffic.
You mean I was asking questions aggressively?
No, no, your actions were.
You were almost pushing everybody over.
That's what it is.
Lincoln, you got this on video, right?
He's saying I'm pushing people over.
That's an absolute falsehood.
So now it appeared that way.
That's what you're saying, officer?
I was pushing people.
I didn't touch a single person.
That was a little bit aggressive for what was happening.
You're under arrest.
Please take the microphone out of my face.
Well, I'd like an ongoing record of this.
Can I have the microphone?
Don't resist.
Can you give me resistance?
I'm not resisting.
Take your hand.
Why am I under arrest?
I'm just doing my job.
Stop resisting.
You don't need to resist.
I don't have to.
You don't have to say anything.
I have nothing.
Hi, Officer.
Welcome to Blackfaces Canada.
This is what they do to journalists.
I was merely scrumming Minister Freeland, and a RCMP officer blocked me.
And evidently, this is now a trumped-up charge of assault, folks.
I didn't come here to cause any trouble.
I came here to do my job.
And now I'm handcuffed.
This is your Canada now, folks.
You know, this is the Gestapo taking Blackface's orders.
Outrageous.
And meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not a terrorist organization.
Not a terrorist organization.
And these liberals have the audacity to show up at a vigil for a plane in which almost 200 people were killed, 57 Canadians, one unborn child, by the way.
And look at this, they don't want.
It is against the law in blackfaces Canada, to ask insensitive questions, impolite questions.
So a government Canadian government that props up an Islamo fascist regime, that's okay, but if you ask questions about that, that's not okay.
This is an absolute outrage.
I didn't come here to cause trouble folks.
I just came here to ask questions back up a little bit.
Okay, they're conducting anything.
No, I just want to provide some space so that everybody's safe here.
Okay, you know, the police later admitted there was no reasonable basis for the arrest, but they gave no apology or even an acknowledgement of wrongdoing.
And did you see Christia Freeland?
It's unthinkable that she's let such physical and legal abuse slide, had it been a favorite journalist.
Here's her when she was asked about it.
What do you make of your security detail?
Uh Arresting uh, David Menzies.
So um, I want to start with what was important about monday.
And what was important about monday, january 8th, was that was the fourth anniversary of a date that I think forever needs to be marked and circled in black on the calendar of all Canadians.
Uh, it was a tragedy for Canada.
Canadians were criminally murdered, and I want to say to the families and loved ones of the people who were murdered that Canada remembers, Canada will not forget.
And that's why I was in Richmond Hill, Marcy was there too, to show that this is a Canadian tragedy, that Canada remembers, and Canada will not forget.
forget.
Um on the incident, um, as you guys know very well, Canada is a rule of law country.
Canada is a democracy.
Operational decisions about law enforcement are taken by the police of jurisdiction, quite appropriately.
Political elected officials have no role in the taking of those decisions, and that's why I don't have any further comment.
Benefit of the doubt.
You pose a theory.
I wrote to Shannon Proudfoot that this was a lone, overenthusiastic cop.
But it wasn't just one cop, was it?
And it wasn't quite as accidental as you state.
Watch the video again closely.
The bald cop maneuvered himself into place deliberately, moving into David's way, and then he and another bearded cop immediately lied about it and not one of them said, guys, it's no big deal, he just brushed up against you inadvertently.
Freeland didn't say that either.
Pattern Of Violence Against Rebel News00:15:09
Pattern of violence against rebel news.
RCMP bodyguards have assaulted David before.
Watch this unedited footage of their brutal assault on David a couple of years ago when David went to cover a Trudeau fundraising dinner during the lockdown.
He went to ask Trudeau why that was permitted when Trudeau had asked Canadians not to gather for Christmas.
The assault starts at five minutes and 30 into the clip, but you can watch from the beginning to see that the Toronto police were standing around with David for almost an hour, bantering with him as they all waited for Trudeau's entourage to arrive.
They knew who David was and what he was there to do and that he was no risk.
But as soon as the PM's bodyguards arrived, they must have identified David because they jumped out of their SUVs and beat the daylights out of David with no reason or warning or discussion and then dumped him on the ground, not even bothering to arrest him or call him medical help.
Here, just watch two minutes of this terrible clip.
Get off me!
Hey, I can.
Hey, this is assault.
I'm on a side...
What is this?
I'm on a sidewalk!
I am on a side...
What is this?
You cannot crush me.
No rush in order.
Hey!
Are you kidding?
Are you kidding?
I told you.
What is this?
You can't.
Am I under arrest?
Am I under arrest?
Yeah, that's not an accident.
That's a pattern.
Other Red Bulls you know us too.
Then there's the RCMP who shot our reporter, Alexa Lavois, with a riot gun after hitting her with batons.
Remember this terrible clip?
They shot her while she was doing journalism.
She wasn't even talking to them.
She was just holding her camera.
They didn't offer her first date either.
She had to get to the hospital on her own.
How many times do you think this can happen and still be a coincidence?
Trudeau and those close to him truly hate rebel news.
He makes it quite clear.
Here, take a look at this.
My question is: Israel is the more vaccinated.
And once again, their rappelle de vaccine.
They consider that what two vaccine doses are planned vaccines.
My question is: Quebec, Canadien deserves a rappelle de vaccine.
The privilege related to vaccines.
And the obligations of the Prime Minister or abolition.
J'ai partagé ma perspective sur ton organisation hier soir.
Je n'ai plus rien à dire.
Ça demande bien qui vous êtes.
Merci.
And here's another one.
The only reason that I'm allowed to ask you this question is because today the federal court ruled that the government doesn't have the right to determine who is or is not a journalist.
This is the second election in a row that the court has been overturning your government.
Do you still insist on being able to make that decision and why?
First of all, questions around accreditation were handled by the Press Gallery and the consortium of networks who have strong perspectives on quality journalism and the important information that is shared with Canadians.
The reality is, organizations, organizations like yours, that continue to spread misinformation and disinformation on the science around vaccines,
around how we're going to actually get through this pandemic and be there for each other and keep our kids safe, is part of why we're seeing such unfortunate anger and lack of understanding of basic science.
And quite frankly, your, I won't call it a media organization, your group of individuals need to take accountability for some of the polarization that we're seeing in this country.
And I think Canadians are cluing into the fact that there is a really important decision we take about the kind of country we want to see.
And I salute all extraordinary, hardworking journalists that put science and facts at the heart of what they do and ask me tough questions every day, but make sure that they are educating and informing Canadians from a broad range of perspectives, which is the last thing that you guys do.
Do you doubt that Trudeau's inner circle has internalized his vendetta?
By the way, those are two young, intelligent women, one of them Indigenous, putting substantive, polite questions to the male feminist, and he didn't have the courtesy to answer them other than with insults.
I put it to you that Alexis' question was the smartest question asked that night.
The government despises us.
They may have cause to despise us, but they are breaking the law towards us.
They act in a pattern set from the very top.
Just a few weeks ago, Freeland's Quebec staffer, who is not a cop, took it upon himself to physically shove our videographer away from Jacinda R. Dern.
Here, take a look at that.
Hey, how are you?
How much fossil fuels did you burn coming here to talk about climate change?
Leave her alone.
Leave her alone.
You're on a sidewalk.
No, leave her alone.
You can't touch me.
Leave her alone.
You leave her alone.
Does that make sense?
You leave her alone.
Does that make sense?
Leave her alone.
You cannot touch me.
Leave her alone.
You can't put your hands on me.
Dude, you can't touch me like that.
I'm on a sidewalk, eh?
Please leave.
I'm not on the property.
Leave the former prime minister alone.
Sorry?
Just leave the former prime minister alone.
Yeah?
You can't put your hands on me like that, eh?
Just so you know.
Here's an RCMP bodyguard manhandling RBC reporter who happens to be black and Indigenous.
You talked about Canada's last wrongs, the past things they haven't done right.
When will you speak out about the 20 vandalized churches?
They're burning churches and vandalizing them, and you're not calling it a hate crime.
I continued in my letter to her, I said, I mentioned the gender and race of our staff only because I've heard about the abuse that female and minority journalists receive, yet not a peep from the Canadian Association of Journalists, Canadian Journalists for Free Expression, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, Penn Canada, or any other purported civil liberties group about any of the assaults against us.
And you write to tell me that your focus is money and how David isn't a real journalist?
And then I address that part, not real journalists.
You say David's work is not journalism in the sense of seeking real answers to real questions or even advancing an ideological argument.
Really?
First of all, no citizen should be falsely arrested, manhandled, or shot, whether they're a journalist or not.
And no matter what they want to ask a politician.
Second, David has been a professional journalist for four decades, has a journalism degree, and has written for a dozen mainstream outlets.
His questions to Freeland were legitimate questions in the public interest about Iran's terrorism posed to Freeland outside of Vigil for the Victims of Iran's terrorism, where she had the audacity to show up despite having broken her pledge. to ban the IRGC terrorist group that shot down the plane for which the vigil was gathered.
How is that not journalism?
Is it more journalistic to sit in an office, wait for an email from Freeland's press secretary with the text of her speech and write about it that way?
Because that's journalism in most Canadian newsrooms in 2024.
David had a rhetorical flourish about Trudeau's black face, but I'll give him some lenience, given that he was just slammed against a wall, handcuffed, and falsely accused of assault.
Would you have been that calm and collected?
And then I wrap up with this, I call it the Globe versus Rebel News.
David Thompson, that's the owner of the Globe, is reportedly worth $60 billion U.S.
The Globe is selling a European wine cruise where tickets start north of $10,000.
And we have a cruise too, but not like bears.
I wrote, it's not surprising that you look down your nose at rebel news and our citizen journalism, especially by journalists with a working class background or a tabloid sensibility.
I've seen the elite club you call your masthead.
You know what a masthead is?
It's basically the bosses of a newspaper.
If you look at the Globe's masthead, it's all fancy people from Toronto.
But journalism isn't a clique or a guild.
It's an activity.
And anyone with a cell phone and a Twitter account can be one.
Frankly, one of the reasons we have to scrum politicians on the street is because our competitors of the Parliamentary Press Gallery have banned us from joining or attending press conferences on Parliament Hill.
And our CMP officers forcibly escort our reporters off of government grounds just for showing up.
Imagine if Coke had the power to ban Pepsi from store shelves.
50% of the Parliamentary Press Gallery executives are government journalists working for the CBC, a highly partisan outlet that has a particular anti-rebel news animus.
Even if you refuse to acknowledge it, we are your competitor, journalistically, commercially, and culturally.
So I don't think I'm going to convince you that we're legitimate, but I don't think I need to convince you.
Our work has been viewed or read more than 2 billion times.
So it seems we're convincing other people.
I'm going to go out on a limb, I wrote to her, and suggest that you don't actually know David's body of work.
You haven't watched it.
If you had, you'd see he does more shoe leather journalism than anyone else in our company.
No disrespect, but I put it to you that David's in-the-field news gathering is superior journalism than secondhand pundits who merely chew over the primary reporting done by others.
Let me close by quoting Julie Van Dusen.
For those of you who don't know, she was a very famous, long-standing journalism from a famous journalism family.
I think there was five siblings all doing journalism in Ottawa together.
And here's what she said.
I've loved covering Canadian politics for so many reasons, but especially for our method of buttonholing politicians.
Thanks to the wizardry and agility of our amazing cameraman, I've been in walking backwards scrums, running scrums, elevator scrums, escalator scrums, and one flinging myself onto the hood of a moving car scrum.
But that's different, right?
Well, she read that, which is more than I thought she'd do, and she wrote back.
She said, hi, Ezra.
Thanks for this context for what it's worth.
I disagree that journalism is defined as an activity.
Someone with a Twitter account or cell phone is not a journalist any more than a guy with a recliner in his garage and a set of pliers is a dentist.
I define journalism as a set of skills, standards, and principles.
And that's the rubric by which I don't believe Rebel or Mr. Menzies are journalists.
But of course, you're entitled to disagree.
And I'm glad to have your perspective.
Well, I wrote back one last time.
I said, you're pretending journalism is a profession like dentistry or medicine or law.
That's vanity and snobbery.
And let me just add, I mean, I've been a member of profession.
When you're a member of profession, you have to pay dues.
You have to submit to a board of governors.
For lawyers, it's called the benchers.
When complaints are filed against you, you can literally be prosecuted.
You can literally be banned from practicing or pay a fine.
When you are a member of profession, not only do you have to take exams to be able to practice that profession, I mean, accounting is a profession.
Engineering is a profession.
Even skilled trades don't just let you in.
What vanity did someone who thinks they sit back and write columns is a profession?
No, it's not, sister.
Anyway, back to my letter.
I said, I won't waste your time because I sense you're impervious on this, but I know you couldn't draft a set of skills, standards, and principles that includes the Toronto Star and CBC, but also excludes us.
Here's what the Federal Court of Canada said in 2019 when Trudeau made that argument, trying to keep us out of the election debates.
And then I cite part of the lawsuit on the verdict.
Just want to read a little bit of it.
Although brief, I find that the decisions under review provide a basis for the decision to deny accreditation, namely that in the view of the Commission, the applicants, Rebel News, are involved in advocacy.
That's why they tried to ban us from the leaders' debates.
However, I find that the decisions are lacking in discernible rationality and logic and thus are neither justified nor intelligible.
This is what the judge said when he ordered Trudeau to accredit us.
It is not apparent from the decisions or the mandate of the Commission why advocacy would disqualify one from accreditation.
In its memorandum, the commission offers the following rationale for excluding those who are involved in advocacy.
That was the knock against Rebel.
So he's quoting, he's quoting the Trudeau's Commission.
The Commission's decisions requiring that only those media organizations that do not actively engage in advocacy receive accreditation is consistent with the Commission's mandate under the order to uphold the highest journalistic standards.
One of the reasons for the Commission's creation was to ameliorate the public's perception of the media and its relationship with the political leaders and to provide an undistorted view of the leaders during the election process.
To have organizations that represent particular interests or advocacy points at the debates would run contrary to the Commission's mandate.
So this is the Commission arguing against us.
And then the judge says, in my view, the record does not support that submission.
The applicants, Rebel News, have provided evidence that some of the independent media organizations accredited by the Commission also appear to engage in advocacy, but they were not denied accreditation.
As one example, the applicants note that the mandate of the Toronto Star, which was accredited, includes the following.
Toronto Star's Advocacy Role00:02:08
And this is the Toronto Star describing themselves.
The Toronto Star is a multi-platform news organization that makes things happen.
We inform, connect, investigate, report, and effect change.
We focus public attention on injustices of all kinds and on reforms designed to correct them.
We are the news organization people turn to when they need help, when they want to see the scales balanced, wrongs righted, when they want powerful people held to account.
The Star has long been guided by the values of Joseph Atkinson, publisher from 1899 to 1948.
Throughout his leadership, Atkinson developed strong views on both the role of a large city newspaper and the editorial principles that it should espouse.
These values and beliefs now form what are called the Atkinson principles, the foundation of the star's ongoing commitment to investigating and advocating for social and economic justice.
The principles Atkinson espoused were founded on his belief that a progressive news organization should contribute to the advancement of society through pursuit of social, economic, and political reforms.
He was particularly concerned about injustice, be it social, economic, political, legal, or racial.
Emphasis added.
So that's the judge quoting from the Toronto Star's self-description.
The judge, oh, I won't read too much longer, but this is what I sent to the Globe.
There is also evidence in the record that some of the accredited news organizations have previously endorsed specific candidates and parties in general elections.
The Commission responds that in those cases, the advocacy was in editorials or produced by columnists.
This begs the question as to where one draws the line as to what is in his odd advocacy that disqualifies an applicant from accreditation.
This goes to the lack of rationality and logic in the no advocacy requirement.
This also goes to the lack of transparency, absence of any explanation as to the meaning to be given to the term advocacy.
And given that the commission accredited some organizations that have engaged in advocacy, I'm at a loss to understand why the commission reached the decisions it did with respect to Rebel News.
Accordingly, I find that the applicants are likely to succeed on the merits in setting aside the decisions as unreasonable.
Begging the Question00:03:18
Sorry to quote so long, but I thought that was pretty dispositive of are we not journalists?
That's why I wrote to Shannon Proudfoot.
I said, I defy you to come up with a rule or a list of credentials that the Toronto Star and the CBC have that we don't.
Judge couldn't find one.
And then I close on my last note to the Globe by saying, the judge in our 2021 court victory over the Debates Commission literally laughed out loud when Trudeau's lawyers claimed the CBC was unbiased.
You can't say that Shri Paradkar or Vicky Mochama are journalists, but we're not, unless you're sorting for wokeness.
Signed, Ezra LeBan.
So that's my back and forth.
Look, do you really think I'm going to convince these people?
Of course not.
But I felt like telling them my point of view.
When Shannon Proudfoot says that David Menzies is not a real journalist, do you really think she follows his work?
I mean, he's probably done 2,000 videos since joining Rebel News, or let's say at least 1,000, probably more.
Do you think she's even watched five of them when she says he's not a journalist?
Do you think she even knows what he covers?
In fact, in some measurements, he's the most journalistic-y journalist we have.
And the reason I say that is because he's out on the streets.
He's where the news is.
And I mean, what I do, I mean, I chew things over as a pundit.
Sometimes I'm on in the streets too.
In fact, I'm off to the World Economic Forum tonight in Switzerland.
I'm going to join up with Avi Amini and others on our team there.
But my point is, David does more real news than actually anyone else in our company.
And for the Globe and the Mail to look down their notes and say, he's not a journalist.
And their editorial that I started off with, twice they just say he's not a journalist, but they actually describe pretty accurately what he did.
They used some adjectives around it.
He thrust the microphone to her.
Yeah, I guess so.
But he didn't touch her and he didn't threaten her.
And she certainly didn't look threatened.
And he blurted out a question.
Yeah, I guess you could call it blurting.
Sure.
I mean, fair enough.
And, you know, he had a rude tone of, okay, let's grant that.
I mean, but how is any of that disqualifying that David was a qualified journalist?
Anyways, I mean, I don't have to worry too much about it because we have millions and over the course of time, we've had actually 2 billion viewers of our work.
It just sort of makes me chuckle that the elite, the inner guard, the Palace Guard, the elite high and mighty club, the Guild, they know that we did things right and the government did things wrong, but they just can't bring themselves to admit it.
It tells me something.
It tells me that they're snobs and that they don't want our competition.
But all I can think about is, why were those media party journalists not asking this same question of Christie Freeland?
If they're such good journalists, why weren't they there asking the questions we were?
Ottawa's War on Alberta00:13:20
Stay with us for more.
It's a great question, and it depends who you are and how you measure.
I mean, Canada is much more than a political system.
Canada are the people or the places.
And your life might be insulated from a lot of political decisions if, for example, you own your home outright and you're not subject to interest rates on your mortgage or rent.
If your grocery bill is modest and you're not worried by the inflation, if you live in an area without crime, if your access to schools and hospitals is not overcrowded.
But if you're unlucky in those regards or others, if you live in a misery spiral as so many Canadians, especially in our big cities do, if you think that maybe it's impossible to buy a home, and the math suggests it's very hard unless you have help from your parents, then maybe Canada is broken.
It certainly feels like it's a different place than I grew up in.
And so Danielle Smith, the Premier of Alberta, has published a four-minute video, almost in the style that Pierre Polyam is doing these days, asking that terrible question, is Canada broken?
I want to show you a couple of minutes of it, and then we'll come back and we'll talk about it with our favorite Albertan, Lauren Gunter.
Here, take a look at Premier Smith from Alberta.
Is Canada broken?
There seems to be a little bit of that talk online.
And when you look at the out-of-control policies coming out of Ottawa right now, it's not hard to see why some might feel that way.
As you know, Alberta is a province of innovators and entrepreneurs.
It's something we're known for.
And we see that innovation and entrepreneurship all throughout our province and economy, from agriculture to energy, manufacturing, and technology.
We are problem solvers.
But it's one thing to solve problems as they come up organically.
It's another thing when our federal government is creating problems and refusing to focus on solutions.
Let's talk about some of these.
Electricity regulations that will erode Canada's power grids and put many Canadians in the dark with utility bills they simply cannot afford.
Carbon tax exemptions for one part of the country while the rest of the country keeps on paying.
Unachievable emissions reductions targets that will simply put, chase tens of thousands of good jobs and billions in investment out of the country and out of Alberta.
What's even more bizarre, Ottawa wants to ban gasoline vehicles in Canada in favor of electric vehicles, even though the current infrastructure cannot support this change.
And I'm not done yet.
Just days ago, the federal liberals launched their latest so-called great idea, a national plastics registry program so we can register plastic products, a plan that seems to continue their attack against this industry.
Quite simply, this is nonsensical.
We rely on plastics and the products we use every day from clothing to sporting equipment to vehicle parts, cell phones, and medical equipment.
Why does Ottawa think these products are bad?
All of these policies and more are designed to hurt everyday Canadians and make life more expensive and more difficult.
We have always been a country and a province that offers opportunity and a good quality of life for those willing to put in the effort.
That dream is now gravely in jeopardy because of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his environment minister, Stephen Guibot.
At a time when Albertans and Canadians are still struggling with an affordability crisis, they are pursuing policies that will increase costs and put paychecks at risk.
At the beginning of 2024, when we should be looking forward with optimism, we're talking about imploding our economy, banning cars, registering plastics, and paying into the carbon tax instead.
Well, not all of us.
Alberta is fighting back, and we need to fight back, all because of the dangerous ideas of Minister Stephen Guibot.
It doesn't matter that he's been told twice by the Supreme Court and the federal court that his ideas are unconstitutional.
The rule of law doesn't seem to slow things down.
But all of this could stop right now.
We could move away from dangerous ideological policies and instead focus on rational solutions for the future.
This includes solutions that will help us achieve a realistic goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
And Alberta is committed to that goal.
We have billions of dollars of private investment in new technologies that are geared toward eliminating emissions and creating a better future that includes large investment in Alberta over a decade.
Dow's Path to Zero project, the world's first net zero plastics manufacturing facility, and another Alberta First, a new net zero hydrogen plant by Air Products.
We have and will continue to invest billions into carbon capture projects and programs.
The truth is, Ottawa likes to tell all of us what to do when it comes to emissions reduction.
And Minister Guibot has even gone to China to do the same.
But it's hypocritical.
The truth is Alberta has met emissions reduction targets while the federal government has yet to meet a single one of theirs.
The truth is, we don't need to destroy our economy to achieve a better future.
Alberta continues to prove that.
And we don't need to work against each other.
But as long as Ottawa brings in policies and legislation that hurts Alberta and hurts Canadians, our government will continue to stand up and will continue to fight back.
Alberta and Ottawa can have a positive and collaborative relationship, but not with this environment minister and not with these dangerous policies.
Albertans can rest assured we will keep on defending the rule of law, the Constitution, the needs of our province, and what's best for you whenever necessary.
And we will keep on pressing forward in 2024.
Well, there you have it.
You know, I was only going to show a couple of minutes of that, but I wanted to keep watching.
I thought it flowed fairly well.
Joining us now from Edmonton, our friend Lauren Cunter, senior columnist at the Edmonton Sun.
Lauren, what do you think of that video?
I like this style of politicians doing slightly longer explications.
Polyev's done some great ones.
What do you think of this one by Premier Danielle Smith?
Well, I think this is where news is going, basically, is to podcast-like presentations.
I think this one's good.
Purely from a production standpoint, I'm not quite sure why she needed to keep walking around the entire time.
It looked a little fidgety to me, but the tone is good.
The messaging is solid.
She goes into some details, which you can do in four minutes and you can't do in a 15 or 30 second sound bite.
I think it plays on people's intelligence.
It doesn't talk down to ordinary individuals.
It says, look, you're smart enough to understand this.
Here's what we're going to do.
And here's why we think it's important.
So I do think that this one and the Polyev ones are very good because people have an attention span online video for about four minutes.
So I think that's right.
I think she's done a good job there.
Yeah, you're right.
I mean, video is our main business here at Rebel News.
And three and a half, four minutes, that seems to be the sweet spot.
I mean, listen, I believe you can tell a story for as long as you remain interesting.
So you could go to 10 minutes, but I think she had the right length.
It's interesting.
She called it, Is Canada Broken?
And, of course, from Alberta's point of view, focusing on Stephen Gilboa's ideological plans for the province was the right thing.
She didn't talk about other things that make Canada feel broken for ordinary folks, which might include the cost of housing or inflation on groceries.
I guess she alluded to some of that with the carbon tax, but it really was a focus on what I would call Ottawa's war on Alberta.
And yeah, I found, go ahead.
No, and you need to, if you're going to include carbon tax in the cost of living, you need to say that.
You need to say specifically that the carbon tax adds to the cost of every item in the grocery store because they all have to be trucked there in one form or another.
And as a result of that, the carbon tax makes your family dinner more expensive.
You can't just count on people to draw that connection themselves.
But I think by and large, given that it's a four-minute format, aside from the frenetic nature of this walking around by the legislature all the time, I liked it.
I thought it was very effective.
You know, I think the thing that stood out for me the most was the focus on one person, not Trudeau, not a cabinet minister in Alberta, but Stephen Gilbeau.
And I've had a contre tempe with Stephen Gilbo as well.
He hates Rebel News.
He's blocked us on Twitter.
We had to go to court against him.
I mean, I find him so irritating because he is, I think, as Danielle Smith describes him, he's an ideologue.
Absolutely.
And his idea, like a plastics registry, that is so.
Well, and, you know, for a man who's been told twice in the last six months by senior federal courts that his environmental actions are unconstitutional, a plastics registry would be unconstitutional.
That's in provincial realm completely.
So the idea is he's smug.
He's arrogant.
He is a zealot.
And he has no belief in federalism.
He has no belief in the Constitution.
He doesn't like the way this country is founded.
He thinks that if you are a morally superior individual such as himself and you are in the federal government, you should be able to tell everyone everywhere in the country how to run their lives.
And so he is a good person to pick out.
He's also very well, he's probably better known in Alberta than he is everywhere else but Quebec because he has done so many things to Alberta, not for Alberta, not with Alberta's assistance, but to Alberta, that we know who Stephen Guibot is out here.
He's the new Mark Lalonde.
Justin's daddy had Mark Lalonde, who was in charge of the national energy program.
And Stephen Guibot is Justin Trudeau's Marc Lalo.
Yeah.
A dumber Mark Lalonde.
I remember Mark Lalonde when I was a kid.
He was the energy minister who basically gave the game away.
He said the point of the national energy program is to stop the economic center of gravity in Canada from moving from the east to the west.
And Stephen Gilbeau lacks Mark Lalonde's brains, but he shares Mark Lalonde's despise for the West.
We know him because we like to remind people that he's a convicted criminal, that when he was a Greenpeace extremist, he broke into the CN Tower in Toronto and rappelled down, and it cost tens of thousands of dollars.
We had to shut everything down.
And he laughs at the judge.
He laughed.
Oh, I'm very contrite, Your Honor.
So he was given no prison.
And then outside the court, he laughed about it.
So he rules me nothing to him.
The law means nothing.
He also climbed on the roof of Ralph Klein's Heisenholes.
While his, Mrs. Klein was inside terrified, there was a home invasion.
That's right.
He put fake solar panels on the roof of Klein's private home.
Not the premier's office, not some public building.
He went to Klein's private home, climbed on the roof, frightened the bejebers out of Mrs. Klein and was similarly not contrite for what he had.
Imagine putting a man of such extremism in your cabinet.
I only imagine what the RCMP background checks and securities found about him that we don't even know about.
Imagine going on to someone, and the premier was not home.
The premier was in Edmonton or whatever, Ralph Klein, I'm talking about.
And Gilbo goes, and imagine how scared the Mrs. would have been that this maniac is on the roof of the house.
I'm glad you reminded me of that.
I think he's detestable.
It reminds me of Saul Alinsky's book, Rules for Radicals.
If all our viewers have heard of that, I should do a book review on that.
Saul Alinsky was a communist street organizer in the U.S.
And he started community organizing.
That was his thing.
He was sort of a mentor to Hillary Clinton.
That's where Barack Obama came up.
And he had these, he called them Rules for Radicals.
And he said, it's one thing to be chanting outside, but do you actually want to change the world?
Here's how.
And it's actually been an extremely successful battle plan for anti-fund the likes of them.
One of the rules for radicals that I know, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't know the exact wording in front of me, is personalize the story around a particular person.
What I mean by that is instead of saying the liberals or even Trudeau, which is a generic word, Stephen Gilbo, Stephen Gilbo, because he's so detestable.
He's so irritating.
He even looks like he needs a bath and a haircut.
And I shouldn't talk because I look rough sometimes too.
But he just looks so odious.
Turning Points in Alberta00:04:02
And I think that was the smart, because I think Albertans, to personalize it on that ideological maniac, I think that's what makes it effective.
I don't know.
How's this video been received?
Has it had a lot of views?
It hasn't had much view.
It hasn't had many views yet.
I think it will get more views.
I think it's one of those ones like the four-minute one that Polyev did on housing affordability.
It'll take a while, but it will then start to take off as people start to send the link around to their friends and they start to post it on social media.
But the thing I like about it the most is I have thought for the last few months that the Smith government was fighting the Freds on too many fronts.
They were starting too many fires in different places over related but not identical topics.
And this brings all of their fights together into one place to explain why it is that in a general sense, Alberta feels set upon, attacked, singled out by the federal government.
And I think in that respect, it's not only going to be effective with Albertans, it might actually get some play outside the province and help people in other provinces understand what it is that the federal government is doing to Alberta every minute of every day with every policy they can think of.
You know, I think that the next version, I assume there will be more like these, like Pierre Polyev has done more.
I assume the next one, the production will be a little different.
Yeah, now that you mentioned it, like the jump cuts, like suddenly you have a closer shot of her.
Like there were some distractions.
I imagine that if she does one of these, let's say a month, the production value will be smoothed out.
And she'll, you know, we know from the video business, they're not all going to be viral hits.
But if your timing is right and if you strike the right chord, things go organically viral.
What I like about it is that she comes across as likable.
And I remember the turning point in the Alberta election.
You correct me if you think I'm wrong on this, Lauren.
One of the turning points in the Alberta election where she beat Rachel Notley is the debates, where Danielle Smith came across as nicer and normaler than she had been portrayed in the media.
And Rachel Notley, who normally comes across quite sweetly, came across as harsh and extreme.
And I think Danielle Smith going direct to the people in a four-minute bite, firm but friendly, I think that will solidify how she feels, especially since there's so many media that are harsh to her.
What do you think of those things?
Well, I mean, I think the debate was a big turning point in the election.
I think the other big turning point, I think there were two, the debate and the NDP's promise to jack up corporate taxes 40% in their first year.
I think that was those were the two big ones.
And I think this going directly to the people over the hand of the filter of legacy media is a good idea.
Yeah.
Well, listen, my friend, keep up the good reporting and columnizing.
We're talking with Lauren Gunter, Senior Columnist at the Edmonton Sun.
And I don't know.
I've been in Toronto long enough that I can no longer call myself an Albertan other than an Albertan at heart.
And even my joke about being in exile in Toronto, you know, you can only make that joke for 10 years or so before people say, you're staying out there, buddy.
You're at Torontoni now.
But my heart is with Alberta because I love so many things about it.
I love its motto, strong and free.
I love that it really, people there really do live freedom.
And when you say, is Canada broken?
We have a very strong answer in Toronto.
Toronto is absolutely broken.
It's broken in many ways.
Albertans don't even know.
And I hope Albertans never find out how badly a place can be broken.
So do your best to save Alberta.
And I think Danielle Smith is right.
You've got to save it from this active malefactor, Stephen Gilbo.
Last word to you, Lauren.
Save Alberta00:02:09
And she, and she, when she says that, she looks like a reasonable person that a middle-class voter could get behind rather than some fire-breathing dragon that she was portrayed as during the leadership campaign in the early part of her premiership.
She's also moderated herself.
She's taken some of the criticism to heart, and she has made changes that I think make her a much more effective premier.
Yeah.
Too moderate for my taste.
I don't buy into any of this net zero business, but if you kick the cane.
If you can kick the can down the road to 2050, maybe you can just say it to get yourself out of that swamp.
But anyway, it's very interesting.
Thanks for joining us, my friend.
Hey, you're back.
anytime.
Well, that's our show for today.
Like I mentioned earlier, I'm off to Zurich overnight, and then we take the train up to a town called Closters, and then we take another train up to Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum will convene their annual winter meeting.
We tried to be accredited.
We applied for accreditation.
Obviously, we were declined, which means we will not be allowed in any official WEF buildings or conferences.
But the whole town turns into sort of a VIP festival.
And we'll be able to hopefully find VVIPs, very, very important people on the streets.
As you know, last year we bumped into the president of Pfizer and Greta Tunberg and John Kerry and so many other interesting people.
And some of them actually talked to us.
Others didn't, but we'll do our best.
So I'm off for a week there.
During my absence, of course, we'll be doing shows from there.
We'll be doing videos from there.
We'll probably have David and Sheila help cover off the Ezra Events show in the meantime, but our purpose is to do journalism.
So you certainly won't lack access to what we're doing.
We're going to be setting up a special website called WEFREPOS.com, which stands for WorldEconomic ForumReports.com.