Ezra Levant details how Liberal cabinet minister Yaara Sachs and Canada Lands Company manager Alan Schacht pressured Rebel News to cancel May 13th’s Toronto conferences, demanding $50K in unspecified security costs despite no prior threats. Contrasting this with police clearing pro-Hamas university encampments—like Calgary’s, led by communist-linked activists and drag promoters—Levant argues enforcement depends on political alignment, not extremism. With C-63 looming, he warns of future preemptive crackdowns, insisting Rebel News fights for freedom regardless of staff backgrounds or critics’ claims. [Automatically generated summary]
What a weekend it was with our Rebel News Live and our Rumble Live events.
But the strangest part of it all was the attempt by Yaara Sachs, the Liberal cabinet minister, to cancel the event and when she couldn't, to sort of beef about it online on Twitter.
Anyhow, I'll read you her attack on us and give you my response.
But first, I'd like to invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
I want to show you a few things.
And in addition to that great video content, you also support Rebel News.
The eight bucks a month that it costs to be a supporter of Rebel News Plus gets you all that video, but it also keeps Rebel News strong because we don't take any money from Trudeau and it shows.
Okay, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, blackmail.
The Liberal government tries to cancel our Rebel News conferences here in Toronto.
It's May 13th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Liberal Censorship Attempt00:15:27
You know, we usually have security at Rebel News events.
If you've ever been to our events, like our Rebel News Live, our big convention we have every year in Calgary and Toronto, we have security, but we really don't need it.
It's there just in case.
I mean, that's like insurance, right?
When you need it, you want it to be there.
And in a way, you're happy if you don't need it.
It also makes people feel a little bit more secure.
But in nine years of hosting that conference called Rebel News Live, our day-long jamboree where people get to spend FaceTime with Rebel News talent and with our favorite guests, we've never needed it.
And we recently booked our event for Rebel News Live, which happened on the weekend.
We booked it in Toronto at a new venue.
And again, we didn't need it, but we did it anyways, just because, you know, these heightened tensions, as the kids say, there's all sorts of politics boiling over.
Why not have a few extra security just in case?
Well, as we often do, in addition to having extra security, and by the way, we bring in security sometimes to make the venue operator feel comfortable, especially if they're new to dealing with us.
If we're booking a big haul or an event, the people we're doing business with, they might be friendly.
They might be supportive, but they might be a little bit nervous if they've never dealt with us.
So bringing security is as much for them as for us.
We also do one more thing that I think is probably unique.
We add an anti-cancellation clause to our contracts, or sometimes we call it a friendship clause.
It typically says, look, you might get some angry tweets or angry Facebook comments or even phone calls being really mad at you for allowing rebels to have an event in your theater, in your restaurant.
But you agree not to act based on those random calls.
You agreed that if things get very serious, you'll contact us and we'll see if we can solve a problem together.
It basically says, look, if things, be aware that some people don't like our style, don't be freaked out by that.
And if there's an actual problem, an actual security problem, call us and we'll work through it together.
So it doesn't lock in a vendor no matter what, because that wouldn't work.
There are some things so terrifying, such an existential threat to a venue that they might have to cancel us.
But what we're doing is we're saying you can't throw us out casually.
You can't throw us out for no good reason.
Let's keep those lines of communications open and let's work together.
And we've had those in effect for almost since the beginning of our company.
It's one of the steps we take because the other side plays rough.
It's like when we hire private security for our rebel reporters, most of the time, thank God, we don't need them.
But when we do need them, I'm glad they're there.
But the problem with this friendship clause or this anti-cancellation clause in our contract, and the problem with private security, is the same problem.
Can you guess what it is before I tell you?
The problem is neither work against the government.
You've probably seen our security.
They're pretty good.
I mean, we have different security in different times.
You've probably seen our regular security guard that we have in Australia protecting Avi Yamini.
He's a huge mountain of a man named Daniel, and he's wonderful at his job.
Except for who is he useless against?
The police.
No private security in the world would go up against the police.
And no friendship clause in a contract works against the government either.
It's all designed for ruffians and rowdies and antifun thugs.
It's not designed, what if the government is the thug?
Now, everything was going great as we were heading into the final days before Rebel News Live.
And in fact, as you know, we were reached out to by Rumble, which is one of the competitors to YouTube.
It's a video service.
It's a live streaming service.
And they said, Ezra, we're concerned about freedom of speech in Canada.
We'd like to do a Rumble live stream with Rebel News in Toronto.
We'll bring in some Rumble talent like Donald Trump Jr. and Glenn Greenwald and Viva Fry and you guys.
And it was wonderful.
We were very excited.
We were selling extra tickets.
Maybe you were there.
Everything was going great until the venue operator told us about the shakedown he was going under at the hands of the government.
Because the venue we chose is in central Toronto.
It's a little bit north Toronto.
It's in a great big area called Downsview Park.
It has soccer arenas and hockey arenas and volleyball parties.
It's a huge area because it used to be an Air Force base.
In fact, there's still an airstrip there the Prime Minister uses to fly into Toronto from Ottawa because it's a little bit out of the way.
Anyways, the underlying land is still owned by the federal government because it's a former military base.
And it's operated by the government's landlord of Crown Land, which is a Crown corporation called Canada Lands Company.
And I mean, I knew it was on Downsview Park, and I was sort of vaguely aware that it was sort of a special federal property, but never in a million years did I think that would be an issue.
I mean, I walk the streets on government land all the time, and I'm not arrested for it, at least not usually.
My friend David Menzies has been.
But in the final weeks, about two weeks out from both the Rebel News Live event and the special Rumble Live event with Donald Trump Jr., our event venue operator, the person with whom we had this friendship contract, this anti-cancellation contract, he was threatened by the Canada Lands Company property manager, Alan Schacht, who said that the events could not proceed,
he told me, unless we paid close to $50,000 in unnecessary and bizarre security costs.
Like I said, we're happy buying security anyways.
And in fact, we're happy buying a few extra just to make sure everyone's feeling good.
But this underlying landlord had no right to impose it on a private event if the venue operator thought we were doing the right things, which he said we were.
Not only did they demand we provide security for the entire Downsview Park area, not only did they demand we hire Toronto Police Service, apparently they're for sale, I guess, but they demanded, and you can see this on the insane bill they foisted on us.
They demanded that we buy barriers so that protesters could come and have an area, and actually that we even pay for port-a-potties, pay for portable toilets for those protesters too.
Now, we asked, and there was no intelligence whatsoever, no security analysis whatsoever showing that there would be protesters.
In the nine years we've been doing this, we've never had protesters.
And to say, oh my God, this event is so terrifying and so dangerous, you need to, what, quadruple your security, hire expensive city police.
Don't we already pay for those already?
And set up for protesters was insane and absurd.
And it was, I think, deliberately insane and absurd because the goal was not to keep things safe.
There were no protesters.
The goal was to make it impossible for the venue operator to pay that bill and impossible for him to pass it on to us.
Because we, I think we had a grand total of a thousand people between the two events.
You can't add on a $50 per person charge for security.
It's insane.
It makes no sense.
There was no basis for us.
And I should tell you, if there was a basis for us, we would have known and we would have paid for it.
And we would probably have said to the city, we pay taxes here.
We expect the police to do work without being hired as mercenaries.
It wasn't for that.
It was for the plan that we couldn't make the payment and we were blocked.
I should add one more thing.
Downsview Park, where we had the two events, is in the district called York Center.
That's the political district, the riding, as it used to be called, of York Center.
And who is the member of parliament and cabinet minister for York Center?
Well, no one less than Ya'ara Sachs, that crazy left-wing liberal.
Hey, I got a question for you.
Now that I'm talking about Yara Sachs, you might remember her.
She's the Jewish liberal MP who went to take a selfie with Mahmoud Abbas, the head of the PLO terrorist group.
Speaking of that, right now in Toronto, there is a large Hamas protest going on right in the heart of the city at the University of Toronto.
And it is a threat, and it is threats to Jews.
For example, I saw a video of a Jewish professor trying to get into the school.
He was turned away.
Do Hamas protesters, who are trespassing, by the way, do they have to pay for security?
Do they have to pay for fences?
Do they have to pay for port-a-potties for counter-protesters?
Or is it just peaceful journalists like us?
I attended the events and I tried not to be mad at the ordinary cops and the ordinary security who were there.
They're just regular guys and gals who were doing a job and they were told by their bosses, hey, you have a special project.
You're going to go hang out at Rebel all weekend and just stand around.
So, I mean, how can you be mad at an ordinary cop or an ordinary security who was asked to be there?
I told the cops to get out of the building and go fight crime.
And I didn't say it in a mean way.
I just said, you're not needed inside here.
Go outside and fight crime.
Those were my exact words.
They counted on us not being able to meet this $50,000 fake charge because no rational business person would proceed with that.
Certainly not the venue operator.
But our partners, Rumble, paid the bill.
They're a much larger company than us, and they believe so deeply in freedom of the press and freedom of speech.
And they wanted this event to go ahead.
And by the way, it was a huge success.
They paid the bill.
I should tell you, I spoke several times with the venue operator himself.
He was terrified of the threats against him by Canada Land Company, that they would tear up his lease and his whole life's dream would be destroyed by it.
We had two of the best events we've ever had.
And if you were there, you know what I mean.
And if you weren't there, you can still watch them.
The Rumble live stream, about 180,000 people have watched it.
I encourage you to as well.
What's incredible to me is how brazen the government was about this.
They didn't even pretend they had a security study.
They didn't even pretend this was for real.
And they didn't pretend to be gentle.
I really felt when I was talking to the venue operator that I was talking to a hostage who was saying, please don't fight back.
Please just pay the ransom.
Here's a tweet that Yaara Sachs did on the weekend in the middle of our conference.
And you got to wait till that last line.
She really is interfering with police in the city.
I'll read it to you in full.
My statement on the Rebel News event in York Center with Donald Trump Jr.
Which is sort of funny because her attack that follows is really not about Donald Trump Jr.
I'll read it.
She says, sadly, I have learned that Rebel News will be bringing its hateful and extremist views to York Center, the riding I am proud to represent when it holds Canada's most provocative conference, including Donald Trump Jr. and other MAGA conservatives at Downstreet Park this weekend.
Now, I should tell you that I actually live in the district.
I think I've told you that before.
I live in the riding, so I'm always there.
And I should say I feel very welcome there.
My neighbors are super friendly.
In fact, I sort of get along with, I mean, I don't know everyone on the street, but I feel really great about my neighborhood.
And when I go for a walk, sometimes I wear my rebel hoodie when I walk the dog.
And I get stopped at least two or three times every time I go for a walk by people who want to chat.
So I think maybe that's just where I live.
But, you know, I think Rebel News is sort of loved in York Center.
And I'm talking from people of all sorts of different backgrounds.
I mean, I hear Chinese voices.
I hear Persian voices.
I hear Russian voices.
The place I live is a real mix.
And people like Rebel News.
I'm just saying.
I'm just saying.
When she says we're not welcome in the riding, I feel pretty welcome.
I think, in fact, the only extremists around is her old pal Mahmoud Abbas.
And by the way, I went to a shopping center a few weeks ago in the heart of the riding, and people seem to agree with me, not her.
Remember this?
Backstabbing us right in front of our face.
Is she actually holding his hand?
I know, it's crazy.
Ya'ara Sachs.
Yes, and this is a bad guy.
She has disowned her own people.
I think she's looking for political gains.
I'm not surprised by anything.
Am I afraid?
I'm very afraid.
Anyways, back to her statement.
Sorry, I went on a tangent there.
She says, while I am a strong supporter of the right to free speech, let me be clear that the vile views espoused by Rebel News are not welcome in York Center, nor do its residents support them.
Whenever anyone says I support free speech, but always ignore everything after the word, but.
They don't.
And come on.
Do you really think that Trudeau's liberals actually support free speech?
I mean, for heaven's sakes, they put us under martial law.
Some truckers honk their horns.
Again, I'm in York Center every day, which is more than Yara Sachs can say.
It's the opposite.
I actually haven't seen anyone support her.
Rebel News, its commentators, staff, and associates have espoused everything from anti-Semitism to Islamophobia.
Yeah, no, I don't think so.
I think we're pretty pro-Israel.
In fact, sometimes people call us rabbi news.
I don't know if you ever heard that one, or rebel Jews.
They say that in the mean way because we're pretty pro-Israel.
I mean, I think we're fair.
I think we're pro-Taiwan also.
We're pro-America also.
There's a lot of countries we support.
We support Israel.
And it's not just because I'm Jewish.
Most of our staff are not Jewish.
I am Jewish, but our concerns about radical Islam, I think, are normal concerns for all Canadians.
Concerns she obviously doesn't share because she hasn't put out a tweet condemning the University of Toronto Hamas encampment.
Isn't it really weird?
She's got more hatred for rebel news than the Hamas supporters.
Let me keep reading.
Israel's National Day Reflections00:06:02
This is her again.
They claim to support the Jewish people, but traffic in the Great Replacement and Soros conspiracies, anti-Semitism by any other name.
She's a total kook.
Our last trip to Israel last fall was to the Holocaust Museum, and then we went to the United Arab Emirates to talk about Donald Trump's Abraham Accords peace deal.
That's like we actually took people to Israel and to the UAE to talk about friendship and peace and being pro-Israel.
Her last trip was to visit that terrorist, Mahmoud Abbas.
It's crazy.
Oh, and by the way, that George Soros thing, it's not a conspiracy theory.
Her buddy, George Soros, has been found out to be one of the funders of these Hamas hate marches in the West.
I mean, how many times does she have to reveal herself?
Yara Sachs gives a standing ovation to that Nazi, Yaroslav Hanka, in parliament.
Yara Sachs poses with a modern-day Nazi, Mahmoud Abbas.
Yara Sachs supports George Soros, who's funding the anti-Israel protests.
After a while, you have to wonder, is Yara Sachs a self-hating Jew and a self-hating Canadian?
All right, back to her tweet.
In recent weeks, Rebel News has attacked me personally, mailing my entire riding and launching an attack website.
I will not be bullied from doing my job, and I will not be lectured on how to be Jewish by one of Canada's leading disseminators of hate.
Look, I know what she's talking about, the mail out.
Remember that postcard?
It was a mailing of her own photo.
If that's an attack, maybe she should ask herself why she posed for the photo.
Hey, by the way, why didn't she go to an Israel event in Toronto over the weekend called Yom Hazikeron?
It's sort of Israel's National Day.
I don't know why she didn't go there.
I mean, you'd think she would go.
I think she went there because she didn't want to be booed by the members of the Jewish community who see right through her.
All right, her tweet goes on for a bit, but let me hurry up.
She says, it is unfortunate, but not surprising, that Donald Trump Jr. will attend this conference.
It's not surprising.
He's done more for peace and for Israel than anyone I can think of, the Trump family, at least.
I mean, who would you choose if you cared about Israel and cared about peace and if you hated terrorism?
Who would be on your team?
The Trumps or the Trudeau's?
I know which side Israel would count on, and I know under whose side there was peace for a decade.
Canada has beautiful attractions, shows and events.
Rebel News event is not one of them.
That's just weird.
And actually, it was a great event.
And I met so many wonderful people.
And we had booths there and stuff.
And we had great food and fun merch and books.
And Tamara Leach played a concert.
It was pretty awesome.
And you know what?
I know you're not going to believe me, but I really mean this.
If Yara Sachs had actually showed up with an open mind and was willing to talk, I think she would have really liked it.
I mean, she would have had an earful, but if she would have been polite and made her own case, I think there could have been some harmony there.
But she's just a hater.
Anyhow, like I say, if you want to see it, you can go and find it on rumble.com.
We did a live stream of the first date, about 180,000 views.
It's incredible.
In the end, she talks about her conservative opponent.
Let me read it.
She says, my conservative opponent, Roman Baber, has been platformed by and interacted with Rebel News at every opportunity.
Rebel News is clearly supporting Roman Baber.
And if Roman had any personal integrity, he would denounce their hateful views and extremism.
What hateful views and extremism?
Yara Sachs never really says.
I don't think she knows.
I mean, I don't think she writes her own stuff.
I think she is, remember that movie, Anchorman, where Will Farrell literally reads what's equal in the teleprompter and they have a joke, don't put anything dumb in the teleprompter because he'll say it.
I think that's Yara Sachs.
Remember?
This is the first time I heard of Yara Sachs when she stood up in parliament and read cue cards or something that she obviously didn't write.
And either it was a prank or people said, give that to Ya'ara.
She'll read anything.
Remember this?
How much vitriol do we have to see of Hong Kong, which is an acronym for Hail Hitler?
Do we need to see by these protesters on social media?
So Hong Kong means Heil Hitler.
She's crazy.
She's embarrassing.
And she obviously doesn't believe in free speech.
Oh, and let me just end her little rant.
She says he won't because he and Rebel News hold the same extremist fringe views that got him kicked out of Doug Ford's caucus.
No, I don't think he's extremist or fringe.
Roman Baber actually was super calm and mellow.
If you remember, he was a conservative MPP, provincial parliamentarian who very thoughtfully and calmly opposed mandatory lockdowns and mandatory vaccines.
I actually think he was the best elected official in Canada in terms of calmly and with footnotes and extremely politely saying, I think we're going the wrong path.
I don't think he's extreme at all.
I mean, there were some wild men who opposed lockdowns and vaccines.
I mean, I don't think they mind me calling, I don't think Maxime Bernier or, you know, Randy Hillier, I don't think they would mind being called a wild man because they sort of are.
Roman Baber is so buttoned down.
I think he's the kind of guy who moses law on in a suit.
You know, he's so proper.
He's certainly not one to do something crazy like say Hong Kong stands for Heil Hitler.
But look at this last line in her tweet.
She says, well, I deplore that this conference is taking place.
Universities Supporting Hamas00:03:38
I urge Toronto's police to take steps to keep all participants safe.
What?
What's that part there?
It couldn't be any clearer.
Yaara Sachs, the federal government cabinet minister, used government resources, including her Twitter account, to weaponize the Crown Corporation to silence a group of peaceful political critics.
And she just bagged about it.
Ironically, our theme was stopping C-63, the censorship law, which contains a provision for the house arrest, the preemptive arrest, a kind of restraining order, against anyone who the government believes is likely to commit hate speech, speech the government hates.
If they pass C63, maybe that's what they'll do the next time to stop us, not foist a $50,000 extortion fee on us, but just throw us in jail.
Do you doubt Yaara Sachs would do it?
stay with us for more sometimes it feels like you're surrounded every day a new university encampment uh supporting hamas and really in not very vague language condemns jews or zionists which most jews are
And it can be frustrating because where are the police?
Where are the police who would arrest you if you weren't wearing a mask, who would arrest you if you were out past a curfew in Montreal?
Well, they have a very light touch here, don't they?
I mean, I remember the total freak out at the Trucker Convoy in Ottawa when some liberal provocateur held a Nazi flag for about five seconds, just long enough for a liberal-affiliated photographer to snap it, then tucked it away.
And that was the national conversation for a week, proof that these were all Nazis.
Whereas, for example, you can see here in Calgary, someone not hiding their identity, not an agent provocateur, a pro-Hamas supporter, just full-on given the Sieg Heil salute, the Nazi salute, and nothing.
And by the way, there were politicians at that event who have not been asked to disavow.
It can be demoralizing.
I mean, I was at Columbia University, one of the finest universities in the world, and I just can't believe how it's fallen.
And I think part of my shock is not the depravity of the protesters, but the meekness of those who control the ground.
Columbia University is not a public space.
It's a private university with rules, and yet they decline to enforce them.
It's even worse in some cities like in Washington State.
On the other hand, I suppose the states that fix their problems aren't in the news long because the spectacle isn't there.
I saw this the other day where pro-Hamas protesters took to the street in Florida, blocking the highway outside Disney World.
According to this report, they were only there 11 minutes before police cleared the streets.
Take a quick look at this Twitter tweet.
Other universities have responded very vigorously.
UNC just voted to take all the money from their DEI spending, diversity, equity, inclusion spending, and redirect it towards campus police.
Interesting University Alberta Footage00:15:23
They're not defunding the cops.
They're refunding the cops.
And so I look across the wasteland of Canadian universities, and I've personally put eyes on campuses as diverse as, I was at UBC the other day, and we've covered McGill and U of T, our friend David Menzies there.
But what about Alberta?
What about Alberta?
I mentioned before in Calgary, right outside City Hall, there was someone giving the Sieg Heil.
And remember, the mayor of that city boycotted a Jewish community event because it had a star of David there, Jodi Gondek, the most unpopular mayor in that city's history.
But what about the campus encampments in Edmonton and Calgary?
Well, here's some footage of the police clearing out the encampments at the University of Alberta.
look at this.
Quite a
contrast to what we saw at UBC or McGill.
And our friend Sidney Fazard in Calgary has been attending these Hamas events and the encampment, and he was there for hours as the police decided to move in.
He joins us now from Calgary, and he's going to walk us through the events as they happen.
Sid, first of all, thanks very much for being here.
And thanks for going to sort of a risky environment.
I mean, I don't think you were in grave peril, but you absolutely could have been hit either by a protester or you could have, I suppose, come within range of some reaction by the police.
In fact, I don't think the police were thrilled to see you.
So thanks for being on the front line.
That's the best of rebel journalism when we're right up there with the cameras.
So thanks for doing that.
Well, absolutely.
And thank you for having me on today.
I should say it's a top of the potential risk there of these aggravators in the crowd.
I also have a pretty serious knee injury.
So I was actually limping around the entire time.
But as you can see, it was well worth being there to see what went down.
It was quite the enforcement that was taking place.
I understand, at least in the University of Alberta case, that three-quarters of the people in this university encampment were not even students.
They were people who were opportunistically going to make some sort of a political statement.
And I think that lends credibility to these university administrators who are saying, get out of here.
We're actually a place for learning.
Tell me what it looked like in Calgary, and why don't you throw to some clips that you recorded that illustrate the case?
Tell us, take us through it because you were there for hours.
Well, and that's absolutely it.
When it comes to, I'll address this first when it comes to the organizers of these events.
You'll notice that the police are negotiating or conversing, I should say, with activists within the community.
They're not conversing with the student demonstrators who are on site because realistically, there are far less of them than there are people who do not belong at that university.
Whether it's activists, whether it's people within the Islamic community, as we saw, the signage there that they have kind of represents this idea too of the indigenous relations on the matter, which is kind of ironic, but they go with that and they go with North America as being Turtle Island.
And they lace in all of these different claims together.
You can see there's queers for Palestine as well.
And there was even a full-blown Muslim prayer section that we saw on the field just beside the encampment.
So there's some interesting stuff going on there.
But again, I can't stress enough the fact that these are activists that are embedding themselves into these quasi-student demonstrations.
I mean, by nature of having a quote-unquote encampment on a university, you're going to have students that do have sympathy toward the demonstration.
Obviously, there's many people at a university.
But by far, these people are the agitators on site.
And you can actually see in the morning, it was very calm.
They had actually gotten there at 6:30 in the morning.
They were issued trespass notices by the staff of the university in the morning as well.
And then the Calgary police showed up.
They were actually just hanging around in large numbers a few blocks away from the encampment.
And they were waiting literally all day.
At one point, maybe around five, six o'clock, the Calgary police came in with a riot squad.
But first, they announced, hey, guys, you have to leave.
You've been issued the trespass notice.
It's time to go.
This isn't a negotiation.
It's time for you to leave your trespassing on university school property.
Many of these people not even being students, although some alleging to be staff members of the university embedded in the encampment.
So they arrived.
After they arrived, the riot squad, all of the members of the encampment, they actually kind of clustered together and they had a conversation amongst themselves.
They established what the damage might have been if they were to stay and get arrested, whether or not if they were a student, they would perhaps have to deal with being expelled or trespassed from the property, which could complicate that.
But they even warned, as they were, you know, deciding what to do as the riot police showed up, they warned if you're not a student or if you're on a student visa, you should separate yourself from this instance because there might be additional repercussions.
So a real smorgasbord of activism that's going on at these places.
It's very interesting, but a beautiful moment happened.
I think it's a little slightly comical.
Is that the demonstrators decided, okay, the riot police are here.
They've given us the choice.
We have to leave.
Take your stuff and go kind of thing.
Or do we want to stay?
And they held a vote.
And the vote was 23 people wanted to stay and 17 people wanted to leave.
And as soon as they made that announcement, the Calgary police decided, okay, there's 20 feet of empty space here where the tents are still set up and there's a police, not a police line, sorry, a wall that they had constructed.
So the police moved in.
They took out the stuff that was in this empty space as the activists were all gathered together.
And then they stopped.
And they stopped for hours saying, you guys got to go.
They re-entered the conversation with these activists who were there and said, look, you've only got one option, really.
You've got to go.
And then they waited hours, hours.
And then you can see again, this whole time throughout the day, it's these activists that are conversing with the university staff, that are conversing with the Calgary police.
They're the intermediary here.
And you can even see them later in the footage when a clash breaks out.
They're behind the scenes as they push the students to the front to engage with police.
Isn't that interesting?
Do we know who they were?
Like, are they, for example, when I was in the United Kingdom on one of their huge marches, there are Muslim organizers, but there's also old stock white Brits with the Socialist Workers' Party or other communist groups.
There's a bit of a, I mean, you mentioned a hodgepodge of different activist groups.
Would you say that the bosses here, you say they were putting the students at the front.
Who was doing that organizing?
Was that anti-foot types, white leftists?
Was it Muslim or Arab folks?
Who were the masterminds?
Well, I've been taking a look at some of the footage and some of the live streams that people put out there to see who was involved.
Now, I don't necessarily want to go too deep into who they are because I've just kind of started looking at this.
But some of the individuals there, you've got people that are activist musicians that are promoting drag events.
You've got people that are going to communist events.
It's really interesting.
You've got people that are associated with immigration as well.
And many of these activists who aren't students have photos, selfies, that they have with the current mayor, Jody Gondeck, the former mayor, Nahid Nchi, even federal people like the prime minister and Jagmeet, Justin Trudeau, and then Jagmeet Singh as well.
So it's interesting that these people are showing up on campus, disrupting.
And probably, I mean, I can't make this assertion, but I would assume that the funding is probably coming from some of these older individuals who've been engaged in this activism for a while.
Isn't that interesting?
You know, sometimes I have called anti-for the street teams of the left-wing political parties.
They're sort of the thugs that get brutal.
And if these folks are literally posing for selfies with Jody Gondeck or Justin Trudeau, it explains a lot.
Let me ask you a question because I've attended a few of these different campuses and I can get a few questions in, but when they Google who I am or when they, if I ask too sharp a question, they immediately clam up and say, We're not talking to you.
Talk to our spokesman.
And the spokesman don't like talking to me either.
Now, maybe that's just me.
Maybe I'm hard to like.
Did you have any interaction with them or did they shun you as well?
And I find this an interesting question because protesters usually want their message heard.
And even if they're just shouting at you, at least they're getting their message out.
Did they interact with you or did they sort of blacklist you too?
Well, I should say, and then I mentioned this off the top where I had a bit of an injury.
And I knew that, you know, this could be a bit of a tense situation depending.
And obviously, many of these individuals may not like or may decide to target me as a rebel news journalist.
So I did keep a distance for this one because I wasn't in a position to necessarily run away rapidly if a gang of them collected on me.
But given their rhetoric and given what I'd seen at the demonstration, they are not keen to talk to people.
The media, I overheard them, mainstream media, I should say, saying, yeah, they're not going to give us, you know, talk to us or give us an interview.
And there's a lot of that.
We see that at all these demonstrations.
And in large part, it's because they don't actually know what they're talking about.
And if I could just say that, the one song you'll hear them singing, We Shall Not Be Moved, We Shall Not Be Moved.
Look into the history of where that comes from, and that tells you exactly what these people know about the protests they're advocating for.
Yeah, I think one of the funniest things I saw, I was at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City right after the encampment broke in there.
And I saw a couple gals flying flags, and I thought, what is that flag?
I mean, I don't know all the flags in the world, but I didn't recognize these.
And I asked them, and they say, oh, they're the Palestinian flag.
No, they weren't.
And I mean, listen, not knowing a flag is not the end of the world.
But these folks, here's what I think.
Some of them, there's some ethnic or religious solidarity.
Some of them, it's just fight the man, fight the power.
A lot of it is what Dr. James Lindsay says.
The issue isn't the issue.
The revolution is the issue.
So yeah, fight the man, I'm there.
And look, it's also exciting.
You're a young person.
It's springtime.
Maybe you're feeling your oats.
Let's go do something exciting.
Let's have a teen spirit.
Let's be excited on the front page of the newspaper.
I mean, there are a lot of social reasons too.
When I was at Columbia University, a lot of the trans people who clearly were having social difficulties in life, if I may say, they found a sense of community there.
So there's a lot of reasons to attend these things besides what's written on the placards.
Well, listen, I really want to thank you for going there at some personal risk.
And I'm glad you didn't get hurt because in the past, some of our people have been hit.
It's an 18-minute master video, and I encourage anyone to see it.
And Sid, you've been covering the, in fact, it was your footage, I think, that caught, at least it's still footage, some of the craziness outside City Hall.
There was that SIG Heil, which eight months ago would have caused a freak out in society, but now it's just normal.
So, Sid, thanks very much for covering these things in Calgary.
Last word to you.
Yeah, absolutely.
And if I could say, you know, in regards to the individual doing a SIG heil, that wasn't the first time we saw that at one of these Calgary Palestinian protests either.
There were other individuals who do that.
And if I could express the big difference that I see between these current demonstrations and what we saw, let's say, during the Freedom Convoy, is in the Freedom Convoy, if there was somebody who waved a Nazi flag or came there expressing these extremist thoughts, they would actively be pushed out by the crowd.
The crowd would say, what are you doing here?
This is not us.
We don't want to be associated with whatever nutbaggery is going on here.
Whereas in these protests, currently we see that person with the SIG Heil.
You know, one person walks over and says, you know, we don't know what they said, but realistically, they aren't getting these people out of their groups.
They are bringing these people into their umbrella, these people with extremist tendencies.
You're so right.
It reminds me of what Douglas Murray said about the UK, which is if you went to a big protest and you saw people with swastikas, you wouldn't go back.
You just wouldn't go back.
But these folks see it.
They see that sort of thing.
And they go back every week, which even if they themselves aren't flying it, they're fine with that.
That tells you a lot about them.
Well, Sid, keep up the reportage on this.
You know, it's very interesting that Alberta's police in Calgary and Edmonton were the most vigorous, but it's not shocking to me.
It reminds me of some of the Texas or Florida police who've been very vigorous.
And I think it's sort of like graffiti and James Q. Wilson's theory of broken windows.
If you see a broken window and it's not repaired, pretty soon every window is going to be broken because the message is that's how we are around here.
We don't care.
We don't enforce the law.
We're not vigilant.
We're not watching you.
Go ahead and do it.
When Rudy Giuliani cleaned up New York City, he cracked down on the small stuff first to set a new tone of what we don't allow here.
And one of the most heartbreaking things about these encampments is it's sending a signal.
We allow law breaking, we allow trespassing, we allow graffiti, we allow mischief, we allow anti-Semitism, and we allow lawlessness.
That's just who we are now.
So it's glad, it's good to see that Alberta is saying that's not who we are.
And your report has helped shows that.
Take care and stay in touch, my friend.
Absolutely.
And likewise.
All right, there you have it.
Signal Sentences00:02:19
Sydney Fazard in Calgary, Alberta.
Stay with us.
Your letters to me next.
Here's your letters from you to me.
Maritime Mom says this government is worse than the mafia.
It really felt like the mafia or some sort of shakedown like that.
When I was talking to the event venue operator, he said, please don't cause a fuss.
I could lose my livelihood.
I'm just doing business with you for a weekend, but I have to stay here forever.
Like he was terrified of them.
Darren says, they thought that $49,000 would be enough to shut down the event, but they were wrong.
So it should be safe to assume that next time they will demand much more.
Yeah, well, I'm worried that they'll manufacture some sort of crisis where by then they'll have this restraining order, this preemptive arrest for hate speech.
CLD says, ah, so according to her, truckers are bad, terrorist leaders are good.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's so weird.
I mean, listen, I talk about many things.
If you said, Ezra, what are the top five things you talk about?
Freedom, smaller government.
I hate censorship.
I'm worried about trans extremism these days.
You know, I mean, you know what I'm talking about ethical oil sometimes.
I talk about immigration.
I talk about Israel since October 7th, but I don't think I do so obsessively.
In fact, I'm actually more concerned about what's happening in our own cities with these Hamas hate camps.
What I mean by all of that is I don't think Jewish stuff is in the top five issues we cover here.
I mean, I suppose maybe if you count Hamas encampments, but I think those are an offense to everyone.
Like they're chanting against the West.
They're chanting for communism.
I guess my point is, I consider myself pro-Jewish, but rebel news is much more than that.
And the vast majority of rebel news staff are from every different background.
Christian, Muslim, Hindu, any different background, as long as you believe in freedom, you're a rebel in my eyes.
So it's sort of weird that they're coming for us.
We're getting it from both sides.
But as long as we stay true to you, the viewer, I think we'll be okay.