Ezra Levant was arrested on November 25, 2024, in Toronto for allegedly breaching the peace while covering a protest, despite being far from protesters and not inciting violence. Police cited common law authority—later invalidated by the 2019 Supreme Court ruling (Fleming v. Ontario)—to justify his detention, including claims tied to his Jewish identity and presence with a Canadian flag. Levant, like others wrongfully arrested under similar pretexts, argues police selectively enforce laws, protecting pro-Hamas demonstrators while targeting journalists, and plans legal action against the Toronto Police Service. The pattern reveals systemic bias, undermining free expression and equality in Canada’s largest city. [Automatically generated summary]
Hello my friends, crazy show today because I went to jail.
I'll show you my arrest and I'll give you my thoughts about why it was an illegal arrest.
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All right, here's today's podcast.
Tonight, I was arrested and taken to jail.
I'll tell you the whole story.
It's November 25th, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Shame on you, you censorious bug.
Sunday, I did not expect to be arrested in jail, but that's exactly what happened to me when I went to cover a local news story that we have covered at Rebel News several times.
It's dueling protests in a Jewish residential neighborhood.
There's a pro-Israel, pro-Canada side, and then literally pro-Hamas.
They're not even pro-Palestinian.
They're actually supportive of Hamas.
They come into town from far away.
They're paid activists, and they bring the most vile anti-Semitic threats and propaganda with them.
It's just astonishing.
It would be like the Ku Klux Klan coming and burning a cross in front of a black church.
In fact, they have in common that they often wear masks.
The difference is the police protect the Hamas thugs, and they arrest those who would shine a light of scrutiny on them.
I want to show you my report on this that I delivered in a live stream today.
So the whole live stream is about an hour.
I'm not going to show you the full hour, but I'll tell you the story of what happened.
And I'll take you through a court ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada in 2019 that specifically deals with arresting someone whose conduct is lawful because someone else might disturb the peace.
Did you know the Supreme Court had a unanimous ruling on the very thing that was used to arrest me?
I'll take you through that.
So without further ado, here is my broadcast from the live stream today because frankly, I would just say the same thing again to you and it's a good way to look at what happened.
I'll come back at the end with some final thoughts.
Here, take a look at my weekend.
Well, hi, everybody.
Ezra Levant here.
I'm out of jail.
I'm back in our world headquarters in Toronto.
I've been to jail before.
In fact, I was in jail just a couple of weeks ago visiting Tommy Robinson in HMP Woodhill in the United Kingdom.
But as I just mentioned, it was as a visitor.
I have visited people in jail before.
It's very different being put in jail.
And what is most surprising is being put in jail for the offense of committing journalism.
And that's what happened to me yesterday in my hometown of Toronto.
I was at home puttering.
And I see out of the corner of my eye this absurd display on the streets of my city that some pro-Hamas activists had reenacted the demise. of Yahya Sinwar, the head of Hamas.
They sort of had, they recreated the scene.
This is in a Jewish residential neighborhood.
It's not in front of an embassy.
It's not in front of a political place.
All these Hamas extremists come into the heart of a Jewish residential neighborhood and set up this sort of almost like a wax museum of anti-Semitic terrorists.
And they have their flags and their chanting.
And yeah, there it is right there, freeze there on that image.
So that's supposed to be Yahya Sinwar in a chair when he ended his life.
And that's supposed to be blood.
And you can see they're all wearing masks in the Hamas way.
So I see that on social media and I say, that's insane.
And that's not being pro-Palestinian now.
That's being pro-Hamas.
And I happen to know that if you support the terrorist group Hamas in certain measurable ways, that's actually against the law in Canada.
And I know there's a ton of police there.
So I went down just to take a picture of that.
I was going to make a point about it later, probably tweet about it.
And police physically shoved me away from that.
They said, you can't take pictures of that.
You're too close to the pro-Hamas people, and that incites them to be excitable or whatever.
And I objected to that, but I wasn't about to fight him.
I mean, a big cop pulling you away.
Never fight with a cop, just some word to the wise.
So they frog marched me away from this display.
And they say, there's a journal, there's a free speech zone over there.
If you want to do journalism, go over there.
Well, the journalism's over there, brother, but thanks for the tip.
No, you go over there.
Well, you're not my editor.
I'm a citizen.
I'm a taxpayer.
And the only reason the Hamas people don't want me there is because I'm Jewish.
And I know this because they say so.
This is not my conspiracy theory.
They explicitly say so.
They'll say so right now if you ask.
And then the top cop comes over and he says, I am the law.
Jew on the Sidewalk00:14:09
No, you're not.
You're a servant of the law.
We live in a society that has the rule of law, not the rule of thin-skinned little Napoleons in a uniform.
And I said that.
I said, no, I'm a Jew, but I still have the right to be on a sidewalk.
I'm a citizen.
I'm actually a neighbor here, unlike these foreign provocateurs that we've allowed in our streets some reason.
And he said, and he just sort of said, you're under arrest.
And without further ado, let me show you.
I want to play for you.
My friend Efron Monsanto arrived shortly after I did, and he sort of saw the kerfuffle.
And he filmed most of it.
It's a seven-minute clip, but I think it's worth watching.
Don't you think, Colibia?
Let's watch this seven-minute clip.
This will catch you up on things.
Now, the only downside of this is Efron, I don't think this has the audio from my microphone.
So you won't be able to hear everything I say.
I don't know if we have a fun.
That would be something to link up the audio from my iPhone with this video.
We can do that another time, maybe.
But take a look of what a very momentous seven minutes and 48 seconds in my life was like.
Take a look.
I think I have.
I think I have.
This is my...
Is he filing for his wife to be honest?
Is she get it?
She's already deported.
Ah, she's deported?
No, no, is your wife deported?
She's taking a hand on her, she's taking a hand on her, she's taking a hand on her.
I just want to tell you I want to arrest you.
You want to send them in the monitor, sir?
No, I want to send them back to one of the stories you've been committing on our seven streets.
There are Holocaust survivors here.
Look back to me.
Stop terrorizing a piece of shit!
What I say is immediate.
Right now, it's not fake.
you don't uphold the law you don't uphold the law I don't know get out here get his own innovation get out here you know that okay we're not happy if I bring a team if I bring a team Watch out!
What's your name, Bob?
What's your goal?
Hey, what are you doing?
I'll trigger!
Hey!
Get them off!
No, you were working for these trucks and they were working for these trucks.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
This is the media area.
This is the media area.
I'm so sorry to say no.
I know you're a nose.
You know you're all straight.
I think you're a coward, also.
You can have your piss.
You'll do what they say.
Can you pause for a second?
So that's great footage by Efron.
We can't hear a lot of it.
Let me tell you, I was sort of arguing with him.
And Olivia, can you send a note to Efron?
What I'd like to do is I'd like to take the audio from my cell phone, which was recording from my earbuds, and combined it with that video.
Because I think what I was saying to the cop there may be of interest to viewers.
I was basically saying, on what basis are you limiting my ability to take photos and videos of a crime scene?
I mean, I'm not a fan of hate crimes.
I'm a fan of enforcing crime crimes.
What I mean by that is uttering a threat, mischief, vandalism, trespass, assault, all of which has happened in Toronto during the massive anti-Semitic crime over the last 13 months.
But there is on the books a number of hate crimes, and I'm not really a fan of those because I believe in freedom of speech.
But the cops believe in those laws, and yet they allow this bizarre, perverse, macabre celebration of a terrorist leader, very specifically, that is probably a hate crime.
It may even be supporting terrorism.
There's sort of four ways to support terrorism that are illegal.
I'm not going to get into that now.
So I was talking to the cop about that.
And he basically said, you're causing a disturbance.
I said, no, I'm not causing it at all.
I'm just standing on the sidewalk.
It's these maniacs, these feral foreign provocateurs that are causing the disturbance.
I'm just the path of least resistance.
And I said to him, and I don't know if you could hear that, I said, you're basically saying that whoever has the most bullies, the police will abide them because you're not enforcing the law.
You're just enforcing the mom.
Yeah, keep playing from.
I just wanted to explain what I was saying to that fella.
And Olivia, if it's possible to sync up the audio from my phone with the video from that camera, I think that would be a very useful video to watch.
Anyway, let's keep playing because now I think you can hear some of what I was saying.
I'm trying to keep the peace.
No, you're not.
If you were trying to keep the police, you would have jacked out on the bus.
If you want to be in the meeting, just stand over here, okay?
I don't have to.
Canada is by the big state.
So sir, I understand that.
Okay?
But you're violating a group that is inciting the potential for violence.
I haven't incited anything.
They have.
You're presently law.
And you have obeyed them.
So, again, here's the thing.
I want you.
I know you want me to stand here, but you're not the law.
Well, I am the law.
No, you're not the law, sir.
You're a servant of the law.
You are not the law.
So now, if you want to interview anybody, they know they can come and talk to me.
I'm not interested in interviewing them.
So you can video crime that you are protecting.
What a coward you are, sir.
Run away, you little coward.
What a coward.
Holy cup, I just want to.
I oh, yeah, I was like, tell me, Grace, you're too astonished.
So, so I said to you before, you're not allowed to reach here last week.
Right.
But you had a designated area to stay in, and you agreed to stay in it.
Well, absolutely.
Acting Inspector Ford told me they had a media area for you, and you guys stayed in it.
Stop for a second.
So that cop in the middle there on the left, his name is McDuff.
And he wasn't there last week, and he said you had a media area and you stayed in it.
We absolutely did not.
We went and we did our journalism for one reason only, because we had strength in numbers.
We had a dozen rebels from across the country who came in to stand with David Menzies.
So he is misinformed when he thinks we stayed in his media area.
The media area that I care about is called Canada.
And I'm allowed to be on any public sidewalk I like, especially in my own neighborhood, especially when it's a group of anti-Semitic thugs.
And by the way, you'll notice that they are not restrained from coming right up next to me.
So you have all these cops on me saying I'm inciting a disturbance.
But you'll notice all the, I mean, including there was a guy wearing a mask and a camera.
I presume it was someone recording for the Hamas side, you know, within a few inches of me.
And I didn't really care.
But my point is the cops were not enforcing this keep the peace even-handedly.
They were just removing me.
And I was there as a journalist.
Rebel news is not religious.
It's not Christian or Jewish or anything.
It's just rebel news.
I happen to be a Jew.
Most of our staff happen to be Christians.
But the reason the Hamas extremists were reacting to me is precisely because I am a Jew.
And I know that because they say so.
Because last week when I was there, they unfurled a dozen anti-Semitic epithets.
And again, I'm not, in my own world, that's not necessarily a crime.
In the world of the police, I think it might be.
But anyway, let's play that clip again.
I just wanted to give that context.
Let's watch.
We're halfway through the clip.
Let's watch some more.
Well, yeah, because you're inciting this crowd and then it reaches the peace.
That's why I said you.
You're friends inciting them, and that's exactly what you're trying to do.
No, because you're trying to incite them.
I haven't tried to.
I went to take a picture of the hate crime that you were.
You're not on the other side.
You didn't need to walk over.
No, I wanted you.
Now I'm going to tell you to move over there.
I allowed you to take that video.
I allowed you to take that.
So you're refusing to leave?
I'm refusing to leave.
Why?
Because I'm a Jew, I'm a citizen, and I'm your boss.
And I don't believe because you say Jews aren't.
But you know what?
In the interest of keeping peace here and public safety, you're under arrest for reaching that peace.
Okay, pause right there.
Stop right there.
So let me say a few obvious things here, if you want to put me back on screen for a second, Livia.
At this point, I am far away from the display I went to photograph.
At this point, the police who sort of pulled me away had let me go, right?
Obviously.
So I was no longer near the display they wanted me away from.
The cop who pushed me away had concluded his little project of pushing me away.
And you can actually see there were no Hamas supporters around.
There was no disturbance to be caused.
The reason he arrested me is obvious, because I said, I'm a citizen, I'm a Jew, I have the right to be here on the streets.
I forget my exact word.
I said, and I'm your boss, which of course is true.
We have civilian oversight of police.
We don't live in a police state.
And that's when he said, I'm arresting you for breaching the peace.
But I wasn't breaching the peace.
I had been let go by the other officer.
We were far away from the zoning question.
There actually weren't any Palestinian activists, Hamas activists right nearby.
It was simply his own ego.
He's a bit of a thug, this Macduff.
He's a bit of a bully.
Do you see my point?
If they would have arrested me right near the display, I would not have been happy about it.
But at least their argument, you are near this display and that's upsetting people, you know, on the face of it, it would have some credence, even though that's no excuse to violate my charter rights.
The cop on the right there had frog marched me out and then let me go.
I was standing far away from things.
And I just, it was that cop's temper that said, you know what, I'll show this guy.
I'll arrest him.
Keep playing the tape.
You arrested.
Because I'm standing on the sidewalk in my city.
I'm a Jew who lives in this neighborhood, and I'm being arrested because the police say that's a path of least resistance.
I was arrested for standing on the street this night because I'm a Jew.
They said that was causing a disturbance.
What kind of disturbance is that?
What kind of disturbance is that?
We got people calling to the staff.
You guys are the police.
Go right there.
I have AMI.
We never know.
I've been arrested by the police because I refused to get off the public sidewalk.
They said that I cannot be on the sidewalk with that intense.
They said that by standing there, and I wasn't even interviewing anyone, they said that that was such a disturbance that I would be arrested.
And I think that's a little bit cowardly because arresting me, they know I'm not going to have a riot like there was last night in Montreal.
They know I'm going to go these little law-abiding Canadians.
They're afraid of the Hamas activists, and they're woke, and Olivia Chow approves, and Doug Ford approves, and Justin Studeau approves.
And so I am arrested for the first time in my life in my home city, the city where I pay taxes, because these people, and by these people, I mean these police have been instructed not to touch the hate club.
I went to film the hate club across the street.
They actually have reenacted Yahya's sin laws in Final Women.
That would be like having a Hitler recreation.
It would be like having someone dressed up as Hitler in a neighborhood where other survivors live.
They say that that is not a hate crime, and that for me to report on it is unconscionable.
They are protecting Hamas supporters who are calling for the murder of June.
They are.
And because it was easier to arrest me than to arrest the Hamas thugs, that's what they've done in my own city for the crime of journalism.
Let Him Go00:03:40
Do you have anything to do with that?
Wait a minute.
Officer, do you have anything to say?
You're on 1968.
I forgot what people said.
Do you want to go?
Let him go.
That's why he keeps fighting.
Let him go.
Let him go.
Yeah, and then I was put into a police car.
There's other clips out there.
My friend Mayor Weinstein had an excellent clip that shows me all the way to getting into the car.
And I was driven away to the police station where I was removed from the police car, brought into a processing room, searched again, my belongings put in a Ziploc bag.
My shoelaces taken out of my boots and my hoodie, and I was put in a five-foot by seven-foot jail cell.
To my relief, it was clean.
David Menzies tells me some of the jail cells he's being put on are absolutely filthy.
I'm glad to say that wasn't the case here.
But it was just a plastic slab, which I guess would be a place to sit on or lie down on, and a toilet that on the top of it also had like a water fountain.
And I was just in there by myself.
There was a light, and then there was a bar door.
It was quite small.
It was sort of like being in slightly bigger than a shower.
In fact, it had the same acoustics.
And I didn't have, they took my phone and my watch.
I didn't know what time it was.
I didn't, you know, basically you're alone with your thoughts.
And for someone like me who's really synchronized to their cell phone, it was a little bit, you know, it wobbles you a bit.
What's going on?
What's happening outside?
What are people doing?
They saw me being arrested.
I hope someone out there is calling my lawyer.
They did.
I hope we're showing the film of my arrest.
We were.
I made three phone calls.
My first call was to our lawyer who was right on the file and she agreed with me.
This was absolute BS.
Talked to our rebel news team just to confirm everything was afoot and it was.
And I also wanted to let them that I was fine in prison, in jail.
And I was fairly certain that I would be released because you could see I did absolutely nothing wrong.
And, you know, causing a disturbance or whatever, it's not even in the criminal code.
And I don't know.
I mean, when you don't have anyone else to talk to you, when you don't have a cell phone or a watch or email time, you're unaware of how much time passes.
And of course, there's no interaction with anyone.
I'm just saying that it was uncomfortable to be in jail for a couple hours.
I can only imagine what it's like for someone like our friend Tommy Robinson, who's in prison in the United Kingdom for an 18-month sentence.
He'll probably serve nine months in solitaire.
I can't imagine being by yourself for nine months, being locked up in a tiny cell like that for nine months.
I just can't imagine it.
I had three phone calls from jail and I really enjoyed the calls because it was my only interaction with humans.
I mean, the guards in the jail themselves were nice enough.
They had nothing to do with my arrest.
They were just the people I was dumped on.
But no, it was very interesting.
I knew I would be released with no consequences because what are they going to charge me with what?
Overton Window Arrest00:03:21
But I think that I should not let it be.
I think I should sue, and here's why.
This is the first time I've been arrested, but it's the sixth time that our reporters have been arrested in 2024.
In fact, just two weeks and one day ago, at that exact corner, David Menzies was arrested by these same cops.
And they just do it again and again and again.
You can see there's no basis for my arrest.
Giving a veto to the Hamas crowd of who gets to be on the street or not, that's not the Canadian way.
And that won't hold up in court.
But you do that to me, and here's what you do.
Number one, you humiliate me, handcuff me, frog march me in public.
And you see the braying and the cheering by those Hamas extremists.
They loved it.
I mean, the police were doing what they could only hope to do.
And maybe one day they will do that.
I mean, there's been a lot of violence.
Look at the riots in Montreal on Friday night.
So they're humiliating me and giving exuberant enthusiasm to the Hamas side.
Number two, they're taking me away.
They're stopping me from doing my journalism, stopping me from reporting on the actual hate crime that was going on there.
Number three, they're imposing costs on me.
Now, in the end, my consultation with the lawyer was brief because they let me go without charges.
But in the half a dozen arrests we've had this year, we've had to go to court, I don't know, five, ten times.
We've spent tens of thousands of dollars on legals just for David Menzies alone.
But there's one more thing this arrest does, and it moves the Overton window.
You know what that word means, the Overton window.
It's basically the window of possibilities.
Everything within the Overton window is thinkable.
Everything outside the Overton window is unthinkable.
So what I mean by that is now we have to change our expectations of the country we're in.
The police are no longer neutral.
They have favorites, whether it's based on ethnicity or politics, I don't know, but they're no longer neutral, are they?
You saw the two-tier policing.
That's another way of saying it.
I was subject to one standard, but the pro-Hamas types were subject to another lighter standard, even though many of them aren't even Canadian nationals.
There's a new sheriff in town, and it ain't the cops, it's the Hamas extremists for whom the cops act as concierge.
This is very demoralizing, and that's the point.
When these Hamas thugs do things like snarl traffic, like block important roads, block Union Station, subway in Toronto, block major roads and highways.
They're not doing that to persuade people.
They know that's extremely irritating.
They're doing that to show you who's dominant and who's submissive, to teach you the new rules, which is that they call the shots and you obey.
The police follow their lead now, not the law.
So the arrest of me was about the Overton window as much as anything.
And it was about tamping down the one independent news company in Toronto and in some ways around the country that's willing to call out these things.
Fleming Versus Ontario00:11:42
So it was demoralizing from that sense.
But I'm not going to be demoralized because I think the rebel way is when you knock down to get up, brush the dust off yourself and get back to it.
And not just to get back to the journalism, but in this case, to sue the Toronto Police Service and Officer McDuff.
You know, I want to show you a case, a legal case.
It's from our Supreme Court of Canada.
I only heard about this case yesterday because I, although, you know, frankly, I'm sort of surprised I haven't heard about it before because it's sort of up my alley.
And it's a case called Fleming versus Ontario.
And it's a Supreme Court case, and I'm just calling it up on my screen, and we've got it there for you, too.
I'm going to read what's called the head notes.
Can we do that?
So I've got the same document open that you do.
And they scroll up a little bit more, up a little bit?
Yeah, perfect, right there.
And if you want to put that on the screen, I'll read through this.
So by the way, let me just tell you a little something about how Supreme Court rulings are published.
So the courts, the judges put their heads together and they have clerks and they sort of negotiate how they write this thing.
And scroll down a little bit, right to there.
Perfect.
And so they write a court ruling.
And in this case, the court ruling is, oh, I can't see how many pages long, but it's quite long, the Supreme Court rulings are.
So there's a summary of the case called a head note.
And I'm going to read the head note because obviously I'm not going to read like a multi-page court ruling to you.
So you can see the case is called Fleming versus Ontario.
And it's from 2019.
So it's fairly recent.
You can see the names of the judges, Wagner, Abella, Moldave, Cote, etc.
So this was an appeal from the Court of Appeal for Ontario.
So this case had ricocheted around Ontario, and it was important enough that the Supreme Court thought they would weigh in on it.
So let me read the head notes.
Police powers, common law power of arrest, breach of peace, counter-protester acting lawfully, arrested to prevent apprehended breach of peace by others.
Counter-protester charged with obstructing police, but charged later withdrawn.
Counter-protester filing statement claim against province and police officers seeking general damages for assault and battery, wrongful arrest and false imprisonment, aggravated or punitive damages and damages for violations of various constitutional rights.
Whether police have common law power to address, to arrest someone acting lawfully in order to prevent apprehended breach of peace by others.
Okay, that was sort of sentence fragments.
But you see, so Fleming didn't do anything wrong.
Other people were going to breach the peace if Fleming was there, so cops arrest Fleming.
Well, maybe that ought to be my mental name.
Now, I'm going to read a little bit more.
So again, this is still part of the head note.
Okay, I'm not going to take too much time, but this is the top court in Canada.
This is binding on every cop in the country.
Let me read it to you.
Fleming was arrested while walking to a counter-protest flag rally organized in response to Six Nations protesters' occupation of a piece of crown land.
So this is in Ontario.
There's a dispute between Indigenous folks and other folks about who gets to be on the land.
The police became aware of the flag rally in the months preceding it and had developed an operational plan given the contentious atmosphere in the community, which had on numerous occasions culminated in violent clashes between the two sides.
There's some similarities here, aren't there?
The plan including keeping protesters and counter-protesters apart.
And flag rally counter-protesters were informed that they were not allowed on the occupied property.
When the police spotted Fleming walking on the shoulder of the road, running along the occupied property, they headed toward him with the intentions of placing themselves between him and the entrance to the property.
To avoid the police vehicles, Fleming stepped onto the occupied property, which appeared to cause a reaction in the group of protesters, some of whom began moving toward him.
An officer then approached Fleming and told him he was under arrest to prevent a breach of the peace.
When Fleming refused to drop the flag he was carrying, he was forced to the ground, handcuffed, placed in an offender's transport unit van, moved to a jail cell, and released two and a half hours later.
Sounds familiar, although they didn't slam me on the ground.
The Crown eventually withdrew the charge of obstructing a police officer, which had been laid against Fleming for resisting his arrest.
Fleming subsequently filed a statement of claim, so he sued the province and the police officers who had been involved in his arrest.
He claimed general damages for assault and battery, wrongful arrest, and false imprisonment, as well as aggravated or punitive damages and damages for the violation of his rights.
This is the most important part here.
Section 2B, that's freedom of the press, freedom of expression, freedom of speech.
7, 9, and 15.
That 7 is, I think, due process 15 is equality.
I forget section 9.
Fleming was successful at trial, but a majority of the Court of Appeals set aside the award of damages on the basis that the police had the authority at common law to arrest him.
The Court of Appeal ordered a new trial solely on the issue of excessive force.
Fleming appeals to the court on the issue of whether the police acted lawfully in arresting him and on whether a new trial should have been ordered on the question of excessive force.
Okay, so that's the head note, but just give me the next paragraph.
Held.
So this is the result.
The appeal should be allowed and the trial judge orders restored.
Here's the takeaway.
The following sentence is the summary of the entire case.
Fleming's arrest was not authorized by law.
And there is no basis for intervening in the trial judge's conclusion that the province and the police were liable for battery for their use of force in unlawfully arresting him.
As a result, no new trial is needed on the issue of excessive force.
And I'm going to scroll down.
There is a lot in the head notes, aren't there?
And again, this isn't actually written by the judges.
These are summaries, so you don't have to read the whole huge thing.
Can you skip ahead to the words, as there is no common law power to arrest someone?
It's the very last paragraph.
Yeah.
And let me just read this.
Guys, I know I've taken up a lot of your time, but we're learning together.
I was actually unfamiliar with this court case until yesterday.
You'd think I would know it because it's really up my alley.
So let me, I'm going to read the last paragraph of what's called the head notes.
So this is basically the clerk summarizing the lengthy ruling that follows.
As there is no common law power to arrest someone who's acting lawfully in order to prevent an apprehended breach of the peace by others, the police in this case did not have the lawful authority to arrest Fleming.
Well, hello.
Did you see what happened to me?
I was not breaking the law.
There was a breach of the peace apprehended by others.
Other people were going to breach the peace.
I was doing nothing wrong, and the cop arrested me.
He said so.
What's so amazing about my interaction yesterday, if I may, is that the cops were narrating what they were doing because I was asking them the whole time.
It's not like I was standing there and they swooped in and arrested me and I said, hey, what's going on?
We had the conversation for minutes and minutes and minutes before they arrested me.
So I knew what was going on and I knew it was exactly in their mind because they told me.
You don't think that's going to be played in court?
Here, let me finish reading this.
The trial judge specifically found that Fleming had not done anything unlawful before being arrested.
There was no evidence before her that he had committed any offense in walking along the street, entering the occupied property, or standing there with his Canadian flag.
Imagine arresting a guy for a Canadian flag.
That's where we are in Canada.
Nor was there evidence that he had himself been about to commit an indictable offense or a breach of the peace.
The province and the police have not sought to challenge that finding on appeal, nor have they cited or relied on any statutory power to arrest Fleming.
They rely entirely on a common law power to arrest someone who is acting lawfully in order to prevent an apprehended breach of the peace by other persons, a power that does not exist.
That power does not exist.
Well, you know what that cop said?
I am the law.
No, you're not.
And it sounds like you need a judge to tell you that.
In light of this conclusion, a new trial on the issue of excessive force is not necessary.
As the police were not authorized to common law to arrest Fleming, no amount of force would have been justified for the purpose of accomplishing the task.
You know, in law school, they use Latin, and they would say, QED quo de erat demonstrandum.
Just demonstrated the whole point there.
I know we spent a lot of time on that, but do you feel smarter?
Olivia, do you feel smarter about the law?
I do too.
And I, you know, I'm sort of embarrassed that I didn't know this case because it is sort of a case up my alley.
Because we have been arrested time again because someone else is getting excitable.
Fleming versus Ontario, 2019 Supreme Court of Canada case could not be clearer.
You cannot arrest someone who's not breaking any law just because someone else might breach the peace because of them.
You can't victim blame.
And it sounds like that was a unanimous ruling.
We've just walked through this case together.
The headnotes.
Obviously, I'm not going to read a multi-page ruling.
Those are the official headnotes of the Supreme Court of Canada.
Do you have any doubt that I was wrongfully arrested?
Now I'm glad I wasn't thrown to the ground.
But you heard that last sentence there.
Because there was a false arrest, no amount of force is justified, right?
And I'm not going to overly dramatize the bruises on my wrists, but I want to tell you that hurts.
I mean, I wasn't crying, and the longer you have those things on, it really starts to get at you.
And why did they handcuff me in the first place?
Did they think I was going to, I'm a 50-year-old man, and some say I'm in tip-top shape, but I wouldn't know who would say such a thing.
What did they think I was going to do?
Attack the cops?
Like, seriously, why was I handcuffed?
Other than to humiliate me?
Did they think I was going to run away?
You know, I mean, it's just so absurd.
There was no reason to handcuff me at all.
And they kept the handcuffs on in the back of the police car.
What did they think I was going to do back there?
So did you catch that line in Fleming versus Ontario?
Because the arrest was illegal, no amount of force is justified.
QED, my friends.
Well, what do you think of all that?
You know, what I really objected to was that a cop was doing the will of the Hamas thugs because they objected to me because I'm Jewish.
Why Was I Handcuffed?00:00:15
So the cop said, yeah, okay, well, your presence here is disqualifying because you will cause them to have a HISI fit.
That's just not how it works here in Canada, and it's pretty gross that Canada's largest police force is abiding by that.