Ezra Levant at the Salvation Army in Hanover, Ontario, exposes ArriveCAN—a $63M "spyware" app under Justin Trudeau’s government—fining Amish communities up to $7K for rejecting digital compliance, risking their farms. The Democracy Fund, led by Mark Joseph, reopened cases (2021–2022), prompting Amish donations of handmade goods like sauerkraut and quilts to local food banks amid soaring demand. Meanwhile, U.S. Congressman Tom Tiffany blames Canada’s "preservationist" forest policies—pushed by groups like Greenpeace—for wildfire smoke plumes, citing 1988’s spotted owl fiasco as a cautionary tale. Both stress collaboration over conflict, framing forest mismanagement as a shared crisis with disproportionate Canadian costs. [Automatically generated summary]
Tonight, the Amish do a little bit of good in the community by helping out a food bank.
What a contrast to the way they've been bullied by the government.
It's July 11th, and this is the Ezra Levant Show.
Shame on you, you censorious fubug!
Hi, everybody.
I'm in Hanover, Ontario at the Salvation Army.
If you don't know the Salvation Army, of course, it's a Christian church, but it's also a mission.
Poverty alleviation, food banks.
In some communities, they have secondhand clothing stores.
They really are the heart of the community, the little platoons that take care of each other.
And so it's not surprising that today I was with a lawyer from the Democracy Fund, Mark Joseph, and the leader of the steering committee of the Amish that we have been dealing with fighting against the abusive and sadistic fines that have been levied against the Amish people by the government because they don't use the ArriveCan app.
You remember what the ArriveCan app was, that malware, spyware, white elephant that Trudeau commissioned from his buddies and paid $63 million for?
You had to download it on your phone.
And every time you came into Canada, you had to fill out this invasive app.
Anyways, that's an atrocious violation of privacy at the best of times.
But for the Amish community, it makes no sense.
The Amish, in case you don't know, eschew all things modern.
They don't drive in cars.
They're on horse and carriage.
They don't use phones or electricity.
So telling an Amish person crossing the border, have you downloaded the ArriveCan app on your smartphone is so crazy and so stupid, only a government would do it.
Trouble is, when the Amish did not fill out their forms, they got massive fines, often $5,000, $6,000.
And because they're not of this world, it's almost like they are living in a pre-modern way.
They didn't realize that by not fighting the tickets they got, they were in a way consenting to them.
And so the government not only fined them massive amounts of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars for the community, but the government, when they were not paid, they put liens on the homes and farms of the Amish people so that they couldn't sell them, bequeath them, take a loan out against them.
In a way, it was the first step to expropriating the property to pay these stupid fines.
By the way, the Democracy Fund has helped more than a thousand people with these damn ArriveCan app fines, but I have not heard of them taking a lien on anyone else's property.
What do you think of that?
If I'm not mistaken, the Democracy Fund has helped 1,400 people with ArriveCan app problems.
My math might be a little bit off, but not a single one of them that I know of had a lien put on their property other than the government's abusive and discriminatory approach to the Amish.
And I don't think that's a coincidence.
Anyways, in comes the Democracy Fund, taking these cases, but it's harder than it looks because these cases have hardened like concrete.
Remember, these cases were earned during the pandemic, 2021, 2022, and it's now 2025.
So these are cold cases.
They had to be cracked open and then reheard.
And that's painstaking.
And not every judge is down with it.
But slowly but surely, the Democracy Fund's lawyers are making headway.
So what are we doing here?
Why Are We At The Salvation Army?00:12:38
Why are we at the Salvation Army Church?
This has got nothing to do with the Amish.
This is not an Amish church.
Well, I'll tell you what, the Amish, in a gesture of goodwill and a statement of solidarity with the non-Amish community, announced in court that they would be making a donation of something close to their heart.
They're not rich people.
They don't use modern industry.
So their farms are still run on people power and animal power.
Like, seriously, animals pull the plows.
That's the way they live in the Amish style.
But they made donations from the heart.
Pickles, jams, quilts.
And they selected this Salvation Army food bank as the destination of their generosity.
Can you imagine that?
A persecuted people, bullied by the government, responds instead with love and generosity.
Let me show you what happened half an hour ago when the leader of the Amish steering community showed up here with a car full of goodies.
Take a look.
So, Cindy, in addition to the food, some of the Amish ladies have made quilts.
And they're beautiful homemade quilts that would be, I think you could even call them folk art.
And so they're, but obviously they're made for practical use.
And so we have some of that.
And Mark Joseph, who's the senior litigator at the Democracy Fund, so let's see what we've got there.
I see pickles.
Peach jam.
Strawberry jam.
I mean, these are some real delicacies.
Genuine preserves.
Yeah.
We're so thankful for them here at the Salvation Army.
Of course, we serve the greater Hanover area, and we are a non-profit organization.
And the demographic is not foreign to anyone.
I mean, we have children, we have seniors, we have all age ranges, couples, families, and we really appreciate this.
It'll go to very good use.
Food bank use is up 50% in the past year.
So we will definitely make use of it.
Thank you so much.
Well, it's good to hear that we have this coming, and I'm sorry that the use is up so much, but this will be put to good use.
Obviously, let's see what we have here: different kinds of pickles.
I have had Amish pickles before, and they're really delicious.
I see some sauerkraut, I think.
I want to just look at those quilts for a second.
Mark, can you bring one of the quilts?
So here's one of the quilts.
That looks like a gorgeous, nice, warm quilt.
That is very nice and warm.
And you know what?
Unfortunately, in every community, we have homeless, the homeless population, and when they come to the door for service, we often offer them a quilt and a pillow, and they all get made to good use.
And that is something very warm, would help someone who's living on the streets or living at a campsite.
Well, here's one with a message on it from Fanny, and I won't say her name because she probably wants privacy.
So these are custom-made homemade quilts, and I know you'll put them to good use from people who need them the most.
We will.
And if we don't manage to have people need them through the year, we will give them out as Christmas gifts at Christmastime because the need is different at Christmastime.
And sometimes we have people that a family that could use a quilt for comfort along with their Christmas gifts in their hamper.
All right, well, let's carefully, Mark.
Do we have more things in the car or should we carefully start to wheel this down to the entrance?
Yeah, I think we're going to start moving along.
I want to make sure none of those delicious pickles falls off.
Here, maybe I'll do something useful.
I'll put the mic down and I can carry some Hijack any of the pickles here.
I'll handle down.
Okay.
Perfect.
I don't want to go too fast.
I don't want to lose any pickles.
So, Mark, tell us a little bit about the reason that the Amish community is donating this to the food bank today.
Sure.
As many of our donors probably know, the Amish ran into some trouble during the pandemic as they crossed the border.
They obviously don't have access to technology and they didn't have smartphones, so they couldn't use the ArriveCan app.
And they were ticketed for allegedly failing to comply with the ArriveCan app and incurred $7,000 tickets sometimes.
Those tickets fell into arrears, and sometimes those tickets were translated to liens on property.
And obviously, that threatened their farms and their way of life.
So TDF was able to step in and managed to get those tickets reopened and those liens off the property for the most part.
We still have some appeals to do.
But in a gesture to the community, the Amish decided to give back and make this donation of food, preserves, and quilts to the Salvation Army as a demonstration of goodwill.
So if I understand it's sort of a plea deal to instead of paying the thousands of dollars in the liens, this is a statement of good faith and goodwill by the Amish.
And in return, the liens are removed from their house and there's no fine to be paid.
Is that correct?
Well, sort of.
It wasn't a quid pro quo.
It was just it was a gesture.
We announced in open court to the Justice of the Peace that the Amish would be making this gesture as a way to demonstrate to the community that they're giving back.
Okay, let's take the camera out of here to let them have their privacy.
Mark, thank you for working so hard with the Amish.
We have a special thanks to the steering committee.
The Amish prefer not to be on TV, so we won't show the team.
And Cindy of the food bank, thank you for accepting these gifts and putting them to good use.
I feel really good about the fact that you're the destination for this.
Good luck to you and your team.
Okay, bye.
Thank you.
Bye now.
All right, let's let these folks have their privacy.
Well, joining me now to talk in a place that's more private.
I didn't want to be near the door of the food bank because people are coming and going and I want them to have some privacy.
Some people might not want it to be known that they are in a position where they have to go to the food bank.
Anyways, joining me now is Mark Joseph, senior lawyer for the Democracy Fund.
Mark, tell us a little bit about how this fits into the big legal battle because this isn't really a quid pro quo.
It's more sort of a statement of the mindset of the Amish, isn't it?
Right.
So Democracy Fund stepped in to try to help the Amish and we had some success in getting these tickets reopened.
We negotiated with the Crown.
Most of them were stayed.
Some were given suspended sentences for nominal, so zero dollars.
But the Amish still felt that they should make a gesture and give back to the community.
And so that translated into the donation you see today for food preserves and the homemade quilts.
I want to tell you that I have bought these same things from the Amish before.
Pickles, jams, apple butter.
It's sort of amazing.
It's the kind of thing that you always hope you find at a farmer's market.
Sometimes the stuff at a farmer's market is actually sort of processed and industrial, anyways, it sort of sneaks into the farmer's market.
This is the real deal.
So obviously, if someone is in a position where they need food from the food bank, they're having a tough time.
And I don't want to make light of that at all.
But whoever is coming to this food bank in the next few weeks is in for a treat.
Some of the quality of the food, farm to fork is the phrase that comes to mind.
So what a gift the Amish are doing.
And you know what?
Not everybody would respond to bitterness and cruelty with generosity.
I'm sort of a tit-for-tat kind of guy.
But imagine the Amish being pushed around for years by the government, and their response is the opposite.
Their response is to help the community.
Right.
So one of the issues we had as lawyers was to have our clients agree to fight this.
The Amish are very non-confrontational.
That's stemming from the biblical beliefs.
So that was a bit of a chore for us to let them know that this is something they should do.
They should fight these tickets.
We felt they were unjust.
We felt that we could overturn them, which we did.
And then the gesture they made was quite valuable goods.
I mean, every time I visit them, I buy the preserves myself because they're getting excellent quality stuff.
And they decided to make some of that available to the Salvation Army.
Yeah, I love the pickles.
You know, I just want to explain one thing, and I've explained it before.
Maybe I've alluded it to it here.
Part of the Amish lifestyle is not to use modern things like a smartphone, but they also don't want to appear on camera, and they don't even want us to say their names.
And there's different strictnesses with different Amish communities.
There's different denominations or sects of Amish.
And so it actually makes it a bit of a challenge to tell the story if I can't show you the people in the story, if I can't interview the people in the story.
I can't even say his name, even though it's an awesome name, the head of the Amish steering committee, who's just around the corner.
But that's just how it is.
We have to tell the story for them.
And in so many ways, that's been the essential challenge of this project.
How do you fight for someone who's not a fighter?
How do you tell the story for someone who is sort of by nature shy?
How do you crowdfund for people who are not online?
And I think the power of the story has overcome that systemic challenge.
And we were just talking to the head of the steering committee a moment ago, and it comes down to a righteous Gentile named Grant Laux, who was a friend of the Amish, who heard about this trouble, connected them with us, and he plays the go-between because, again, these guys don't have cell phones or smartphones or emails or faxes.
So even just the logistics, it actually fell to a friend of the Amish named Gary, Grant, sorry, who knew about Rebel and knew about democracy funds.
So it's actually, you could say, if you were a believer, you would say this was sort of a miracle, the way this came together, because the Amish would have suffered in silence.
Right.
I mean, the elders, I've heard it described that they felt that they'd leave it in the hands of God.
And as you described, it just so happens that someone got in touch with the Democracy Fund, Grant.
He's been a great go-between.
And then we had to arrange the logistics going back and forth.
There's no phone available for the clients.
usually it's an email it's a phone call for lawyers but we had to drive up and drive back and arrange for so that was a challenge but you know we didn't complain about it We just had to overcome that because, of course, their lifestyle is, you have to respect it.
You know, there's a saying, pray like it all depends on God, work like it all depends on you.
And I think it was maybe a combination of those two things.
Anyways, a successful and interesting day.
I think it made the day of the folks here in Hanover at the Salvation Army.
They were very happy to receive our stuff.
And now I'm back to the big city.
I came out here with our videographer, Maurizio, and we love to tell this story.
And we're so grateful for the Democracy Fund.
You know, there's a lot of civil liberties groups in Canada.
I find it, well, I won't say surprising because I'm not surprised by it anymore.
So few of them would lift a finger for this.
The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, in fact, it's not just other public interest lawyers who ignore it, but so-called progressives.
This is a shocking story.
It looks like it's going to have a happy ending, but because the Amish are Christian, that's my theory, it has been thrown down the memory hole and no one is talking about it.
But if you are someone who has supported the Democracy Fund or Rebel News, this slow turnaround to victory is yours.
And let me close by saying if you want to chip in to help the Democracy Fund, which has obviously not been charging these Amish folks, you can go to a special website called helptheamish.com.
You can make a donation there and you'll get a charitable tax receipt, by the way.
So $100 gift, I think, works out to, I forget the exact amount you would pay in the end, but it's a charitable receipt because it is a genuine charity.
Letter to the Forest Service00:11:22
So go to helptheamish.com.
If not you, well then who?
And if not now, well then when?
And together we'll get justice for these folks.
For Rebel News, I'm Ezra LeBant.
Well, all of Canada is talking about the letters sent to our country by President Donald Trump, announcing 35% tariffs on a range of industries.
It's startling.
And Mark Carney, our prime minister, is happily on holidays.
He's been working so hard, don't you know?
Hopefully he'll come back from his holidays, but you never know.
He was busy talking to his European friends.
Remember, he has three passports, so he's doing business there.
But another letter has come across at Canada's desk.
It was sent to the Canadian ambassador by a friend of Canada who is the congressman for the 7th District of Wisconsin's.
Tom Tiffany has written a letter with his colleague Brad Finstad of Minnesota.
And let me just read a couple of lines from it.
And I'm delighted to say we have the congressman standing by to talk about his letter.
It says, we write to you today on behalf of our constituents who have had to deal with suffocating Canadian wildfire smoke filling the air to begin this summer.
As we are entering the height of the fire season, we would like to know how your government plans on mitigating wildfire and the smoke that makes its way south.
I'm going to skip ahead to what I think is the most important sentence of the letter.
While we know a key driver of this issue has been a lack of active forest management, we've also seen things like arson as another way multiple large fire wildfires have ignited in Canada.
This worrisome trend can be reversed if proper action is taken.
And it ends on a friendly note, which I'm glad it does.
It says, Canada has been a friendly neighbor of the United States and the states we represent.
So given the significance of this issue, we urge you to relay this message to your government, in particular, Natural Resources Canada and the Canadian Forest Service.
And joining me now to talk about this is Tom Tiffany, the member of Congress for the 7th District of Wisconsin.
Well, thanks very much for taking the time to meet with us.
Ezra, it's good to join you and hello to all of our good friends in Canada.
Well, thank you.
And I read the letter and at first I didn't know what to make of it because Canada is sort of treading carefully these days.
But I regard your letter as like a friendly note from a friendly neighbor just saying, hey, by the way, you've got some big, big fires.
And can you help us?
Because we're getting covered in smoke.
It felt friendly, but you did zero in on forest management.
Can you explain a little bit of what you mean by that?
What we've been seeing, I think, across North America, certainly we've seen it in our Western states, Ezra, where as a result of lack of good forest management, we're seeing these massive wildfires.
In fact, I would take you back to 1988.
I have a chart that I use in the Natural Resources Committee that that is the dividing line to me.
That's when we here in America stopped managing our forests as we should and became much more preservationist in nature.
What happened?
We, forest production went down, wildfires went up, and that's been the trend line ever since then.
And we used to have really good forest management.
I think the same thing is happening in Canada to a certain extent.
Certainly, maybe some unique circumstances like you mentioned in regards to arson and things like that have happened also.
But largely, it is the corporate environmental groups who have shut down logging to the harm of our economy, but also to our environment.
And as a result, we see these massive wildfires and we get this smoke that comes down from Canada.
And to be fair, it has happened coming from the Western states here in the United States also.
And I'm every bit as critical of them as I am of Canada.
Right.
Well, we have taken a great interest in some of these fires.
We had a very special campaign around the Jasper wildfires earlier.
And of course, we set up a special website, helpjasper.ca.
And it is a fact that our environmentalist federal government, especially former environment minister Stephen Gilbo, refused to do the natural clearing of the dead fuel.
And if you just leave it there, that is a tinderbox waiting to go off.
You use the word preservationist.
I think that's sort of different from conservation, isn't it?
Preservation is sort of like an ideology.
Don't touch anything.
Don't allow any logging.
Whereas conservation would be, okay, let's have a controlled burner, controlled collar the trees.
Tell me what you mean by preservationists and these corporate environmentalists.
I take it you mean groups like Greenpeace.
Give me a little bit more background.
Yeah, so conservation and management are the two key words that I use.
And that's what we want to see happen.
Preservation is simply not touching.
And when you don't touch, those trees are going to go one way or another.
You can either harvest them, they're going to go down via disease, and they're going to burn.
One way or another, those trees are going to come off from the forest land because they have a certain shelf life.
I mean, they have a life expectancy.
So if you don't manage your forests as we used to do effectively, and much of that happened as a result of, if people remember the spotted owl fiasco out in the western United States a couple decades ago, which was just purely a preservationist play by environmental groups who do not believe in the greatness of America.
They do not believe that we should be producing things here in America.
And it's an attempt to bring us down.
That's really what they're attempting to do.
And that's why they filed the lawsuits.
And that's a whole other problem that we need to deal with in the Congress of the United States is the frivolous lawsuits.
Well, Congressman, I'm not sure if you're familiar with Stephen Gilbo, who was our former environment minister, who's now in another position in Carney's cabinet.
He was one of these environmental extremists.
In fact, he was arrested and convicted of, I'm not going to say eco-terrorism, but of a law-breaking stunt several times.
So unfortunately, those groups, which you have accurately called corporate environmentalists, they're environmentalists of fortune.
They're about drama and fundraising.
They go straight to the heart of our Canadian government.
And I don't feel like I'm tattling.
I feel like I'm warning you.
So let me ask you, you sent the letter on July 7th to our ambassador.
It's been a few days since then.
Have you had any response?
Or was it just sort of a perfunctory thank you for your letter?
We'll pass it on.
Have you heard anything from any officials on the Canadian side?
We haven't heard much from the ambassador, but I expect we will.
But boy, have we been hearing it from some Canadians?
They're like, butt out.
Why don't you people be good neighbors?
All the rest.
And I just, including the premier of Manitoba, answered us and he was quite indignant about this.
This is not an instance of where I'm saying, I want to criticize Canada just because it's Canada.
I'm equal opportunity in regards to this.
I am critical of how California's been doing.
Our United States Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management, who manage millions of acres, I've been every bit as critical of them also.
We need to change the paradigm.
What has worked, what has been going on for the last three to four decades here in North America with this preservationist mentality is harming North America, both its environment and its economy.
Yeah.
Well, and that's, and to be fair to the Premier of Manitoba, you know, and he's got this great line.
He says, we'll never be your 51st state, but we'll be your number one best friend.
And I sort of, he's actually an interesting fella.
I can understand, but I thought your letter, you know, it was, it had concern in it, but it also had friendship and it also had a recognition that some of these things are outside the hands of government, like arson is a real issue.
But at the end of the day, there is a political decision in there.
And it is to, you know, we just talked about it, not culling the trees.
And so they're just, there is fuel.
And you're so right.
I actually visited Los Angeles when it was still smoldering, the Pacific Palisades.
And so there is horrendous forest and water management too.
And frankly, in other places, like even Lahaina Maui.
Well, how do you hope this, well, Anne, what are you hoping to hear back if the Natural Resources Canada or the Canadian Forest Service writes back to you?
What are you hoping to hear in return?
And I think that they'll be diplomatic.
I thought your letter was diplomatic.
It was, it got a lot of attention up here.
What are you hoping to get back from the government itself?
So job number one of the letter has been accomplished, as you just cited, Ezra.
But we're looking forward to the dialogue that can happen in regards to this.
But this is a serious issue because we've had scrolls running on our local weather reports, not so much the last few days or last couple of weeks, but a month ago.
You saw that regularly here in these upper Midwestern states like Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.
Be careful if you're going outside because there's going to be significant plumes of smoke that are going to be over your state or over your region.
And in fact, they had weather maps showing almost like where thunderstorms are.
They'd show where the clouds are.
And they're telling people, if you have respiratory problems, you need to stay home.
Now, if a factory was doing that, Ezra, we would go to them and say, you can't do that anymore.
We're saying to our good friends in Canada, you've got some of the same illness that we have in Wisconsin, or excuse me, in America with the corporate environmental groups, want to be preservationists.
Start managing your forest, deal with the arsonists and others, because it does have an impact on us.
And we want to be good neighbors along with you.
All right.
Well, your message is certainly being received.
And I appreciate the spirit of neighborliness that you're showing because I really, just as a personal confession, I have found the last six months to be a difficult time because I'm such an admirer of the United States.
And we're not used to quarreling with our best friends and neighbors.
And it's my hope that we can work together constructively.
I agree that you raise a very important issue.
We've raised it at Rebel News ourselves about terrible ideological mismanagement of forests.
And hopefully your letter will yield a positive response.
And by the way, fixing that problem, the number one beneficiaries of fixing that problem would be Canadians, of course.
So hopefully this will have a positive outcome, Congressman.
That's certainly the intent of the letter.
And I look forward to working with our good friends in Canada.
Right on.
Well, thanks for taking the time to meet with us today.
We've been talking with Congressman Tom Tiffany of the 7th District of Wisconsin.