Rebel News Podcast

EZRA LEVANT | Viva Frei on the downfall of civil liberties: 'It's a world gone upside down.'

December 26th, 2023  |  53 mins 15 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Tonight, a heart-to-heart with one of the country's leading civil liberties advocates, a lawyer by trade, who is in exile because of the pandemic.

There are not a lot of lawyers left who care about liberty. For most, it's just a job. They have to pay the bills. Frankly, many lawyers don't want to take cases that are too spicy because it might disqualify them from a government contract. Certainly, they would lose the opportunity to be appointed to the bench and serve as a judge.

Because of this, in the early days of the pandemic, many Canadian lawyers were averse to representing an unvaccinated person or someone who was defying the lockdowns, which makes it an even greater pleasure to discover or rediscover the lawyers who do care deeply about civil liberties and are as troubled by the world as the rest of us.

One such lawyer, turned video blogger, has his roots in Montreal — perhaps the most locked-down city in all of Canada. From 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. was its typical curfew, whether you were vaxxed or not, whether you were sick or not.

The civil liberties inferno was outrageous and too few lawyers cared. But this lawyer, David Freiheit, known online as Viva Frei, was pained deeply by it all. He joins Ezra tonight from Florida, his current residence after his refusal to abide by lockdown orders forced him to abandon his position at the bar in Quebec and depart from Canada altogether.

His licence to practice law is one of the many things he's had to sacrifice but his passion for liberty has not diminished: "I've gone from being a lawyer to just being an internet legal critic, loudmouth guy who screams to the clouds at what I think are the most outrageous injustices I've seen, at least in my lifetime."

GUEST: Viva Frei, Canadian lawyer and political content creator.

EZRA LEVANT | HOLIDAY SPECIAL: Reading YOUR year-end letters to Rebel!

December 25th, 2023  |  56 mins 14 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Thank you very much for spending 2023 with us. It was an incredible year, a terrible year, a wonderful year — a good year for Rebel News and so many bad projects. It's been a dangerous year for the world but, hopefully, some of these letters will be fun, so let's get right to it.

EZRA LEVANT | Ezra Levant attends Vivek Ramaswamy's Iowa trucker townhall

December 22nd, 2023  |  30 mins 21 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Tonight, Ezra reports from a truck stop in Iowa!

Why? Well, it all started a few days ago with a direct message on Twitter from one of the candidates in the United States Republican primary race.

Vivek Ramaswamy is not a name that most Americans knew a year ago but in the last few months, he's caught fire, in large part due to his high-energy debate performances and strong Trump-like policy portfolio. He's had some incredible moments, not just sparring with other Republican candidates like Nikki Haley, but also taking it to journalists in a way that we haven't seen, well, since Trump. He doesn't shy away from the press.

So Ezra has travelled all the way down to Iowa to see for himself at Vivek Ramaswamy's trucker townhall, and he's ready to show you a little bit about his day on the trail of a U.S. presidential campaign.

GUEST: Vivek Ramaswamy, U.S. Republican presidential candidate.

EZRA LEVANT | Trudeau never forgets an enemy — that's why Ottawa took Freedom Convoyers to court

December 21st, 2023  |  47 mins 50 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Tonight, Ezra reminisces the 2022 Freedom Convoy while assessing the state of Canada's civil liberties as we approach 2024.

EZRA LEVANT | The public may be getting sick of the Hamas hate marches but Trudeau isn't

December 20th, 2023  |  34 mins 49 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Tonight, the public is getting sick of the Hamas hate marches — but not Trudeau.

There’s a new poll out about the mayor of Calgary, the hard left-wing Jyoti Gondek. One of the very first things she did after becoming mayor of Calgary — a city built on the oil and gas industry — was to declare a "climate emergency." That — not taxes or Calgary’s homelessness problem or unemployment or violence on the streets — was her top priority.

It has gone from bad to worse. She has brought in laws that are surely unconstitutional and banned peaceful protests against transgenderism. The other day, police arrested two men for having a private conversation about transgenderism. The charges were later dropped, but only after lawyers from The Democracy Fund got involved.

She has been hated by Calgarians since the day she was elected and even more since the Hanukkah event debacle.

The community menorah lighting ceremony has been a Calgary tradition going back a generation, and it is about as innocuous as can be; it's like lighting Christmas lights on a Christmas tree but with a Jewish candelabra.

Gondek refused to go. When the Jewish community leaders asked her to reject it quietly, she did the opposite: she put out a press release denouncing the menorah lighting as a political statement in support of Israel and against Hamas.

She did the math: Calgary has maybe 10,000 Jews in it but more than 100,000 Muslims.

A lot of politicians are doing that math. People can see it, and they don’t like it.

This new poll captures in part the public reaction to Gondek's antisemitic boycott of the menorah lighting ceremony: Calgarians disapprove of her by more than a two-to-one margin.

Gondek and Trudeau are a lot alike. Trudeau is also willing to put up with antisemitism and support terrorism if it means he'll win.

But as the Hamas hate marches continue in cities across Canada, week after week, Canadians are beginning to notice. They notice the terrorist paraphernalia and flags and see blocked roads and bridges in places like Toronto and Montreal. Just this week, Hamas supporters stormed into a mall, shouting threats of murder at terrified Christmas shoppers.

Canadians don't like that.

And so, when they’re asked about Islam, 43% think it’s a negative force.

That is not preferable for anyone, least of all Canadian Muslims, who see that the face of the Muslim community is becoming these masked thugs and that their voice is now threats shouted in an Arabic accent.

But Trudeau loves it. He loves his plan to bring in 1.6 million migrants this year — a million more Liberal voters.

The people are expressing their discontent in these polls. The time has come for political entrepreneurs to get ahead of it and call for a reduction of mass immigration, especially from immigrants who do not share Canadian values of peace, freedom, and pluralism.

GUEST: Kris Sims of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation breaks down the upcoming new taxes from the Trudeau Liberals in 2024.

EZRA LEVANT | Hamas supporter repeatedly issues death threats while the police stand by. Is it cowardice? Is it fear?

December 19th, 2023  |  42 mins 19 secs

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Tonight, the police see a Hamas supporter issue a death threat repeatedly and just let him walk away.

A few weeks ago, a London pro-Hamas march turned on a McDonald's and threatened the people inside. They didn't smash windows or storm the place but there was genuine rage against the establishment. The only explanation that's been offered is that one McDonald's location reportedly gave free sandwiches to Israeli soldiers, meaning that somehow the entire chain must be anti-Palestinian.

This kind of behaviour is medieval in its superstition and stupidity. The people in this McDonald's in London were like any Londoners; they were of every race and religion, including Muslims. But this rage at an inanimate object — at McDonald's — shows just how maniacal the hatred was on the streets.

You might think that stunts like this will win Hamas supporters a lot of enemies, not friends — similar to when they block subway stations or highways. But the real purpose of their actions is to intimidate, to cause chaos, to tire people out so that they say, "Fine, whatever. I'll give you whatever you want if you'll stop the social upheaval."

No one is making thoughtful arguments when they chant, "Free Palestine! From the river to the sea...! A global solution...!" because the goal is not to persuade, it's to terrify, to show the public that they are the new dominant force.

They're not trying to persuade you of the righteousness of the Palestinian cause. They're trying to persuade you, rather, that if you don't submit to them, they will bring this kind of pain and chaos into your life.

GUEST: Featuring David Menzies' latest TransMadness.com report on the 50-year-old biological male competing in teen girls' swim competitions and using their change rooms.

EZRA LEVANT | Justin Trudeau doesn't care about the consequences of mass immigration, and Canadians are paying for it

December 18th, 2023  |  39 mins 50 secs

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Tonight, Ezra delves into the repercussions of Justin Trudeau's mass immigration policy. According to the Bank of Canada, the Trudeau Liberals are jacking up housing prices courtesy of immigration.

Ezra Levant | Free speech is on fire in Ireland: in-depth with Gript Media's Ben Scallan

December 15th, 2023  |  44 mins 41 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Tonight, Ezra is joined once again by Ben Scallan, a reporter for Gript Media, to discuss the roots and fiery aftermath of the recent unrest in Gript's backyard, the country of Ireland.

Ireland is made up of just over 5 million people but, in so many ways, it's going through the same battles as other countries in the West: mass immigration without assimilation, globalist control as opposed to national sovereignty and, of course, political correctness and wokeness demonizing anyone who dares to think contrary to the official narrative. As of just last month, the country has been on fire as a result.

A window into the world of Ireland comes from the independent journalism outfit Gript Media, built to submit the news unfiltered, especially if it challenges the consensus. Joining Ezra tonight is one of their correspondents, Ben Scallan, to tell the other side of Ireland's storm of controversy and how the regime media is refusing to cover things that are "unhelpful" to their narratives.

GUEST: Ben Scallan, political correspondent for Gript Media.

Rebel Roundup | Trudeau in BC, Toronto's plan to cancel Henry Dundas, Rebel Viewers Choice Awards

December 15th, 2023  |  54 mins 47 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Today, we're looking at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's visit to British Columbia last night, where hundreds of protesters gathered outside of a hotel where the Liberal leader was holding a fundraising dinner.

Plus, Ezra Levant launched a new petition fighting to Save Dundas Street in Toronto, where the city is planning to remove the Dundas name because the historic Scottish politician failed to move fast enough for modern sensibilities in his effort to abolish slavery.

And finally, Ezra will unveil the winner of the Rebel News Viewers Choice Awards.

EZRA LEVANT | If you can damn a founding father of Canada, you condemn the memory of anyone else in Toronto

December 14th, 2023  |  49 mins 29 secs

alberta, canada, conservative, culture, ezra levant, news, politics, pop culture, rebel, trudeau, trump

Tonight, Ezra picks apart cancel culture in Toronto amid the city's push to rename Dundas Street – at grave cost to taxpayers.