Elections Alberta determines NDP candidate was Communist, rules no wrongdoing by Rebel

A “notice of investigation outcome" was served to our legal team this morning after the election cops in Alberta concluded an investigation into nuisance complaints regarding a billboard truck that took to the streets of Calgary in April of 2019.

That truck was one of the funniest things we did during the last provincial election campaign in Alberta.

My colleague at the time, Keean Bexte, was just so passionate about telling the world what the mainstream media wouldn't: that an actual communist was running for the NDP in a Calgary riding.

So, he rented a billboard truck that ran a video explaining the truth about Anne McGrath and her past as a federal Communist Party candidate back in the 1980s.

To add to the fun, the truck also played the Soviet national anthem, which naturally attracted interested onlookers.

McGrath lost and so did the NDP, and naturally the cry-baby complaints came as the losers tried to weaponize the elections bureaucrats to silence their critics, namely us here at Rebel News.

The complaints, we have just discovered, accused Rebel News and Keean Bexte of breaking elections finance laws as a third-party advertiser — which we are not.

We are journalists with opinions, just like the kind you may see in the editorial pages of the newspaper. We just express our opinions in a more fun way, like on the side of a video truck.
The complaints didn't end there, though.

We were also accused of making a false statement about McGrath when we labelled her "Notley's communist candidate."

Well, the ruling is an and no finance law was broken; Elections Alberta has ruled that calling McGrath a commie was not inaccurate.

The ruling, which specifically cites journalism as exempt from elections finance laws, noted that interviews and commentary regarding the issue were broadcast and published. Journalism happened that day.

And hilariously, the ruling closely examined if McGrath was an anti-capitalist collectivist and decided that she was.

Read the ruling for yourself below.

Another swing and a miss for the NDP activists!

They have already lost once, and I don't think the drones in the elections bureaucracy wanted to go another round with us.

The Elections commish — who has since been unceremoniously fired and his partisan position dissolved — also investigated me over a book I wrote that was critical of the NDP called Stop Notley.

That investigation was dropped after I recorded and published the investigator trying to press me into submitting to an interrogation.

The NDP lost in 2019, and they lost again today.

They refuse to learn the lesson that just because you don't like how it's reported, or by whom, doesn't mean it's not journalism.

This is still a country with a free press, for now.

The full ruling:

Sheila Gunn Reid

Chief Reporter

Sheila Gunn Reid is the Alberta Bureau Chief for Rebel News and host of the weekly The Gunn Show with Sheila Gunn Reid. She's a mother of three, conservative activist, and the author of best-selling books including Stop Notley.

https://twitter.com/SheilaGunnReid

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