Go Ad Free

On Friday’s episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra revealed that Tim Hortons has threatened legal action if Rebel News keeps asking their managers questions.

Jon Domanko, Vice-President of Legal for The TDL Group Corp. — the corporate entity that licenses and controls Tim Hortons restaurants across Canada — has sent Rebel News a letter accusing its personnel of "demonstrating a pattern of attending Tim Hortons restaurant premises and confronting team members and guests on camera, without consent and without warning."

Except that has never happened. When Ezra Levant visited a North York Tim Hortons recently, he immediately identified himself, stated who he was with, and asked to speak to a manager. When asked to leave, he left. David Menzies did similarly.

After receiving the notice, Tamara Ugolini visited a Tim Hortons location while remaining entirely off the property — and the company still called the police. Officers responded promptly, assessed the situation, and left without interfering. Because nothing illegal was happening.

None of that mattered to Tim Hortons' lawyers. The letter now permanently bans Rebel News Network and all persons acting on its behalf from every Tim Hortons restaurant, drive-thru, parking lot, distribution facility, and corporate office in Canada.

And not just for journalistic purposes. David Menzies is apparently banned even from buying a coffee.

The letter also contains this remarkable line: "Legitimate inquiries about Tim Hortons can be directed to our communications team at any time." So Tim Hortons' corporate lawyers have appointed themselves the arbiters of what constitutes a "legitimate" journalistic inquiry. Questions about TFW hiring practices apparently do not qualify.

Here is what does qualify as legitimate: at least 90 Tim Hortons locations are still actively recruiting Temporary Foreign Workers, according to the federal government's own job bank. Some of those postings are for entry-level positions. Some are for management roles. This is happening at the same time Tim Hortons ran a public relations campaign announcing it was committed to hiring "local" workers — a word that, notably, carries no immigration status definition whatsoever.

Meanwhile, youth unemployment in Canada has climbed to nearly 15 percent. Tim Hortons' brand is built almost entirely on Canadian identity — the flag, the history, the mythology of hockey rinks and double-doubles. The gap between that marketing and its actual hiring record is exactly the kind of story that journalists are supposed to investigate.

Rebel News has now sent Tim Hortons 17 detailed questions, including how many TFWs and international students the company currently employs, who is responsible for placing those government job postings, when Tim Hortons last lobbied the federal government and what it lobbied for, and whether the company intends to take down its remaining TFW job ads.

The customers on the street in North York had no problem answering a simpler version of the question: every single person asked said they believed Tim Hortons should be hiring Canadian workers instead.

Rebel News will continue to report on this story. A legal threat is not an answer, and "no comment" is not a press strategy that holds up when the public is watching.