Quebec’s atrocious legal system pursued a 'vendetta-driven' case against our reporter... and lost

Tonight, Ezra Levant has good news to share with Rebels from around the globe. After two and a half years in court, we won another court battle in Quebec against Montreal's tyrannical COVID restrictions.

From Trudeau’s RCMP shooting our Quebec reporter Alexa Lavoie with a riot gun, to his bodyguards beating up our reporter David Menzies, we've become accustomed to justice moving slowly in Canada. 

But with Quebec, in particular, we've had to exercise a greater degree of caution.

For a province that claims to care so much about civil liberties, I should tell you, dear viewer, that that's a lie.

From sentencing their entire population to house arrest — even for the healthy, regardless of their vaccination status — they imposed a stupid, unreasonable, unscientific curfew in the name of health.

By banning people from leaving their homes after dark, untold damage on the financial and mental health of all peoples took its toll on households. 

Don’t ever let a Quebec journalist, politician, lawyer or judge tell convince you they care about protecting your civil liberties. They put their entire province on lockdown, like a prison ward.

And none of them complained. 

Now this all happened in the spring of 2021. So you might think that the government had moved on, that it had better things to do with their time and resources, and the court’s time, and the judges’ time.

But you’d be wrong. Literally two and a half years after that madness, well, the madness continued. The government of Quebec made the calm, rational decision to prosecute our journalist. This isn’t the heat of the moment thing, where the cops didn’t know what was up. This was years later — the government wanted to get us. And they actually had a trial.

And that, my friends, is my story today.

 I have in front of me the judgement, issued by the court. I’m told the verdict was in English, but that it was translated into French for the official version. That’s Quebec for you, I guess.

Seriously. This was important enough to take up a day of court in 2023.

Now, I’m not going to read the whole thing — you can see it on our website. You can put it through google translate yourself. But let me read a bit more.

[7] The offense alleged against Mr. Fizzard is one of strict liability, for
which the prosecutor does not have to demonstrate that a defendant intended to infringe
the law. However, when the prosecutor has discharged his burden of proof, a
defendant can claim that he took all reasonable means not to infringe
the law, or that he benefits from an exception or exemption permitted by law or
decree. It is then up to him to demonstrate, by preponderance of evidence, that this
exception or exemption applies to his situation.

[8] The Court emphasizes that the essential elements of the offense that the prosecutor
must prove beyond a reasonable doubt are: the identification of the defendant and his
presence outside his residence during curfew hours. A defendant does not
to raise a reasonable doubt having regard to all the evidence as to one of
these elements in order to be acquitted of the offense. It can also be demonstrated by
preponderance of evidence that one of the exceptions provided for in the decree applies.
Mr. Fizzard admits the facts, but maintains that he was in the execution of his work
journalist for Rebel News.

So it’s pretty simple, isn't it. The police know he had an exemption. They just said that Rebel News isn’t real news. They just refused to believe it, refused to accept it. And the prosecutors agreed.

At the very beginning of the pandemic, the Quebec government established a state of emergency,
and decrees the suspension of all activity in the workplace, except for those where priority services are offered." Among these, we find the media and
telecommunications, including national and local media.

So there you have it. The media were exempt. Again, I think that’s gross — everyone has the same rights; why should a fancy elite be exempt? But we were.

Now let me skip down a bit, it gets interesting. Look at this.

A group of people are arrested for offenses related to curfew,
wearing a mask and non-compliance with the distancing required by health measures.
During his arrest, Mr. Fizzard was in the presence of three other people,
and all claim to be journalists employed by Rebel News. In his report, the
police officer indicates that their presence outside during curfew is not part of
the list of exceptions because there were no media events to cover in the
sector at this time and the far-right Rebel News website is not a source
from recognized media.

Did you get that? The police are deciding what is a media event and what isn’t. They said there was nothing to cover. And we’re “far right”, so they didn’t have to grant us the media exemption. Can you believe that? I can. And the fact that this was pursued by the prosecution for 30 months shows they agree. How gross is that?

And look at this snobbery here:

Questioned about his status as a journalist during the trial, Mr. Fizzard admits
not having done any study for this job, since before being hired at Rebel News,
he was a cook. It therefore appears that no training is required to be able to
grant yourself the title of journalist and obtain accreditation from “Independent Press
Gallery of Canada.

As in, Sydney didn’t go to journalism school. What do you think they teach at journalism school? They teach left-wing ideology.

So, luckily, no, you don’t have to spend four years being indoctrinated in order to have the right to film what police are doing in the dead of night to poor Montrealers. Oh and he was a cook before he worked for us. How dare a mere cook have the audacity to think he can be a journalist.

And look at this. Just embarrassing:

At the time of the events, none of the people arrested with the defendant
use equipment normally used for reporting. They just film
police intervention using their cell phones. Moreover, it is clear that their presence at
outside during curfew mainly aims to provoke police intervention
to film it and offer it as a report to Rebel News.

Oh is that a fact. So these experts are telling us what we can or can’t use as cameras? I put it to you, the camera in a basic smartphone in 2023 is far superior to a quarter million dollar TV camera from ten years ago. And you can edit it right from your phone, too.

What a bunch of technologically illiterate buffoons. You can’t do journalism with just a cell phone!

And there you have it.

[27] Furthermore, in several court decisions, the identification of Rebel News
as media is not called into question°. The Court cannot therefore conclude, as
the policeman said, that it is not a recognized media outlet. In our country, freedom
expression is protected by our laws, whether or not we agree with the opinions
expressed. Consequently, and although the defendant's behavior during the
curfew is perplexing, the fact remains that the evidence indicates that Rebel News
probably assigned to Quebec to cover this event if we are to believe the documents filed as evidence by the defense, without objections from the DPCP. In
this context, the Court cannot conclude that Mr. Fizzard was not in
the exercise of his “journalistic” functions during his arrests.
FOR THESE REASONS, THE TRIBUNAL:
THE DEFENDANT is acquitted of the offenses charged.

In our country, freedom of the press is the law. No matter if a cop thinks there’s no news to cover. No matter if a prosecutor thinks our camera is too small. NO matter if a judge finds our journalism “perplexing”.

That’s the law. Freedom of the press. And the case was dropped.

How much money did that foolishness just burn up?

That is just one of about a dozen cases we’re fighting right now. You can help us at JournalistDefenceFund.com, No other journalists are put through this. No-one at the CBC, or the rest of the media party.

Because they are obedient. They agree with the curfew. They are propagandists for the regime, not critics of it. If the cops told them there was nothing to report on, they’d obey.

And that’s why they’ll never report on this court victory — or the embarrassing and gross prosecution of our reporter in the first place.

Because really: if any given journalist at the CBC had been the judge here, we’d have been convicted.