A former lawyer to Stephen Harper and a long-time Ottawa insider, friend of the show Manny Montenegrino joined The Ezra Levant Show over the Christmas break for a wide-ranging discussion on Canadian politics.

One of the over-arching themes for this thorough conversation was the state of civil liberties in Canada.

With the Freedom Convoy protest and subsequent invocation of the Emergencies Act by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dominating the news this year, Manny told the host:

Imagine, Ezra, you or I could have given $20 to the cause of this liberation movement, or this rights return movement, and we would have had the state seizing our accounts, looking into us. I mean, this is — again, to a lawyer that's a Charter baby — I would have never thought any of this remotely would happen in Canada.

But it has. In a short, almost two generations, a short 40 years.

You know Ezra, J.F.K. once said that freedom and liberty are only one generation away from being lost. Well, in Canada, we're close to two generations away from it being lost — and it happened in my lifetime.

The full interview with Manny Montenegrino is available for subscribers to RebelNews+. Join today and get access to new episodes of The Ezra Levant Show, which air weeknights at 8 p.m. ET (6 p.m. M.T.)