Live Updates: Rebel News in Federal Court challenging Trudeau's unconstitutional journalism licence
Rebel News CEO Ezra Levant is in Federal Court in downtown Toronto this morning challenging Justin Trudeau's unconstitutional "journalism licence."
Trudeau's hand-picked censorship panel previously declared that Rebel News journalists aren't 'real' journalists based off a secretive government censorship panel's 'research' on 276 stories from Rebel News.
The panel declared that βlessΒ than 1% of the content meets the criteria for original news content.β Rebel News is now fighting back in Federal Court.
Follow along below for live updates:
Court is adjourned! Judges says she'll issue a written decision.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Hawkes refers to the leaders debates, and how Trudeau's henchmen there just won't give Rebel News a reasonable hearing.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Hawkes: numerous examples of how the advisory committee misapplied the rules. No evidence they even looked at Rebel News submissions.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Hawkes points out that Trudeau's advisory committee excluded any interviews as original journalism. (So bizarre). Hawkes points out that's contrary to the rules. So obviously, right there, a lot more of our journalism "counts" with the CRA. That one error alone nuked us.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Now Trudeau's lawyer, Bridges, is telling the judge how journalism is done. "It's not about putting a microphone to a person across the street".
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Huh?
Bridges: in the first review, Rebel News only does 1% news; in the second review, Rebel News does 2% news.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Sorry, anyone who says that is insane.
Holy smokes. Bridges just told the judge to order costs against us -- to make us pay Trudeau for daring to blow the whistle on him.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Bridges said that our opinions are not based on facts.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Huh? Trudeau has sent a lawyer to court to argue that our opinions are wrong.
I swear to God, that's what she just told the judge.
Astonishing. Trudeau's lawyer Bridges claims that 99% of what we publish isn't news. She literally said that, I swear.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Bizarre: the CRA says some of our reports did not have a byline, so they're not real news. (A byline is the name of who wrote it.)
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Every news outlet, on occasion, chooses not to publish a byline, sometimes for security reasons. How does that stop it from being a news story?
Hawkes points out that Trudeau's hand-picked journalism regulators didn't look at our social media output -- our hundreds of thousands of tweets.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Hawkes refers to, in particular, our courtroom live-tweeting, which we do probably more than anyone else in Canada.
In any event, journalistic advocacy is still journalism. (Obviously; every newspaper in Canada has an op-ed section.) Hawkes cites the case where Rebel News and Truth North sued Trudeau's debates commission, claiming we were advocates: https://t.co/bvjL2QzCh9
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Trudeau's journalism advisors are stupid or deceitful. They claim when we re-write foreign news (e.g. "Putin invades Ukraine") by citing foreign news sources, that isn't original journalism, so it disqualifies us.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
No Canadian media company has reporters in Ukraine.
When the CRA claimed we didn't report news, we sent them 200 examples of news. (Since our founding, we've produced 60,000+ news reports.) They ignored them, didn't contact us, and just banned us.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
They were following Trudeau's orders.
Here's our memorandum of fact and law -- our legal brief. There's a little bit of legal jargon in it, but I actually think it's a really easy-to-read summary of our case, and how abusive Trudeau's hand-picked "journalistic advisors" are: https://t.co/iVzcu2uv7y
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
Trudeau has two lawyers here from the Attorney General's office. I said hello to them when I walked in but I'm uncertain of their last names. (I'll get them later.)
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
There is no-one else in the courtroom other than staff. No free speech groups, no journalism groups, no civil liberties groups.
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
You'd think another reporter would find this newsworthy.
But 99.9% of Canadian journalists are on Trudeau's payroll, and are part of the system.
BREAKING: Rebel News is in Federal Court this morning, challenging Justin Trudeau's unconstitutional journalism licence. Here is some background on the case: https://t.co/tuVd2TaE5o
β Ezra Levant ππ (@ezralevant) June 17, 2024
I'll be live-tweeting throughout the day, and will have three video reports.
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