Würgegriff an der letzten freien Presse in Canada

Dear Lothar Juergen,

Justin Trudeau’s government censorship panel just ruled that only 1% of what Rebel News publishes is news — so they won’t give us a government news licence.

Trudeau’s hand-picked censors say Rebel News journalists are not „qualified“ to be news media.

But it’s not just their idle opinion — they’re going to punish us for that.

Over the past year, Trudeau’s team of government censors „studied“ Rebel News in secret — they never reached out to us or spoke with us or interviewed us.

That secretive government censorship panel went through 276 of our news stories. And — incredibly — they ruled that „less than 1 per cent of the content meets the criteria for original news content.“

Huh?

That’s almost all we do. We’ve published 40,000 news stories.

We’re Rebel News, not Rebel Sports or Rebel Weather.

You really have to see their letter for yourself — click here to read the whole thing. It’s the most Orwellian thing you’ve ever seen.

So Trudeau’s government censorship panel says, because of that, we are not legally a „qualified Canadian journalism organization“ — or QCJO as they call it.

That’s a government journalism licence.

So, not only does this mean we’re not allowed to attend government press conferences, it also punishes us under the Income Tax Act.

If we don’t fight back now they’re going to destroy us, like Trudeau is doing more and more to his peaceful political opponents.

He wants to try to do to us what he did to the truckers — if he had his way he’d put us in jail and seize our bank accounts. Having a government panel declare, legally, that our journalists are not actually journalists is a step in that authoritarian direction.

So we’re suing Trudeau.

We filed the lawsuit today in the Federal Court of Canada.

I want you to see the letter sent to us by Trudeau’s government censorship panel, and I want you to see our lawsuit in reply. We’ve put both of them on a website, called www.WeAreSuingTrudeau.com.

Please read our lawsuit to learn just what they’ve done to us — and why we have to fight back.

Our lawsuit is only 16 pages long, and I think it’s in pretty plain language. It’s an anti-censorship lawsuit. The outcome of that lawsuit will affect every journalist in Canada — and every Canadian who wants to make their own news choices.

As you can see, Trudeau’s punishment letter to us comes on Revenue Canada stationery. That’s terrifying. In the past, Trudeau kept his politics out of the tax department. Not anymore. You now have to take a pro-Liberal, left-wing point of view to be compliant with the Income Tax Act.

Trudeau’s censors wrote, „Rebel News does not produce original news content, on the basis that the content was found to be largely opinion-based and focused on the promotion of one particular perspective“.

But the CRA has granted this QCJO journalism licence to the left-wing National Observer, the left-wing Toronto Star, the left-wing Narwhal, and dozens of others. They only approach the news from the hard-left-wing point of view — and in the case of the National Observer and Narwhal, they’re environmental extremists, too. So how do they get the CRA designation as licensed journalists, but not us?

But really: since when does anyone have to justify their journalism to government bureaucrats? So now our viewers can’t decide what’s real journalism — Trudeau’s hand-picked cronies get to decide.

A journalism licence is un-Canadian. It’s censorship. It’s against the Charter of Rights and Freedoms; it’s a violation of freedom of the press.

We’re obviously not applying for any government grants, which is a big thing you could get with a QCJO journalism licence. We would never take that money — we don’t work for Trudeau, we work for you.

But you need one of these journalism licences to issue a basic receipt to your paying subscribers, for them to claim as an expense on their taxes. So, if you have a subscription to the left-wing, pro-Trudeau Toronto Star, you can claim that subscription on your taxes. Because they have the Trudeau-approved journalism licence. Our viewers can’t. Because Trudeau doesn’t think we’re real news.

It’s an attack on people who have a different point of view than Trudeau.

And just this week, Trudeau’s censorship minister Pablo Rodriguez announced that there will be even more laws censoring the media. He says he’s going to demand that Facebook and Google artificially promote Canadian news sites, pumping them up in their algorithms.

But only Trudeau-approved media, with his journalism licence, get that. Other media, like Rebel News, will get pushed down.

So it’s not just Trudeau who is punishing journalists he doesn’t like. He’s forcing Facebook and Google to punish his enemies too.

I’ll let you read Trudeau’s whole letter for yourself — please click here. I just can’t get over that one line about us only producing 1% news. You really have to read it to see how extremist these people are.

But I want you to take hope in our lawsuit. And I want you to read it.

It documents how Trudeau’s staff refused our multiple requests to participate in their secret hearings. It shows how, while Trudeau is obsessed with censoring us, Rebel News has actually been accredited around the world.

And it proves that we don’t just take a particular point of view — we criticize so-called Conservatives like Jason Kenney and Doug Ford just as harshly as we criticize Justin Trudeau.

My favourite part of the lawsuit is paragraph 36. That’s where we demand a copy of all the records used by Trudeau’s censors: everything they reviewed to make their censorship decision, their briefing notes, their research and analysis; their conversations with politicians and their staff; their drafts. What was this secret committee doing? Who was whispering in their ears? Was Gerald Butts involved again?

That’s our lawsuit.

You can see we’ve hired two outstanding lawyers: Robert Hawkes, QC, and Sarah Miller, the top lawyer who has been fighting for Pastor Artur Pawlowski. Because this is a brutal battle against censorship.

Trudeau really does mean to stamp us out.

We don’t want any of Trudeau’s money.

We want our freedom and independence.

Trudeau’s journalism licence is un-Canadian; and denying it to us has the effect of censoring us.

We have to fight back. We have to take them to the Federal Court — where we’ve beat Trudeau’s censors twice in a row.

Please go to WeAreSuingTrudeau.com, read their punishment letter denying us their journalism licence, and read our lawsuit in reply. And if you can help us cover our legal costs, please do — you can do that right here on the page.

Thanks for your support. We’re fighting for our own rights here. We’re fighting for our viewers. But we’re also fighting for all Canadians who care about freedom of the press and stopping Trudeau’s censorship plans.

Yours truly,

Ezra Levant

P.S. Trudeau already controls 99% of Canada’s media. Why is he so obsessed with destroying the last few independent voices out there? I think I know why: because we prove to Canadians that not everyone agrees with the official narrative; we give people courage to think for themselves. They don’t feel alone.

P.P.S. It does feel hopeless sometimes. But remember: we beat Trudeau’s attempt to censor us in 2019 and 2021 in the Federal Court, when he tried to ban us from the election debates. I think we have a real chance of beating him again — please click here to help us if you can.

P.P.P.S. Please help us level the playing field. The last time we sued Trudeau, he literally hired seven lawyers to crush us (but we won). Please chip in to help our David v. Goliath battle again (thanks).

P.P.P.P.S. You can read both Trudeau’s censorship letter, and our lawsuit, by clicking here or going to www.WeAreSuingTrudeau.com.

Quelle