Speaking to the massive crowd in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, on Saturday, Rebel News publisher Ezra Levant, an outspoken opponent of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, charged that the media would not report accurately what had transpired, urging rallygoers to “bear witness and testify to what they saw.” He countered the narrative put forth by some that the rally would feature a non-diverse crowd and could turn violent, arguing, “I’ve never seen a more diverse group of Canadians. They’re far from violence; people want to not be violated any more. Justin Trudeau says you’re extreme, but he’s the one who has violated our civil rights.”
Levant began by quipping in the brutally cold weather, “It is cold today. Almost as cold as Justin Trudeau’s heart.”
“I want to tell you what excites me the most about this crowd,” he continued, “I see a lot of cameras, a lot of independent journalists. Because when people say what do we do about the media, I say, you become the media, that’s what you do. … The news media is a party: the media party. It’s a subsidiary of the Liberal party. So you’ve got to tell the story yourselves. Everyone who is here, everyone who is around the road, has to bear witness and testify to what they saw, because there are two different competing narratives.”
“I’ve never seen a more diverse group of Canadians,” Levant declared. “They’re far from violence; people want to not be violated any more. Justin Trudeau says you’re extreme, but he’s the one who has violated our civil rights. He thinks we’re a ‘fringe,’ but that’s a pretty bloody big fringe.”
The Guardian had reported on Friday, “Ahead of Saturday’s protest in Ottawa, the prime minister, Justin Trudeau, dismissed the group as a ‘small fringe’ that held ‘unacceptable views’ and didn’t reflect the majority of Canadians.”
“Let me close by saying this,” Levant stated. “Someone asked me this morning, ‘What’s the point? What’s gonna happen? Why did we all gather in Ottawa? Is he (Trudeau) gonna listen? Is he gonna resign? Is the Governor-General gonna ask him to step down?’”
“No, he’ll hold on to power as hard as he can,” he asserted. “Let me tell you what I think the point is: The point is the convoy itself. To show that you’re not alone. To show that you’re not the crazy one; they are.”
“You already achieved your goal just by being here,” he asserted. “And the fact that millions of dollars came in to the GoFundMe for the truckers, even if they would have canceled that, it was still a success, because it was a measurement of how much people cared. You have succeeded just by being here. Good luck. Keep up the fight. Congratulations to the organizers, but really it was millions of Canadians around the way and in the convoy and watching today from home: tell them what happened; tell them what you saw, because they will not hear the truth from anyone else. Keep up the fight, everybody. Keep fighting for freedom!”
I was invited by the truckers to give a short speech. Here’s what I said: pic.twitter.com/ZYclZwDBtH
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) January 29, 2022