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CALGARY, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) – The head of independent media outlet Rebel News says police ordered his organization to hand over video footage from a protest in May involving Canadian high school student Josh Alexander, which he says is in direct contravention of the criminal code.
In a 25-minute video posted to Rumble last weekend, Rebel News founder Ezra Levant explained that Calgary Police Service “raided Rebel News” and went to court “secretly. Ex parte is the legal word.”
“We weren’t invited to be there, and they said something to a judge,” he noted.
Levant said that Rebel News has not been “able to see it and the judge issued an order demanding that we hand over footage that we haven’t published to the Calgary police.”
The video in question, which a lower Alberta court appeared to order Rebel News to hand over, concerns a May 17 protest in Calgary involving Josh Alexander. Rebel News was onsite at the protest to cover the event as was other independent media.
On May 17 at Western Canada High School in Calgary, Alexander was arrested by members of the Calgary Police for staging a protest against gender ideology in schools. Last year, he was kicked out of his Ontario Catholic school for saying there are only two genders, male and female.
He was later released, but not after he was detained for speaking out against transgender ideology and for handing out Bibles, some of which were burned by transgender activists.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, Calgary Police eventually charged a Black Lives Matter (BLM) activist with a hate crime for pushing Alexander during the Calgary protest, with Alexander himself remaining uncharged with a crime.
Rebel News: Police got it wrong. Only the Supreme Court can order a journalist to hand over information
Levant, in his video, said that Rebel News got a production order dated August 2 from the Alberta Court of Justice’s Criminal Division so that it could acquire the unpublished footage from the protest.
According to Levant, Peace Officer Bradley Milne went to the “wrong court,” or a lower court than what is legally required by Canadian law to obtain information from a journalist. As it stands, only Canada’s Supreme Court has the power to request a production order for information from a journalist.
Levant said that this is a serious “matter reserved for the court in Alberta, called the Court of King’s Bench, and a different judge has to do it to a different legal standard.”
He noted that Officer Milne “got it wrong,” and that the “judge got it wrong, and so it’s illegal.”
The judge in question, Justice E.J. Tolppanen of the Alberta Court of Justice, told Rebel News that they had “reasonable grounds to believe that the following offences have been committed: sexual assault, assault, unlawful confinement, mischief by damage under $5,000, and theft under $5,000 and that the following documents and or data is in the possession or control of Rebel News will afford evidence respecting commission of the offences, specifically: audio recordings, video recordings, and photographs.”
He wrote that as a result, Rebel News was ordered to “produce a document that is a true copy of said documents or data that in your possession or control,” and, the “document must be produced to in a readable and usable form to Bradley Milne no later than 30 days from the date this Order is served.”
The order also stated that the following conditions apply: those being that Rebel News “have the right to apply to revoke or vary this order, b) if you contravene this order without lawful excuse, you may be subject to a fine, to imprisonment, or both.”
Levant said that the issue in question is not that they do not want to assist police involving allegations of a serious crime, saying, “Obviously we’re against crimes, especially the crimes listed there.”
He mentioned that the fact is Rebel News does not have any “secret recordings.”
“We recorded the events in question, and we published almost half an hour of footage,” he said.
“The police were there, and they saw everything. They chose not to film the criminals, or the criminal suspects, because they were too busy abusing the conservatives in the crowd.”
Levant observed that there was nothing stopping Calgary police from videoing “everything” themselves.
“We videoed everything and we published nearly half an hour of it, but this cop is demanding that we hand over everything and he’s saying that if we don’t do it, well the judge gave him an order saying we could literally be in prison,” he said.
“But we don’t do that. See when we go to cover the news, it’s critically important that everyone know we’re there on our own accord. We’re not there as agents of the police. We’re not there as snitches or narcs or feds.”
Levant then said that even government journalists have enough “self-respect to fight back and say to police ‘no you can’t have our work, because we are not agents of the state.’”
“It’s not like we’re a closed-circuit TV security camera. We’re journalists.’ We do not work for anyone other than our own viewers and our own consciences,” he said.
Legal notice sent to court stating police order does not comply with ‘Code’
Rebel News lawyer Sarah Miller sent the court a response in the form of a legal notice dated August 29 in which she advised the lower Alberta court that “the Production Order fails to comply with the criminal code.”
As such, the “purported service of Rebel News by email fails to comply with the code and the Alberta rules of court.”
“An order under any section knows that the application relates to a journalist’s communications or an object, document or data relating to or in the possession of a journalist, they shall make the application to a judge of a superior court of criminal jurisdiction,” Miller added.
She then wrote that Justice Tolppanen is not a “judge of a superior court, and therefore lacks jurisdiction to issue.”
“Finally, the court may consider the integrity of journalistic activities in freedom of the press from undue government interference when deciding an application of this nature,” she said.
Miller then asked that the production order be revoked for being in “non-compliance with the code.”
On September 19, Rebel News will appear in court regarding the production order.
As for Alexander, he has continued to protest radical gender ideology moving its way into Canada’s education system.
Earlier this month, an Ontario court ruled in favor of Alexander, saying the Catholic school board which suspended him because he said there are only two genders must hear his appeals regarding his many suspensions.
Send an urgent message to Canadian legislators and courts telling them to uphold parental rights.