On Monday (8th January), a journalist named David Menzies was arrested by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) on dubious charges of ‘assault’ after he asked tough questions to the Deputy Prime Minister of Canada Chrystia Freeland.
Menzies is the Mission Specialist at Rebel News, a Canada-based independent news outfit that has been hounded several times by the Justin Trudeau-led-Liberal Party government.
In a video that has now surfaced on social media, David Menzies was seen asking Chrystia Freeland about the government’s inaction against rising Islamo-nationalism in the country. “How come the IRGC (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) is not a terrorist group?” he had inquired.
An RCMP officer, standing in the vicinity, blocked the path of the Rebel News journalist, resulting in Menzies bumping into him. The enraged cop then manhandled Menzies and arrested him for ‘assault.’ The journalist was mobbed by other officers and taken away in a paddy wagon.
The incident took place in the Richmond Hill suburb of Toronto city in Ontario province of Canada. While speaking about the matter, Menzies said, “I came here to do my job, and now I’m handcuffed. Welcome to (Justin Trudeau)’s Canada. This is what they do to journalists.”
“I was merely trying to scrum Minister Freeland and the RCMP officer blocked me, and evidently this is a trumped-up charge of assault, folks. I came here to do my job and now I’m handcuffed,” he added.
“Meanwhile, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is not a terrorist organization, and these Liberals have the audacity to show up at a vigil where Canadians were killed…It’s against the law to ask impolite questions,” the Rebel News journalist emphasised.
Justin Trudeau and his disdain for Rebel News
This is however not the first time that Justin Trudeau hounded Rebel News through government agencies. In April 2022, the Canadian government denied ‘journalism licence’ to Rebel News, claiming that only 1% of its content is news.
In September 2021, the independent news outlet was also denied accreditation for covering 2021 federal election debates but it managed to get a ruling in its favour from a federal court.
Justin Trudeau has been upfront about his disdain for Rebel News. On being asked about his attempts to censor the news outfit, he justified, “The reality is, organizations – organizations like yours – that continue to spread misinformation and disinformation on the science around vaccines…”
He blamed Rebel News for fuelling mass protests by truckers against his government. “Frankly your – I won’t call it a media organization – your group of individuals need to take accountability for some of the polarization that we’re seeing in this country,” the Canadian Prime Minister brazened it out.
Justin Trudeau has been the blue-eyed hero of the global left-liberal ecosystem for supposedly championing the cause of ‘free speech’ and ‘press freedom.’ As is often the case with such ‘liberal leaders’, the Canadian Prime Minister’s crusade in support of freedom of speech is based on political convenience.