A statement of claim has been filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice against the RCMP, alleging that the January arrest of a Rebel News reporter is part of the police service’s pattern of behaviour toward the organization.
The statement says the claim by David Menzies and Rebel News is for false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, assault and battery, negligent investigation and breaches of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, including the fundamental freedom of the press. There was no cause for the arrest of Mr. Menzies, the statement says.
“RCMP have over the last few years, engaged in a pattern of intimidation and exclusion against Rebel News journalists, including Mr. Menzies,” says the statement, filed Tuesday.
The RCMP said it does not comment on continuing legal proceedings.
Mr. Menzies was arrested on Jan. 8 after he asked Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland why the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is not listed as a terrorist group while she was walking ahead of an event in Richmond Hill, Ont., to honour the victims of Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752.
Four years ago, the plane was shot down minutes after taking off from Tehran by two Iranian surface-to-air missiles. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has faced calls, including from the Conservatives, to name the IRGC as a terrorist group.
Ottawa-based defence attorney Lawrence Greenspon, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs, said Mr. Menzies’s arrest is “the most recent and most egregious example of the way that Rebel News reporters have been treated for quite some time.”
There has been a “campaign of exclusion of Rebel News reporters and a campaign of intimidation of those same reporters,” Mr. Greenspon said in an interview, noting this is why the damage claim is in excess of one million dollars.
“It constitutes, at least in my view, a violation of freedom of the press.”
The statement of claim makes reference to other incidents, including one in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. When Mr. Menzies sought to ask Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about his attendance at a large fundraiser, despite having asked Canadians to forego holiday gatherings, RCMP members assaulted the reporter, the statement says.
Mr. Menzies has commenced litigation against the RCMP over the 2020 incident, the statement adds.
Rebel News publisher Ezra Levant said Monday that the pattern of conduct against Rebel “goes right to Trudeau himself, and it has become normalized in the government.”
In a video of the January incident filmed by a Rebel News videographer, Mr. Menzies could be seen being confronted by a member of the RCMP after he approached Ms. Freeland. He is told he is under arrest for assault and can be seen later in the video recording being placed in handcuffs.
In the recording, Mr. Menzies can be seen saying that he didn’t “come here to cause trouble” and that he came to ask questions.
After the arrest, Clint Whitney, a spokesperson for York Regional Police, said Mr. Menzies was arrested by the RCMP security detail at the event in Richmond Hill.
A spokesperson for the RCMP confirmed that the force’s protective policing resources were involved in an incident while they were deployed on a protective operation involving Ms. Freeland. The force also said the RCMP was looking into the incident.
Ms. Freeland said at the time that operational decisions about law enforcement are taken by police of jurisdiction and that, “quite appropriately, political elected officials have no role in the taking of those decisions.”
Kristy Kirkup