Rebel News celebrates 10 years of telling “The Other Side of The Story”

Rebel News 10th Anniversary Party. Photo: Bruce Forsyth.

October 2025

Rebel News celebrated the 10th anniversary of their founding in Toronto, Ontario, on 16 October. Originally known as The Rebel, Rebel News was founded as an internet-based news outlet by Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley, out of the ashes of the Sun News Network, where they both worked for almost 4 years.

Sun News Network was a cable-based news channel, launched with great fanfare on 18 April 2011, partly owned by Sun Media Corporation and using some political columnists from their newspaper arm as on-air presenters. Having a primarily conservative political opinion, just like their newspapers, Sun News was quickly branded by critics as “Fox News North, ” a reference to the American Fox Network, even though Sun News also had a cast of liberal-leaning guest commentators on their roster. The refusal of Canada’s telecom regulator, the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission, to grant Sun News Network Category 1 broadcast status, spelt the end for the fledging news channel.

Granting Category 1 status would have given Sun News the same status as CTV News Channel and CBC News Network, requiring all Canadian digital television providers to offer Sun News to their customers, thus enabling it to compete on a level playing field.

No longer being able to sustain operating losses any further, Sun News Network went off the air at 5 am on 13 February 2015. Immediately afterwards, Levant, along with Lilley and several other former Sun News employees, set about starting Rebel News, literally in Levant’s living room, using some equipment they were able to buy from Sun News.

Operating using a subscriber and crowd-funding model, along with revenue from video streaming services like You Tube and Rumble, Rebel News has produced thousands of videos, ranging from short videos, to traditional program-length content, to feature-length documentary videos. With bureaus across Canada, America, the United Kingdom and Australia, Rebel News has always held true to their values of telling, “The other side of the story (their motto),” telling the stories the legacy-news media outlets won’t cover; telling the story, wherever it takes their reporters, regardless of any political affiliations, all proudly without any corporate or government funding, unlike the “Media Party,” as Levant calls the legacy media.

Despite having a conservative political editorial stance, Rebel News reporters will go after Conservative politicians a vigorously as Liberal politicians when needed, both in the studio and out in the field. Rebel News reporters have covered most of the major news stories over the past 10 years, sometimes at great peril to themselves, with their field reporters being frequently subjected to verbal and physical attacks by numerous left-wing radical organizations, including the ironically-named Antifa, the LGBT mafia, pro-Hamas radicals and even police officers, forcing Rebel News to routinely hire private security guards to protect their reporters.

Amongst the assaults endured by Rebel reporters:

Quebec-based reporter Alexandra “Alexa” Lavoie, was shot at point blank by a police riot gun while covering the Trucker Protest in Ottawa in February 2022. More recently, Lavoie was assaulted by an Antifa thug after confronting Gabriel Lepage, a civilian employee with the Department of National Defence in Montreal. Lavoie was attempting to get a comment regarding the two smoke bombs Lepage threw inside Ministerios Restauración Church in Montreal in July 2025, where American Christian singer Sean Feucht was performing. It was through Lavoie’s investigation that Lapage was quickly identified, something none of the “Media Party” organizations were apparently interested in doing because of Feucht’s MAGA affiliation.

Alberta Bureau Chief Sheila Gunn Reid was assaulted by “male feminist” Dion Bews, while covering a rally held at the Alberta legislature in support of the Women’s March on Washington in January 2017. Former Rebel News reporter Keean Bexte, co-founder of friendly-competitor news outlet Juno News, was assaulted by Trans activist Jessica Yaniv in January 2020, when Bexte tried to interview him outside the provincial court in Surrey, British Columbia, where Yaniv was facing two criminal charges for possession of an unauthorized weapon.

In addition to the occasional assault, reporter David “The Menzoid” Menzies has been arrested on five different occasions for nothing more than practicing journalism and asking the uncomfortable questions that need to be asked.

Levant himself was arrested at a pro-Israel rally at the intersection of Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue, a predominantly Jewish neighbourhood in North York, for nothing more exercising his Constitutional right to stand on a public sidewalk where pro-Hamas agitators had gathered to intimidate the Jewish residents gathered there. In the opinion of Toronto Police Staff Sergeant Jeffery MacDuff, Levant’s arrest was necessary because his “…mere presence was inciting a breach of the peace by the pro-Hamas activists…” This was in spite of a court ruling, Fleming v Ontario (2019), where the Supreme Court of Canada unanimous ruling that police and peace officers can’t arrest a lawful person, who is doing nothing illegal, just because someone else may breach the peace. In other words, you can’t punish the victim.

Australian Bureau Chief Avi Yemini, a veteran of the Israeli Defence Force, has been assaulted on numerous occasions, a number that would be higher if not for the great work of private security guard Daniel Jones, who was once arrested by Australian police for his efforts.

Alberta-based reporter Sydney Fizzard was assaulted earlier this month by Global News cameraman Darrel Patton at Universal Ostrich Farms, in British Columbia, when Patton took exception to a Rebel News reporter being at the site.

Citizen Journalism

A notable distinction for Rebel News is their advocacy for, and practice of, citizen journalism. Amongst the many legal battles Rebel News has fought over the years is the insinuation that they aren’t “real journalists” because they aren’t part of the legacy media. These critics argue that only “real” journalists have proper editorial control and journalistic integrity, something that Levant refutes.

Currently, the only reporter/commentator who did go to journalism school is Menzies. Even Levant, who has worked as a political commentator for over two decades, trained as a lawyer, not a journalist.

Levant counters that journalism isn’t a exclusive club limited only to those who went to journalism school and go on to work for a legacy media outlet. Anyone with a camera and the desire to publish their material for the world to see is a journalist.

Rebel News frequently include their source material in their reporting, and while frequently providing their opinions when publishing a report, challenge anyone who disputes their reporting to view the source material themselves and draw their own conclusions.

Rebel News has also been criticized by their detractors for pushing right-wing conspiracists theories. Well, as we all learned over the years, especially during COVID, today’s conspiracy theory is tomorrow’s government press release confirming its truth.

Many of the on-air presenters who joined Levant those first days in his house to launch Rebel News have moved on, leaving only “Rebel Commander” Levant and “Mission Specialist” Menzies, a fellow Sun News veteran, from that original crew, although Shelia Gunn Reid joined not long after Rebel’s founding.

Here’s to another 10 years and beyond for Rebel News. Congratulations to Rebel News for all your hard work and advocating for citizen journalism. Your hard work has shown what even the average citizen can accomplish with an inexpensive camera, a little leg work and an internet connection.