The government investigated our book tour — here’s the outcome

Well, today is a good day. After nearly six months under investigation for a book tour, Rebel News has officially been cleared by the Alberta Election Commissioner.

Since February, we’ve had lawyers reviewing election law, preparing submissions, answering allegations, and defending ourselves against a complaint that never should have been filed. Now, we finally got our answer.

The Alberta Election Commissioner has concluded there is insufficient evidence to continue the investigation. Even more importantly, the Commissioner accepted that a significant purpose of our tour was the promotion and sale of books, which falls within an exception in Alberta’s Citizen Initiative Act.

We won. Not just Rebel News. Nor just me, or Cory Morgan or Tamara Lich, who were on the tour with me. Everyone who believes independent journalists and authors shouldn’t need government permission to talk to Canadians won.

Let’s remember what this investigation was actually about. From the very beginning, we told everyone exactly what we were doing. It was a book tour around Alberta. 

Not a campaign disguised as a book tour. Not a referendum campaign pretending to sell books. An actual book tour.

We travelled Alberta promoting three books. My book, Independence Blueprint, Cory Morgan’s The Sovereigntist’s Handbook, and Tamara Lich’s Hold the Line.

People came to meet the authors and hear us talk. They bought books. They had them signed.

We stayed for a town hall-style question-and-answer session where Albertans asked questions about the biggest political issues facing our province. And when people came to protest us, we let them, because that’s what you do in a free society. You stand up for free expression, even for people you disagree with. 

That’s what happened. Exactly what we said was happening. We were talking about our books. We even had videos of the events.

Yet someone decided that wasn’t good enough.

A complaint was filed alleging Rebel News should have registered as a third-party advertiser under Alberta’s election laws. Think about how dangerous that idea is.

If authors can’t tour the province discussing their own books…

If journalists can’t moderate public discussions…

If selling political books suddenly becomes grounds for an investigation by Elections Alberta…

Then free expression isn’t very free anymore. Thankfully, common sense prevailed.

After months of investigating us, the Election Commissioner accepted that promoting and selling books was a significant purpose of the tour and concluded there wasn’t enough evidence to continue the case.

Now the Commissioner also cautioned that every future event has to be judged on its own facts and that promoting a book doesn’t automatically exempt every activity from election law. That’s a reasonable statement of the law. But that’s not this case.

This case is over. The file is closed. Rebel News is vindicated.

Unfortunately, victories like this aren’t free. The people who filed this complaint didn’t have to spend a dime. We did.

We hired experienced election lawyers. We responded to investigators instead of reporting the news. We spent money defending journalism and authors instead of investing in more journalism.

That’s the ugly reality of lawfare. Sometimes the punishment isn’t losing, but being forced to spend months and thousands of dollars defending yourself against allegations that ultimately go nowhere.

Well, they picked the wrong target. We weren’t going to fold. We weren’t going to cancel our events. We weren’t going to apologize for selling books. We will sell more, and talk about them more.

We certainly weren’t going to stop reporting on Alberta’s independence movement because someone thought they could intimidate us with a government investigation.

We fought. We won. But now we need your help. The lawyers who defended this case deserve to be paid.

If you believe journalists should be free to report, authors should be free to sell books, and Canadians should be free to gather for public discussions without government interference, please go to IndependenceTour.com. That’s where we’re crowdfunding the legal costs of this fight.

Help us pay the lawyers who protected not just Rebel News, but an important principle: that governments don’t get to regulate journalism and books through politically motivated complaints.

We stood our ground. The Commissioner examined the facts. The investigation is over. The file is closed. And freedom won.

Now let’s make sure we’re ready for the next fight.