Jeremy MacKenzie
Jeremy MacKenzie spoke 305 times across 1 day of testimony.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I can, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I will affirm.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Jeremy Mitchell MacKenzie. J-E-R-E-M-Y M-I-T-C-H-E-L-L M-A-C-K-E-N-Z-I-E.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That's correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That is correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I grew up in Pictou County, Nova Scotia.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That is correct, from 2017 -- or, sorry, 2003 until 2017.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I retired as a Master Corporal.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I believe so, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I can.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I sent it digitally to the Senate members.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It was several days before the Emergency Act was revoked by the government approximately -- -
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Before it was revoked by the government, perhaps three days, three, four days.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, it is.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I have had several that have been removed by YouTube for various reasons. Several times it's been 10,000, 12,000. I think the highest may have been 12, 13,000.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Roughly, I would say upwards to around 14,000.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I do.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Those are the primary -- Rumble as well is another video-sharing website. Primarily those are the ones I use most heavily. I also have a personal page that I typically just use for advertising links and so on on Facebook, Gab, and -- yeah, I believe that's it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
My own personal .com website?
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Oh, I have a -- I just have a Facebook page, there's a Rumble website URL, but my personal website is ragingdissident.com.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I've never heard of it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. The -- when the party was stood up it required a certain amount of signatures to register federally, I believe maybe 250, 500, something in that range. Mr. Bernier put out a request for people that wanted to support his platform and see a party created to fill out the form and sign it and mail it into the appropriate address, which I did.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I wouldn't go as far as enthusiastic, but I am a supporter, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
We lost the audio. Hello? I can't hear anything. Hello?
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Correct. I misinterpreted the question. I thought it maybe, perhaps, meant “at the current time”. I haven’t been really involved in any party politics since around this time. And in -- as it pertains to the letter and “enthusiastically”, I guess I was referring to throughout the previous federal election that had just transpired in the fall.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That’s correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, it’s both. I usually extrapolate the audio and then upload it after to several streaming platforms for typical -- more typical podcasting consumption.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
In general, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir. Several days after that event had taken place, I had reached out to some people that I knew in the area and tried to get a sense of -- before I just, you know, started speaking haphazardly without really having any -- you know, as much information as I could. And then I released a video on YouTube which garnered, roughly, anywhere between 500,000 to a million views across various platforms in the following week.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. So the concept was born out of a -- sort a long kind of stream of consciousness. I do a lot of analytical commentary on current events, politics, these kinds of things. At the time, I believe it was January 2021, the -- I observed, as many others had, Mid-Western United States, Texas, Florida, South Dakota, and so on, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Alaska geographically formed sort of an oblique line that were resistant to or handling the Covid-19 approach in a different way. These are traditionally conservative areas in Canada, Republican in the United States, so we, you know, kind of found it amusing that there was this kind of geographically divide, almost, that you could find on a map and, you know, it became sort of joke that if this was a pretend, you know, a kind of parallel universe, a different world, and so on, and that’s how the concept was born. The flag you’re referencing is what I created in the weeks following on my phone just as kind of a -- as a mechanism for branding symbolism kind of thing for, you know, community members and it started to become synonymous with myself and the podcast kind of as a -- as I guess a branding mechanism that people would, you know, display and they could buy patches, stickers, and things like this to basically denote that they’re a fan of mine.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, it came out of my imaginations, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. It’s also fairly synonymous with another thing that’s been reference, the, you know, so-called “Plaid Army”, which was several -- me and several other guys were just having a conversation one day and we all had similar shirts on. Someone made a joke about, you know, “What is this, the Plaid Army?” So it was kind of -- that evolved into this. It’s the essentially the same thing. It’s the same group of people and it’s a just, again, kind of branding mechanism, a way for -- to unite community followers and so on.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, there are followers and fans in the United States, some in Europe, Australia.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, correct. Sometime in the summer of 2021, I believe, we tried to host it in -- just, people wanted to come out and have kind of a meet and greet with myself and some other guys, and we had, as I said, a barbeque, you know, had some drinks, the guys were playing guitars, and so on. I observed that there was a few dozen people that came from as far away as British Columbia, Ontario, even in Saskatchewan, and it struck me as in this time of a lot of people feel very isolated and depressed. A lot of them expressed to me how much this meant for them to feel as though they had some kind of connection and kinship with other people that felt the same way as they did about the future and shared their fears and concerns. So and I just observed how much it seemed to help them, heal them, and make them happy. So I began what I called a "find your friends" campaign. So I used -- using my online presence and my telegram channel and so on, set up kind of regional areas or chat channels to facilitate my -- I mean, not everyone can come all the way to Saskatchewan from PEI, Newfoundland, or so on. So if there's people that are like minded, that are in your area that share this, they're a fan of my podcast and so on and would like to meet each other and share in this kind of activity, then you can do so this way. I was just trying to create a -- you know, an avenue for them to pursue, and I encouraged people to do that rather than sitting at home looking a their screens and you know, being fed, you know, fear and what I believe is a lot of toxic messaging on the media and television and so on. And I thought it would be good for people to get out and have real, face-to-face human interactions and relationships again. And I thought it would be beneficial to their mental health, and I saw that they would -- there were good things coming from that, so I encouraged people to do so.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
There was one other one in Saskatchewan that I was present. There was another party sort of barbeque in Ontario in perhaps April of this year, and there was another gathering outside the City of Ottawa during the convoy period of time in February.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, there are. I've often incorporated a lot of my commentary, my unique, I suppose you could say, kind of lived experiences through and true to military, my -- how I deal with my -- you know, the inherent trauma and so on that comes with that. It has gathered a -- it has attracted a fair amount of other veterans and military personnel because they resonate with the things I'm saying when they -- I'm speaking to something that they can understand or identify with, so there is a fair number. I couldn't hazard a number specifically, but a sizeable portion of the community, especially early on where other guys that knew me from work or so on but kind of spread through the areas, because I'm an outspoken guy, right, and so on.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, they do. This was my doing to try and kind of take power out of the word, as it was being used as a slur, as a sign or as a defamatory method towards people like me and my followers and fans and so on. So we just kind of adopted it as a tongue in cheek kind of defiant way of shrugging it off as because it doesn’t bother us that these people are -- you know, actually, if it doesn’t bother me, it shouldn't bother them and they shouldn't care what, you know, these people think. They should let -- allow them to, you know, attack them this way and get under their skin and make them feel bad just because they are who they are and they like who they like.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
In a tongue in cheek kind of sarcastic tone, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I would say yes, I'm a fairly sarcastic person, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, it is. This was at one of the gatherings, I believe, outside Ottawa, sometime in February. This is a still image from a video that was taken. I was standing on top of a table addressing the people that had arrived and attended and was just simply thanking them for showing up and encouraging them to keep taking care of each other and you know, I hope you had a good time, and so on.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. Again, I was being kind of tongue in cheek, in a way, because the people that I believe are deciding what is and what is not is a hate symbol are incredibly disingenuous and you know, kind of smear merchants. It was -- would have been kind of a gotcha trophy over them, not as actually in a serious manner displayed as a hate symbol, but more of an achievement that kind of lured them in more to focus on myself.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. It's because it's again, no one in my community would be surprised to hear me saying these things, and it certainly isn't a symbol of hatred, but we find it amusing that our, I guess enemies, if you could say, do believe this and believe these absurd claims of ours, and it's just kind of an inside joke at this point.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I personally -- I have a shop that has just recently gone online in the past two or three months. Previously, other friends of mine offered, like, the flags, for example, another man was selling patches he was making at cost just to help promote community visibility and give people something to -- I thought it would be nice if some people had something to hold in their hand and kind of have them -- bring them some attachment and just something for them to enjoy in this way.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, they did.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
They would likely identify as fans of mine, and yes. However, as you can probably observe, it's not a particularly complicate thing to reproduce, so I don’t -- it's not a copyrighted symbol by any means. There's no real official ownership to it as of yet, so people would just approach me and -- of their own voluntary intention, and ask like, "Hey, do you mind if I make this or make that and sell this," you know, whoever. I would say, "No, go ahead. If it gives you something to do, if you can make a few dollars from it and it helps you, then by all means."
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, it's essentially just a black square and I used my finger on my phone to do this about three times with a white paint maker selection, and as you can see, it's kind of an irregular -- it's not perfectly straight lines. They're kind of irregular and it's basically just my finger doing this a couple of times. And I sent that image fill off to be produced further.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I would assume so, yes. It's not difficult to -- it looks fairly simple.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That is my personal belief, yes. There is a -- many, many of the followers in the vans and so on are, you can say, conservative Canadians. There’s an aspect of, you know, firearms, supporting recreational culture and stuff, especially in western Canada, but there’s certainly not anything resembling a militia, right, to this extent.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir. It’s my, again, belief and assertion that much of this narrative is coming from certain actors and members of the media. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network and so on has Astro-turfed and kind of laid the foundation of this -- this idea. They’ve been certainly paying me a lot of attention over the past few years and through personal disclosure documents of mine through various legal proceedings, it’s been revealed that the police are actually relying upon articles, if you can call them that, by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network as open source intelligence, so they’re relying upon what these people are saying about me as, you know, taking it at face value.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. It comes from a line in a movie I enjoy, “Saving Private Ryan”. There’s a line in it -- in that film right before the landing craft descend upon Omaha Beach, I believe, where Tom Hanks’ character says, “I’ll see you on the beach”. It’s kind of a reassuring I will be there with you kind of sentiment, so I say this, again, as kind of -- and you know, my followers are familiar with this. I explained it several times. But that’s just kind of a callback to that film and expressing a sentiment that, you know, whatever’s transpiring in the future will -- I will be there with you to support you and guys can support each other and so on. It’s just a message of encouragement, I suppose.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I did.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I can’t be certain of the exact date, but it was one or perhaps two days before the main body of the -- of the trucks arrived. I believe it was a Friday evening they showed up. So maybe perhaps that Thursday or Wednesday.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I did. I observed the -- it was very clear to me by monitoring social media and so on as part of what I do to comment on social -- you know, current events and, you know, analyze political commentary, that kind of thing, that this was going to be a very significant event. It was very clear to me this was not going to be an in and out, you know, weekend protest type of thing. There was videos of long, long -- very long convoys of trucks and vehicles. They were coming in from multiple directions. There were open group chats or voice chats and stuff where these people were communicating back and forth you could listen in on. It was clear this was going to be a pretty big deal, so I -- again, this was going to be something I would be talking about, that would have a lot of my attention anyway, so I decided why not go and get a close look at it as it transpired rather than watch it from -- you know, relying on other sources from home to understand what was happening.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That seemed to be one of their primary motivations, yes. There was a lot of other -- that was one of the main factors. There was a lot of other discontent in various groups. It wasn’t -- it wasn’t a monolithic that was the only objective for people. Again, there was very -- not really any hierarchy or any real organization that I could observe. It seemed like just a grassroots kind of movement of discontent with the federal government with things that had been transpiring. The cost of living is rising. Social division. Just a lot of the rhetoric officials and stuff were using on television. A lot of people were very unhappy over the past couple of years and it -- basically it -- I would describe it as -- if I could use a metaphor, the pot had just simply boiled over and many people have decided that this was going to be the time that they were going to show up and exercise their right to peacefully demonstrate their discontent and their displeasure with the performance of the federal government.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. If someone was unfamiliar or they asked a question, I would just simply say I’m a social media guy, I have a podcast. It’s political commentary, comedy and some, you know, analysis and this kind of thing. If you’re interested, I have business cards that somebody made up for me. I would hand them out to me and say, “This is the web site if you’d like to check it out” and so on and, you know, have a nice day, kind of thing.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, on one side.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, they did. They have it on one side and then one of my other artistic logos on the other side with just simply the -- the web site on one side and then I think it says “Find me and tell your friends” on the other.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir. If someone asks or they’re interested or they express the desire to learn like what it is I’m doing, it’s just easier to just give them this. It directs them to the web site. All my social media links and so on are there. There’s a short video. They can go from there. If they like what they see, I presume they’ll continue. If not, then so be it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
He’s someone I met online through -- through the evolution of my podcast, I suppose. I met Alex in person in the summer of 2021, I believe. We spent time together in Saskatchewan as he was travelling around the country, meeting people. And as I understood it, he was just kind of in between, you know, jobs in life and wasn’t really sure what -- he was just taking the opportunity to -- he bought a van and a dog and just kind of went on the classic Canadian road trip around the country and was meeting up with other people in the community that expressed a desire to, you know, meet them and, you know, hang out and he’d become kind of one of the prominent -- prominent person because of his -- he also is a content creator. He makes a lot of memes and jokes and comedic things like this and so people were interested to meet him and ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir. I was concerned, especially because of the rhetoric and verbiage coming out of, again, the Canadian Anti- Hate Network, which was being parroted -- started to be picked up by other, more credible news outlets and so on that I was concerned that if something should happen outside my control or -- you know, I can’t really see the future but I wanted to state very clearly what my intentions were and what I expected of people if they were going to be representing myself or brandishing any of my -- I encouraged them not to because I wanted this to be about Canada and that this about the country, “Bring a Canadian flag. This isn’t about me. This isn’t about -- I’m not trying to sell anything. This is more important. The bigger idea is more important. But if you do, you know, happen to have something, please conduct yourself appropriately because your action and decisions and things you say and you do will reflect upon me in the greater community,” and so on. So - --
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
--- I wanted to have that on the record before, just in case.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I was under -- I was never explicitly given any notice, or no one had talked to me or spoken to anybody. It was pretty clear just on general observations, my own instincts, that this was -- we were probably on the radar somewhere, so I didn’t want anything to be misconstrued. I was trying to be very clear about my intentions and, you know -- you know, “Jokes aside, this is about, you know, protesting the government’s performance and people exercising their rights to do so.” I didn’t want this to be misconstrued in any way. We were simply there to protest peacefully. I said things like, “If there’s a speed limit on walking for some reason, then you will walk slower than that. Don’t even litter. Don’t spit. Don’t even throw a snowball. Don’t give anyone any excuse to point at you say, ‘Look what you’ve done. Look what you’ve incited,’” or created or fomented, and so on because that would have undermined the entire purpose of the -- of everything everyone was trying to achieve.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
All right.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I first spoke to Tamara, potentially, in July of this year, July/August, and that was it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I’m aware of who Mr. Dichter is. I personally have not had any interaction with him. I was aware that he was a -- some kind of alleged manager of YouTube channels for where he would set up GoFundMes and name himself as a beneficiary ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Right.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I spoke to Mr. Marazzo once, possibly twice, over the phone, once as I was driving back from Ottawa to the Maritimes to drop off some people that had accompanied me. They could only stay for a couple of days and had families and kids and so on. So I spoke to him for a couple of hours. We talked about, you know, our shared experiences in the military and so on. He indicated to me that he was, in some capacity, nearby something resembling people that were making decisions, I guess, and basically just kind of connected in that, like, someone suggested we should meet each other and I expressed to him that if there was anything that I could do to help assist, get a message out or something, that I was willing to do that. No one ever asked me to. And likewise, I told him, if I saw or was made aware of anything that I felt that would be relevant that they should know about, that I would inform him, and so on. But I think that was the extent of our interaction. I didn’t have any real meaningful interaction with Mr. Marazzo I think until around April when he was at a benefit -- at a fundraising dinner for the Veterans for Freedom Organization in Burlington.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
At least once, possibly twice.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It would have been some time during the first week, I believe, of when the trucks arrived. I was in the process -- I don’t know, I was driving my truck and it was over the headset. The other guys were sleeping in the truck while we were talking so somewhere in between and Quebec and New Brunswick; I couldn’t say.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I’m not sure. I’m not sure of the dates of when the trucks arrived and when they left.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, it was after.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I would say, roughly, a week ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
--- so seven, to five, to eight days, perhaps.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Not to my knowledge. I did have some friendly conversations on the street, you know, just, “Hi, how are you? How’s it going? It’s cold out,” you know, that kind of thing, but nothing significant, no.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, there was a user that contacted me, I believe, on Telegram, I would say again, summer of 2021 who self-identified himself as an RCMP member, just kind of friendly -- expressed that he enjoyed the podcast and liked what I was saying and so on, so there was a loose relationship with this -- whoever this person was. And during that time in Ottawa, they had reached out to me to inform me of -- to say that the POU, which I had find, you know, if that was -- I didn’t understand the nomenclature of a police officer but I understood it to be the Public Order Unit -- essentially the Riot Police were being activated to be sent to Ottawa. And further to that, after the Emergency Act had been invoked, this person had sent me -- well, they were screenshots, I guess, of either a WhatsApp group chat or a Telegram -- I’m not sure -- of various RCMP officers engaging in taking selfies of, you know, drinking and eating and so and celebrating the violence that they were bringing upon the people downtown and saying, “Wait until they hear our jackboots,” and this kind of thing. He sent that to me and I said, “Well, is this real?” And he assured me, “Yes.” It seemed -- it looked very real and I said, “I will publish this.” And he said, “That’s why we sent it to you.” So I did and I released that on Telegram and that -- you know, it went out. Since then, that person has deleted their account sometime in March and I haven’t been in contact with them since.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
The user handle was, like, “GK”, or “PK”, or something. It was two initials and a phone number. I think it was an Ontario area code but, other than that, I didn’t ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That was one of the previous names of it, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Oh, yes. Yes. Thanks.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Sorry, I've caught up.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I can't recall. I remember being under the impression that there was some of form of negotiations taking place between some sort of leadership apparatus for the convoy and the perhaps City of Ottawa, RCMP, OPP, I'm not sure. The police and the convoy people.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That's a good question. I think it may have just been kind of common knowledge that there was -- something like that was taking place. More of a rumour, perhaps. The -- as it goes on, yeah, the Public Order Unit, I was -- that was a -- given to me specifically by this user on Telegram from the RCMP, that they -- allegedly they were.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, he did not.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir. Initially, it was -- I had no issue. Actually, I thought it was handled very appropriately. There was a strong police presence, but also there was a large number of people, so apparently there was a danger that there's going to be -- you know, something could happen so it made sense. I didn't take any issue with anything that I had seen until they started becoming a little more aggressive here and there. There was an incident where some fuel cans were stolen, or seized, or what have you, but it wasn't really until the EMA was invoked that they became extremely aggressive and violent and that is -- that was what I took the most issue with.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That is what I had been hearing from people, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I may have, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That again was another scenario. There were people having a lot of issues with their cell phones. That may or may not have been the conduct of some kind of interference, it could have been just too many cell phones and not enough towers, I'm not sure, but that again is another kind of running suspicion/theory at the time.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I may have, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Not to my knowledge, no.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I recall he was collecting some funds for someone. I don't think it was just in general open to whoever wanted them. I think there was one or two people potentially from western Canada expressed a desire to come down to Ottawa, they couldn't afford it, so I think that was roughly what was going on. And I wasn't directly involved, I can't recall entirely, but I think that's what was going on.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It sounds like something I said, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Probably, I believe so, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Probably, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I was referring to the idea that this -- again, a lot of people had felt very powerless and disenfranchised, upset, depressed, and this was an opportunity for them to actually go and participate and have their voices be heard and join these demonstrations, and rather than sitting at home complaining and whining about it on the couch, they could, you know, if you can, why not? Why not go and be involved?
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I was trying to speak directly to my audience that are familiar with my verbiage, my kind of terminology and things I reference in the way that they would understand, that this is something important that, you know, we should -- you know, you can do together. It's not -- I didn't -- certainly didn't mean it any kind of violent context or D-Day invasion type scenario. I certainly meant it as an encouraging kind of call to the community at large that, "Hey, you know, if this is something, you know, you could be involved in rather than just, again, sitting at home by yourself."
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I was aware that Mr. Chris Lysak was there, and I am loosely acquainted with Mr. Adam Skelly who had made a couple of trips there to deliver steaks and brisket and so on. There is a couple of comedians in the Edmonton and Calgary area that I know that travelled down to put on some, I don't know, a performance I think, and they just meet, greet, and leave, and that's about it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It was Brendan Blackyer (ph) and a Sam Walker, or -- maybe -- I'm not sure if Sam attended, but Brendan for sure, and there was also Brett Fortier, who I don't know, personally I have not spoken to him. I was just made aware that they were there because they posted a video of them travelling there to say hi to everybody.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No. They may identify as fans. Mr. Lysak would, Brendan probably would, Sam, potentially, Mr. Fortier I've never met or spoken to.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Again, it's just kind of self-identifying. You could say it's as simple as, you know, identifying as a Toronto Maple Leaf's fan by putting a sticker on your truck. It's really that simple.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I suppose so, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Mr. Lysak has been a long- time fan of the podcast. I'd met him personally in Saskatchewan in the summer of 2021, believe on the 1st meet and greet get- together I'd mentioned, and a subsequent one later in the year, perhaps September. There was a few dozen people. We, you know, had a beer and a steak, you know, with all these people, took photographs together at one of them, and that's pretty much it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I talked to dozens of people, yeah.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Chris was one of them.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I generally don't like to engage in that. I find it kind of exhausting and I try to just make it -- keep it kind of a social, you know, meet and greet, you know, casual kind of social event. I don't really try to talk politics or anything like that ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
--- to people.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Sometimes, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yeah, that's the fellow I just mentioned. I had posted it to my Instagram page. That's myself on the -- my left and Mr. Lysak on the right.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I believe so, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Mr. Lysak may have been in some larger online group chats where there's 30, 40 other people involved, never -- to my knowledge, never directly one-on-one. He has called me twice, I think, since he's been incarcerated, just simply to say hi and I just try to offer some encouragement to him and hope that he's doing well sort of.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sometime this summer.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I have heard that, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I may have. It's tough to recall.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I think so. I've spoken with Toronto Star several times, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I was made aware of it by once it hit the media either that evening or the following day.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It was right around the same time that word had spread around the community that he had been arrested was -- as part of the 13 or however many other people were arrested.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir, I do, sir.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yeah.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
M'hm.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, that appears to be a clip from one of my podcast episodes probably shortly after that had taken place. At the time, and still presently, I'm very skeptical of law enforcement, especially considering the political nature in which there appears to be a lot of interference going on in the country. I was concerned that -- from that aspect of what was happening out there. Again, I don't know anything other than what's been posted in the media and what's been said other than that they've been charged with - - what they've been charged with. Of course, if it -- evidence does appear or is presented that proves that these allegations are, in fact, correct, obviously, that is something I would denounce. I don't stand by that. As I said, this is not something that is supported by myself. It would undermine the entire purpose of these protests. And until then, I hope they get a fair trial, and we'll see what happens.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Fair enough.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yeah.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Absolutely, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Sure.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Ms. Martin I did have a conversation with maybe in June or July, and she was in one of these video chats and introduced herself and mentioned that she was -- well, maybe that wasn't her. Martin?
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
At the time?
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Right. Yeah, no.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I do.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It appears to be some kind of tactical vest. If it was ballistic, it would have to have some kind of ballistic plates or Kevlar or something inserted into it. It’s not clear.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. It does appear that that is the case. However, I was made aware of this shortly after this took place. And after some scrutiny and taking a closer look at the photos, they don’t appear to be -- as I said, there was man in Prince Edward Island who was making these and selling them at cost to whoever. Thousands of these went out across Canada, some to the United States, some to Australia. These ones are -- appear to be homemade or made by someone else. As of now, I don’t recall anyone coming forward to say that they had produced these or where these came from, so I can’t really speak to as their origins.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That does appear to be what they believe, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Hello.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I wouldn’t say it’s grassroots. It sprang from my imagination and I create the content from which the -- the entertainment and so on attracts people to it and which they will then either self-identify as a fan or not.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, that’s not correct. I’ve never described myself in that manner. That’s a -- that’s been put forward into the media again by people at the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. Again, this is a figment of my imagination in a fictional world.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I can’t really lead if -- a fictional world, exactly.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I was trying to identify myself as the person in question that the Senate was debating about and then the House of Commons were talking about -- which alarmed me, and I was acting in the interests of protecting not only myself, but other people that identify as fans and followers of mine, and it was clear that this was an issue of national importance. And I felt obliged to say something about it rather than ignore it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That’s correct. There’s no hierarchy and there’s no rank system, membership, code of conduct, uniforms, anything like this. It’s a very informal -- again, I would propose it as if you’re a fan of the Calgary Flames or Montreal Canadiens or not or something. It’s just as simple as saying you like it or you don’t.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I would view myself as the, I guess, central figure from which the rest of it sort of orbits.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Correct. I did use my platform to try my best to, again, put forward messages and, I guess, responsible messaging.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
My concern was that something could happen outside of my control and I would rather have had -- say something on record of what I would expect people to -- you know, to behave lawfully and peacefully so that they -- if they follow me, listen to me, and they heard that and then chosen to act on their own and do something -- something outside the desires of, you know, myself, then that’s not really something I can control. I can’t control what other people want to do. But I did want to make it clear that this was -- this was -- my intention was a peaceful demonstration.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That’s correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
There was a property that we were staying at outside the city limits that had been offered up by someone who was a fan. He had a vacant building, no furniture but, you know, it’s got a roof, it’s got heat, so you can stay there. At times there were three or four or five of us. Other times, as many as 20.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I didn’t personally observe anyone. One individual I did see that had a kind of flag, but outside that, I didn’t see any symbolism of flags or patches or so on. I did encounter a number of people that recognized me and wanted to have a picture and talk and shake hands and so on.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I believe I know the -- the clip that you’re referring to, which is, again, taken out of context of a much larger presentation broadcast which I was not a party to. Obviously, I can’t speak to that person’s intentions or what they meant by that, but I will reinforce that, again, it was not my intention to see any kind of violence, political violence or anything like that because it again, undermines the intentions and objectives of the protestors, which was to peacefully demonstrate their discontent.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I don’t believe so, no.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Again, at the time and still, I am sceptical of the RCMP particularly, but law enforcement Canada has a history of things like this taking place. It's not outside the realm of possibility that something like that is very easily replicated. Could it be planted? I'm not suggesting that it certainly has or has not, but I would leave that open to possibility, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It was my intention to convey that the protestors and the demonstrators had no intention of relinquishing their life to peacefully demonstrating. It was clear at the time that the rumblings and things I'd been hearing and seeing that it was the intention of the federal government to use force to dispel these people. So as I said in the video and I'd saying for a long time, is, you know to force a tyrant to act like one, you simply refuse to bend to their will, and they will reveal themselves to be who they are. In this case, they deployed the RCMP and various police forces and beat people with batons and shot them with tear gas canisters and trampled an Indigenous elderly woman with a horse. Another man was dragged lifelessly through a crowd, and so on. So that was the price that people were willing to pay, endure, for the Canadian people, to show them the true face of what it was they were standing against.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yeah. Apologies. A bit. I was unclear as to what you were referring to. It's something -- I think there was some kind of negotiation was taking place to move some trucks from one place to another. I don’t -- again, I wasn’t intimately involved. I don't know exactly the details about that, but to some extent. I'm not sure exactly.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I was expressing concern because at that time, there was a number of names that had appeared that somehow had gotten into the leadership cadre or something, as you describe. Now, I was very sceptical of their intentions and I had some scepticism and fear that this was -- things were moving in a malicious direction.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Hello.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Sure.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
At the time it was delivered to me, I understood that to be the case. I couldn’t speak to if this person is still employed or not.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, that’s correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Not -- not directly, no.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No. I’ve actually made numerous overtures and offers to speak to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to try and shed some light on, you know, myself and this community that they seem so concerned about, and as of -- today is the first day that I have ever been asked a single question by anyone in any official capacity about it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Correct, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, that’s correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I do not think so. I’d have to go through a list to refresh my memory, but no, no-one’s jumping out at me. I don’t think so. I believe they’re all civilians.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir. And I actually went out of my way to make sure that was adamantly very clear that that would not be something I would endorse. And it’s not a good idea, and again, it would be a very dangerous situation. It’s illegal, and it’s undermining the objectives of the protesters.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That’s correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I understand that, in great numbers of people, and tens of thousands of people, there is always going to be outliers of folks who, you know, may be unhinged, they may be mentally ill. There could be any number of factors that may contribute to something, and I was just doing my best to mitigate any potential -- any influence that I have to try to, you know, push things in a positive direction, rather than, you know, say nothing or worse, contribute to, you know, something negative happening.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I met with Mr. Hillier once, maybe twice. He didn’t have much of a voice; he was feeling under the weather, but yeah, I met him once or twice.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir. I looked at it, I sat with it for about 10 minutes, and I just decided to publish it on my calendar page for everyone to look at, and from there it went to Counter Signal Keean Bexte; Rebel News took it, various other -- various other independent journalists, and so on, took note of it. Notably the legacy media CBC and so on did not comment or provide any coverage or insight of that, but I simply just put it out there and, you know, it went off on its own into the wild.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Not to my knowledge, no.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I spoke to her on the phone. I did see Tamara Lich briefly, she walked by me somewhere in a hotel lobby. But I hadn’t had any formal interaction, conversation or anything with her until I’d spoken to her on the phone sometime in, I want to say August.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, she had actually called to express concern and so on for my legal situation.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, outside of the -- of this.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I can. Hello.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That’s correct. I believe I may have been misconstrued as such, or perceived to be a bigger personality in this, simply because of my social media presence and a video that I had released, basically, reacting to the convergence of the trucks moving towards Ottawa. I was, you know, kind of excited by it and interested in what was going to happen. That video, it’s achieved a fair amount of traction and play. So I think maybe people associated me with that for that reason. However, I -- no, at no time did I have any contact with any organizers. I didn’t ask for any money, take any money, give any money; I had no hand in the logistics planning, anything like that. I was simply there at my own volition to observe and, you know, just be there for the experience.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
The -- as far as the intentions were concerned, I was basically just collating the information that I could find in social media and what people were saying. I was aware of who some of the people were for that reason, and they were echoing the same, you know, similar kind of sentiments; they were there to, you know, do the protest and show their discontent, and exercise their rights to do so, and so on. I didn’t have any -- I hadn’t seen anything disagreeable with that. I didn’t see any intentions of, you know, violence or so on.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
M’hm.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I was not. I haven’t been able to view much of it or hear much of what’s, you know, transpired earlier. It was apparent to me just simply because of the -- Canada’s a very large country, and the effort required just to simply go to Ottawa from Alberta and British Columbia, in Halifax and so on, indicated to me -- and the numbers in which people were going, indicated to me this was not going to be a quick trip to the city, as it were.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I’m not.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, of course.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, some people make a living that way.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I think it's empowered a lot of people to express their voice in the world and establish themselves as such if they want to act similarly to the way that corporate broadcasting and larger companies and stuff do to push whatever products, ideas and things that they want to they can now compete with them in the same kind of space I suppose.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I would say that anything that anyone ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
--- is paying any large amount of attention to ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, of course. I would imagine that any form of media, whether it's social media, television, movies, music, and if they're inundated, especially, you know, in sort of a way that that becomes a large focus of their day-to-day lives, then it would have an impact on the way that they view things, of course.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It's unclear. There is no real way to measure, but tens of thousands would be -- probably be a fair assessment, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No. Several of them have in the past, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I disagree, and I don't agree that this is an -- my imagination is an organisation of any kind. I'm not clear on what neo-fascists accelerationist means, and in my opinion the Canadian Anti-Hate Network is not a credible news or information research source.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Again, sure. I can't control how people interpret or don't interpret, you know, any number of things. I can only control things that I say and conduct myself the best that I can, and if it's interpreted the wrong way then I'm happy to clarify. But I can't, again, be expected to control the interpretations of other people.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Of course.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I think so.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Well, I don't exactly take attendance, so there's no way to know who is listening to me at any number of -- all I can do is use my platforms accordingly, and if it's listened to or not by individual people is not within my control.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That is correct.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yeah.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, as a matter of fact the president or the chief, as I understand it, Mr. Farber, was on national television advising the Nation of Canada that antisemitic flyers were being distributed throughout Downtown Ottawa as a result of the nature of the people involved, when in fact that was a screengrab from an event in Miami, Florida that had taken place weeks earlier.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I have, through, again, legal disclosure, documents referenced by law enforcement, open source intelligence and so on, there are a number of pages and articles and things written by the Canada Anti-Hate Network used as justification for their assessment of me.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I have, actually. One of their journalists, Mr. Smith I believe, reached out to me in -- just as late as February, I was here. Previous to that, no one had ever approached me for a comment or explanation. They just were content to just publish things sometimes with no bylines whatsoever, written by ostensibly no one. I attempted to explain and kind of level, you know, man-to-man with Mr. Smith about, you know, who I am and so on. That didn't really go anywhere. I had also been contact informally, casually with Mr. Kurt Phillips over Twitter over the past several months before I was banned.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, they were pretty casual in nature. Just about kind of surface level things about other, you know, personalities and stuff, other maybe casual, some of the different beers that we enjoyed, things like this.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Well, again, yeah, with seeing the size of the platform that it has and the amount of funding that's being dumped into it from the Canadian taxpayer, it's one of the bigger microphones that exists, and it's my opinion that it has an extreme amount of bias and has been almost weaponised in that way to push state and government messaging to influence and, you know, perhaps correct the way that people are thinking as it benefits the people that pay their bills.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, I’ve never seen this before.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir. Do you want me to real aloud or just silently?
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay. Yeah, I got it, thanks.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay.
-
Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I see.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Just the -- again, Mr. Lysak who I’d met twice.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I would.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That video was filmed outside downtown waterfront in Pictou, Nova Scotia, where I live.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That was the day -- or two days prior to being -- heading down to Ottawa, and there were a lot of people who were on their way. They were excited to go and so on, and I was -- it was my intent to try and set a tone of extreme levels of situational awareness and attentiveness to the fact that there would be a lot of scrutiny on everyone and so it was imperative that people conduct themselves in a responsible and lawful manner.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
M’hm. (VIDEO PLAYBACK)
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That video appears to be taken in the residence I mentioned earlier that we stay at a large amount of time outside the City of Ottawa.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I was just trying to keep people safe. And again, if they -- I obviously wouldn’t want them to intervene into something that seemed, you know, unsafe or dangerous but if they could, you know, I believe that the -- as dangerous as it could be, the Smartphones that people have can be their best defence. They can film, you know, what’s happening around them and protect themselves in that way. And if they were to encounter or see anything disturbing, or frightening, or alarming, then they should leave and get away from that, and then potentially even report it to authorities, if necessary.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
One example, let’s see, this is -- it would have been fall, I think, of 2021. There was a group online identifying themselves as “Awakes”-something. It was armed men in the woods with masks. One of them, specifically, said, “This is a call to arms,” which, as I understand, is an illegal thing to do. It was very clear that they intended to -- were promoting the idea of arming people, arming citizens -- I think it was an acronym for “liberating our neighbourhood” or something like that -- and to engage the, you know, forces of the state in violent confrontation. They were commenting on my videos and inferring that they were trying to connect with me and so on. I found this very alarming. And again, putting my -- potentially myself at risk but other, you know, people that follow me and could be exposed to this and have been scared in whatever was going on there, so I -- once I became aware of the video, I immediately called the mounted police about it.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I did. They called me back. They asked me what I knew about, you know, if -- anything. And I said, “All I know is what I’ve seen on the internet. I’m simply brining it to your attention because, if I were you, this is something that would concern me.” And that was pretty much the end of that interaction. I’m not sure whatever took place after that but ---
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I don’t think so. I think there was one constable from Saskatchewan that they had called me to say they may have more questions in the future, but that was the end of that interaction.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Of course. If I could -- if there was anything for me to give them or assist them in any way, I would have, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay. (VIDEO PLAYBACK)
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I believe I was driving, travelling back to Ottawa from the Maritimes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
From beginning to end or - --
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes. Yeah.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Okay. So I left the Maritimes, again, a couple of days -- I arrived one or two days before the trucks showed up. I picked up a couple of friends and associates. They wanted to go. There was kind of a carpool that year. I said I would take them. We were down -- so people stayed at the location I mentioned, and then after roughly five days or so, these gentlemen had to go home. I drove them home. I only intended to stay for that length of time, and then when I got home, I decided I was -- it was unclear how long this was going to go on, so I decided to go back a few days later. That’s around that time was when I made that video, and then I stayed in Ottawa, the Ottawa area, for the duration until probably three to four days after the invocation of the Emergency Act and everyone was cleared out of downtown. Then my partner and I left and we headed back to the Maritimes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, I drove my personal vehicle, a pickup truck.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Either on the farm where I was staying or hotel parking lots that, you know, were set up, or if it was in the interest of going downtown to see the protest, I would park at parking lots that were available as close as possible and then walk the remaining couple of blocks.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
No, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That is my belief, yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
The vice-president is -- of Diagolon, which is of my imagination, he is a -- my sidekick that has evolved over the years. He's a demonic goat figurine named Phillip with a very, very serious narcotics problem and a time-travelling goat.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
I would think not, no.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
It's my opinion that the foundation work by the Canadian Anti-Hate Network as pertains to targeting me as a previously government-funded -- has enjoyed a fair amount of government funding, to target and smear people that they, you know, consider perhaps politically inconvenient or people they just want to shut up, they irregularly engage in defamatory statements while there action, things like this; out- of-context statements, they'll take a clip here, a sentence there and stitch it together and make it appear as something that it is not. From there, some media outlets, legacy media outlets, lazily -- unfortunately, it appears -- took it at face value, copy/paste, print the story then which is consumed by police officers, which again, unfortunately, rather than doing any digging themselves or investigating or asking me a single question, take these things at face value and compile these reports and up the network it goes until it lands on the desk of the public safety minister or you know, perhaps even the prime minister's office, where they're faced with these scenarios that have no basis in reality. I consider this entire situation entirely avoidable. This -- none of this needed to happen, and it's absurd, and I consider the single most embarrassing and grotesque intelligence failure in national history.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Yes, sir.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
That is correct.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Not guilty.
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Jeremy MacKenzie (Diagolon)
Thank you, Commissioner.