It has been cool in Arizona since we arrived. This is not uncommon in Arizona in January.  We are just grateful that it is only cool and not cold or worse, not bone-chilling cold. Recently, for the first time we went to the pool that all members of our little community are entitled to use. We enjoy it there. We get to swim, lounge in the hot tub and meet friends. If it were not for the pool, we would not have met very many people here. That is why we prefer semi-public pools to private pools. We deliberately chose our house this year because it did not have a pool. The house we rented last year lost about 80% of its back yard to the pool. A pool we didn’t use! We prefer the extra space and larger communal pool.

As soon as we arrived, we met 2 friends. They are former New Yorkers with a strong New York accident and strong New York opinions. We have enjoyed many chats with them, although we often disagree.  They are not liberals as most people around here would expect. In fact, the husband is a Trump supporter.

He was eager to talk to me about what he called was a “very disturbing incident” he had noticed on the Internet. I was leery, but interested so gladly accepted his gift of the URL when he flagged down our car on the way home from the pool. He wanted my opinion as a lawyer even though I am a lowly recovering lawyer.  So at his request I watched the YouTube report.

Rebel News played a video that apparently is making quite a splash on the Internet.  It outraged my Arizona friend. It showed a reporter approaching Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland aggressively approached by Dave Menzies a reporter for Rebel News as she was briskly walking down a sidewalk or parking lot in a city. He immediately stuck a microphone into her face as she continued walking, showing no interest in being interviewed. He wanted to know why a particular Iranian group was not listed as a terrorist and why her government was supporting “Islamo-Nationalism?”

Ms Freeland immediately veered off to the other side of the sidewalk and kept walking without talking to hm. Although the reporter walked right up to her, sticking the microphone in her face I did not see that he touched her. The Deputy Prime Minister was accompanied by her personal RCMP detail, which is hardly surprising since she has been accosted by extremists on a number of occasions. She is entitled to her security and has no obligation to talk to everyone who approaches her on the street whether a reporter or not. She had the right to ignore the reporter. The police have a duty to protect her.

In my opinion the police officers over reacted by arresting the man. They said they were arresting him and later I believe briefly charged him with assault, but quickly released him without charges. The police would have been much smarter to talk to him to make sure he was not a danger to the Cabinet Minister, and then once assured that she was not in danger, let him go. Arresting him or charging him was not necessary or even helpful in my view. Reporters do what he did, from time to time. It is rather rude and annoying but would not amount to an assault in my view. A police man claimed the reporter had pushed into him, but I could not see what he did. I suspect it was minor incident.

Menzies was upset at his treatment. While handcuffed he talked to his own cameraman and his own microphone and told viewers,

 “This is your Canada now folks. This is the Gestapo taking Black Faces’ orders [referring to Prime Minister Trudeau]. Outrageous! Meanwhile the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp is not a terrorist organization…It is against the law in Black Faces’s Canada to ask insensitive questions.”

But Rebel News was outraged. And so apparently is the entire right wing led by, of course, Fox News, the largest cable news network in the US.

What is my take? The police over reacted. There was no need as far as I could see to arrest him. The police  had the right to keep the reporter away since Ms. Freeland did not want to talk to him, but he did nothing as far as I could see to reason to arrest him.  However, there is also no need for the right-wing apoplexy over what happened. This was not a major gestapo incident.  Tyranny is in the eyes of the beholder. Fox News finds tyranny where it wants to. Other news outlets do the same. We viewers should watch them all with our critical lenses securely in place. We, on either side of such issues, should not make mountains out of molehills

I am afraid my America friend will be disappointed in my Casper Milquetoast answers. Maybe, he should get a better lawyer.