After Rebel staff were booted out of Alberta government press conferences in late January and early February, noted climate change denier Ezra Levant has gone on the offensive. He’s released a video on his website that declares Rachel Notley is a bully. “She bullied Alberta’s oil and gas workers, hitting them when they’re down. She bullied farmers and ranchers with her farm unionization law, Bill 6,” says Sheila Gunn Reid in the video.

Video of NotleyIsABully.ca: Tell her to end her illegal blacklist of The Rebel’s journalists The Rebel's video attacking Alberta Premier Rachel Notley. Video: YouTube “It not just what she does. It’s how she does it, ramming things through. Ignoring or even silencing other points of view, attacking her critics as if they shouldn’t even have the right to disagree with her at all. “Well, now she’s trying to bully the Rebel because we dare to criticize her.” The Rebel’s attack stems from two incidents. On January 29th the website’s Calgary reporter was asked to leave about 90 minutes into a briefing on the province’s oil royalty review, according to the Rebel.

Gunn Reid, the website’s Alberta bureau chief, was also kicked out. Then on February 3, Gunn Reid was asked to leave another news conference after she was asked for accreditation. On February 8th, the website’s law firm issued a letter threatening suit if the premier’s office doesn’t provide written confirmation saying that the Rebel reporters should not have been excluded from the events, and that Rebel media will not be excluded from future events. The Legal Services Division of Alberta Justice and Solicitor General replied back on Monday with a letter, saying: “Our client’s position remains that your client and those who identify as being connected to your client are not journalists….” A typical piece of Rebel coverage of the Alberta government was its comment on the province’s renewable technology plan. Titled: Alberta NDP unveils $5M "job creation" scheme: Stick some foreign-made solar panels on barn roofs and written by Levant, “Rebel Commander,” the piece took the Notley government to task on its plan to use solar power. Read the piece in part: “So, you’re sitting on the world’s third-largest oil reserves, but according to this press release, you’re going to give a $5 million subsidy to some schemes to put solar panels on top of barns? “Solar panels that aren’t even made in Alberta — so basically, we’re subsidizing foreign manufacturers whose product can’t pay for itself without a government subsidy.” Elsewhere on the site, Levant has posted videos with titles like “Climate change report: science fiction,” and which purport that “for 20 years global warming has been a growth industry. The IPCC report is spin, and not worth the paper it’s printed on.”