About Rebel News

Rebel News

Rebel News is a Canadian online media outlet publishing far-right political and social commentary. Operated by Rebel News Network Ltd. and based in Toronto, Ontario, it was founded in February 2015 by former Sun News Network personalities Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley. Publishing exclusively on the internet through its rebelnews.com website, the outlet has been described as a global platform for the anti-Muslim ideology known as counter-jihad, has been compared to Breitbart News in the United States, and has been described as part of the alt-right movement. Known for confrontational video journalism, activist-style reporting, and crowdfunded legal campaigns, Rebel News has become one of the most controversial media brands in Canada, embodying the tensions between free expression, platform power, and the spread of misinformation in the digital age.

Overview

Rebel News emerged from the ashes of Sun News Network, the Canadian conservative television channel that shut down in February 2015. Within days of that closure, Ezra Levant — Sun News's most prominent host — launched Rebel News as an internet-only venture, carrying over the channel's combative style and much of its audience into a digital-first format. The outlet's model blends commentary, video reports from protests and political events, and campaigns that mobilize its supporters around legal and political causes.

The outlet's editorial stance is unambiguously on the far right of Canadian politics. Its coverage has focused heavily on immigration and Islam, climate and energy policy, government overreach, and cultural issues, frequently employing provocative framing designed to generate outrage and engagement. During the 2021 Canadian federal election, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused Rebel News of spreading misinformation, particularly with regard to COVID-19 vaccines, and the outlet has promoted climate change denial. These characterizations — from political opponents, media critics, and researchers — have made Rebel News a reference point in debates about misinformation, extremism, and the boundaries of journalism in Canada.

History

Rebel News was founded in February 2015 by Ezra Levant and Brian Lilley, both former personalities of Sun News Network. Sun News, itself a short-lived attempt to build a Canadian conservative television channel in the Fox News mould, had closed that same month after failing to secure the carriage and advertising revenue needed to survive. Levant, who had hosted the channel's flagship nightly program, moved quickly to preserve its audience and ethos online, launching Rebel News as a digital outlet free from the regulatory and commercial constraints of licensed broadcasting.

The early years were marked by rapid growth and equally rapid controversy. Former Sun News reporter Faith Goldy joined Rebel News after its launch, becoming one of its most visible correspondents. But in 2017, Goldy was fired after her coverage of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and after she conducted an interview with The Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website. The episode tore the young outlet apart: a co-founder and two freelancers resigned in protest over the direction of its coverage, and the Charlottesville fallout became a defining moment in Rebel News's public identity.

The outlet's personnel overlaps with the organized far right extended beyond Goldy. Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys — later designated a terrorist organization by the Canadian federal government — was a contributor to Rebel News. McInnes departed in 2017 amid the controversies of that year, then temporarily rejoined the site for a period in 2019, keeping the association alive in the public mind.

Rebel News's confrontations with political power escalated over time. In the midst of the 2021 Canadian federal election campaign, Justin Trudeau publicly accused the outlet of spreading misinformation, singling out its coverage of COVID-19 vaccines. The accusation, from a sitting prime minister, both reflected and amplified the outlet's notoriety: for its supporters, it was proof that Rebel News threatened the establishment; for its critics, it was confirmation that the outlet's output endangered public health.

Content and Editorial Approach

Rebel News publishes political and social commentary from a far-right perspective, distributed primarily as video content and articles on its website. Its signature format is confrontational field reporting: correspondents with cameras attending protests, press conferences, and political events, challenging politicians and activists on camera in exchanges designed as much for viral distribution as for information gathering. This activist-reporter style, pioneered in Canada by Levant at Sun News, treats the journalist as a participant in the story rather than a detached observer.

Thematically, the outlet has concentrated on immigration — particularly Muslim immigration, reflecting the counter-jihad ideology with which it has been associated — alongside opposition to climate policy, criticism of Liberal governments, and coverage of issues such as gun rights, energy development, and free speech controversies. Its promotion of climate change denial and, during the pandemic, skepticism about COVID-19 vaccines placed it at odds with scientific consensus and drew accusations of misinformation from political leaders and public health advocates.

The outlet also functions as a campaigning organization, raising funds from supporters for legal challenges and journalistic projects. This crowdfunding model — asking its audience to finance specific lawsuits, investigations, and reporting tours — deepens the relationship between the outlet and its supporters, who become financial stakeholders in its confrontations. Rebel News has repeatedly framed its legal battles, including fights over press access and defamation claims, as defences of free expression, turning courtrooms into content and litigation into a form of audience engagement.

Coverage and Audience

Though based in Toronto, Rebel News covers stories across Canada, dispatching its correspondents to wherever political conflict is unfolding — pipeline protests in the West, immigration flashpoints, election campaigns, and parliamentary controversies in Ottawa. Its reporters have become familiar figures at demonstrations and public events, where their presence often becomes part of the story. Its audience is the Canadian far right and the broader conservative populist movement: readers and viewers who distrust mainstream media and seek coverage that validates their skepticism of government, immigration, and progressive cultural change. The outlet's internet-only distribution means its reach is measured in video views, social media followers, and email subscribers rather than broadcast ratings or print circulation, and its content travels through the same social platforms where political polarization is most intense.

Ownership

Rebel News is operated by Rebel News Network Ltd., the company founded by Ezra Levant to run the outlet after the closure of Sun News Network. Levant remains the outlet's central figure — its founder, principal host, and public face. Co-founder Brian Lilley departed, and the outlet's early team was further reshaped by the 2017 resignations that followed the Charlottesville controversy. The company operates independently of Canada's established media conglomerates, sustained by advertising, merchandise, and the crowdfunded donations that finance its reporting projects and legal campaigns.

Digital Presence

Rebel News exists entirely online, with rebelnews.com as its publishing hub. The site hosts the outlet's video reports, articles, and fundraising campaigns, and serves as the gateway to its subscription and donation products. Distribution depends heavily on social media platforms, where its confrontational video clips are engineered to travel, and on email newsletters that maintain direct contact with supporters. The internet-only model — adopted at founding in 2015 — freed the outlet from broadcast regulation while making it dependent on the algorithms and content policies of the platforms that carry its work, a dependency that has itself become a recurring subject of the outlet's coverage whenever its content is restricted or demonetized.