Ezra Levant


As someone who once defended Canadian human rights legislation, and fought for the inclusion of gay people in those codes, I'm appalled to see rights commissions holding hearings on political speech.

Here is one of several videos posted by Ezra Levant, of the Western Standard, of an official inquiry into his publication of the Danish Muhammed Cartoons. At issue are the rights to offend, to mock, and to ridicule. Speech rights just as crucial as the rights to criticize, to argue, or state one's case.





More videos here.

See also Terry Glavin on the case against Mark Steyn and Maclean's magazine on the charge of Islamofobia.

The question is whether human rights tribunals can sort through the necessary cacophony of utterances and statements in a free and open society in order to police vigorous public debates for commentary that is "likely to expose" religious, ethnic or other minority groups to hatred, contempt or discrimination. And the answer is they can't, and they shouldn't. That's not what they're for.

Update: Over at the Popinjays Terry doesn't think Levant's rights have been trampled. Scoop Shachtman posts a contrary opinion. Meanwhile in the Daily Dish, Andrew Sullivan seeks consensus, quoting Glenn Greenwald:

People like Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant are some of the most pernicious commentators around. But equally pernicious, at least, are those who advocate laws that would proscribe and punish political expression, and those who exploit those laws to try use the power of the State to impose penalties on those expressing "offensive" or "insulting" or "wrong" political ideas. The mere existence of the "investigation," interrogation, and proceeding itself is a grotesque affront to every basic liberty.

Posted: Sun - January 13, 2008 at 01:48 PM          

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