Ezra Levant: Free Speech on Trial
I haven’t yet written about Canada’s Human Rights Commissions (HRCs), because I haven’t thought of anything interesting or witty to say that hasn’t been said a dozen times elsewhere. These Commissions are kangaroo courts set up by liberals to harass conservatives. Until recently, they were a tool for activist liberals to bash poor, isolated far-right Canadians.
I’m not clear on whether the plaintiffs in these cases have won every time or merely nearly every time. The plaintiff enjoys taxpayer-funded legal help, while the defendant must pay his own legal bills. And there is no real law to be applied. If you’re a liberal, then you need merely complain that your feelings were hurt, and the liberals on the HRCs will bring the might of the state down on whoever offended you.
The HRCs have mostly gone after fringe individuals before, but now they’re trying to get into the mainstream. The case against MacLean’s for publishing excerpts from Mark Steyn’s book has received lots of attention in recent months, and it still makes me too angry to write anything interesting about it. But before Mark Steyn there was Ezra Levant, owner of the now-defunct Canadian magazine The Western Standard. In early 2006, amid the furor over the Mohammed cartoons, The Western Standard was virtually alone among media outlets in actually publishing the “offensive” images. Various Muslims ran crying to the Alberta HRC, and now the case has come to what seems to be its first hearing.
This hearing was videotaped, though the audio is very, very quiet. Turn your speakers way up. Mr. Levant is not going away quietly. He has posted eight segments of the hearing up on YouTube for the world to enjoy. I recommend starting with the opening statement. He is eloquent, and he understands perfectly the larger issues at stake. Canadians should be calling their politicians in outrage, demanding that these HRCs be disbanded.