Bad news in the battle for freedom of speech: today, the Supreme Court of Canada refused to hear my appeal of the defamation judgment against me, brought some eight years ago by Khurrum Awan.

Awan is the former youth president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. As you know, one of the reasons I lost was that the judge ruled that calling Awan an anti-Semite was defamatory.

But Awan used to be the youth president of an anti-Semitic group — the Canadian Islamic Congress. They even called for the legalization of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

But the judge ruled it was defamatory for me to call their former youth president anti-Semitic. Because Awan denied he was, and said he never knew about his organization's infamous misconduct. The judge ruled I did not prove it was factually true. Even though Awan himself testified at trial that he agreed it's reasonable for people to call certain statements by the Canadian Islamic Congress anti-Semitic.

I appealed that trial judgment, and I lost. And today the Supreme Court said they won’t hear a further appeal.

And so now I have to pay $80,000 dollars to Awan, plus his legal costs. That’s obviously a blow to me financially.

But what worries me more is that a legal precedent has now been set: if you call a leader of an anti-Semitic group, “anti-Semitic”, you can be sued for defamation.

Every newspaper columnist, every political activist, every Jewish or Christian student in university must now be extremely careful. There is outrageous anti-Semitism on campuses these days. That’s not illegal. But calling members of those groups anti-Semitic can be illegal, if you don’t say it in just the right way.

This isn’t the first time that Awan has used the courts as a weapon to fight enemies of Islam. You’ll recall that Awan took the great Mark Steyn to three different Canadian human rights commissions for writing about Muslim extremism in Maclean’s magazine. It was my critical coverage of Awan’s lawfare against Steyn that caused Awan to target me with a lawsuit too.

Nearly eleven years has passed since Steyn first wrote that essay in October 2006. Awan sued me in 2009. That’s a long time. And that battle is over.

But what is Khurrum Awan up to now? He left Toronto, got married, settled down, started a family. He’s working for a law firm in Regina. 

But he’s not done with using our western courts to promote his Islamic agenda.

Just six weeks ago, Awan filed a stunning lawsuit against his neighbour in Regina. Now, most of it is just a legal squabble that neighbours sometimes have. Awan and his wife, Ayesha Ahmed, claim that there are “approximately three trees the branches of which overhang the Plaintiff’s backyard”. And some of the branches snapped and fell.

The lady who owns the neighbouring house, by the way, is 77 years old. So maybe she is not doing all the gardening she should. I don’t know.

But Awan is a lawyer, with lawyer friends. So he got another lawyer named Ahmed Malik to sue the neighbour, demanding $60,000 dollars.

But here’s the shocking part: Awan is suing his 77-year-old neighbour for having “a large Christian cross” on her backyard.

Awan says it’s a “violation of human rights” that a Catholic granny has a cross on her property, and that it’s "an attempt to intimidate and discriminate against the Plaintiffs, who are visible minorities and visible Muslims.”

He’s not just asking for $60,000 from his neighbour. He’s asking the court for “an injunction ordering the Defendants to permanently remove the cross.”

He’s a bully. Bullying a 77-year-old Catholic granny. Suing her for having a cross in her back yard. 

The same bully who went after Mark Steyn.

The same bully who just won $80,000 dollars from me in court.

See, the Supreme Court taught Khurrum Awan a lesson today: that the best way to wage a jihad against the west isn’t through violence like terrorism. The best way to wage a jihad against the west is peacefully, by using our own laws against us. A human rights kangaroo court against Steyn; defamation laws against me; and just plain old suing a 77-year-old neighbour for having a cross on her deck.

Look. I’ve got to pay Awan his $80,000. I have no other choice. And I’m going to pay that from my own funds — I don’t think I could ask anyone else to help with that. If you want to help me with my legal fees though, I’d be grateful for your help there — I still have to pay my lawyer. You can do that here.

And once I raise enough to cover my own costs, I’m going to do this: I’m going to send a cheque to that 77-year-old granny to help her cover her legal fees. Not for the squabble about branches and trees. But because no-one in should be sued for having a cross on her property — this is Canada, not Pakistan.

If you can help, please click here. 

Yours truly,

Ezra Levant

P.S. I’m going to pay Awan the $80,000 myself. There’s no way I will ask other people for help with that. But if you can help me with my legal bills, I’d be grateful. Please click here if you can help chip in — thank you.

P.P.S. I know what this poor lady in Regina is going through. I’m going to send her some money too, to help cover her legal bills. I don’t know who’s right or wrong about the branches and trees. I don’t care about that. But when a Muslim bully sues a little old lady for having a cross on her property, we’ve simply got to help her. I will personally take money from my own legal defence fund to help her.

P.P.P.S. If you prefer to contribute by cheque, please make it payable to “Linden & Associates in Trust” and put “Ezra Levant Defence Fund” in the memo, and mail it to:

Linden & Associates
200 Bay Street,
North Tower, Suite 2010
Toronto, Ontario
M5J 2J1

Thank you!

Tomorrow morning, the Supreme Court of Canada will decide whether they’ll hear my appeal in the case of Awan v. Levant.

As you know, Khurrum Awan was the youth president of an anti-Semitic group called the Canadian Islamic Congress, a group that lobbied for the legalization of terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah.

I called Awan an “anti-Semite”, and he sued. But the court said that was defamatory, because it was expressed as a fact instead of an opinion. And because I had “malice” towards Mohamed Elmasry, the CIC’s national leader, who had gone on national TV to say it was legitimate for terrorists to murder any adult Israeli.

Seriously.

Well, the court ordered me to pay Awan $80,000 plus his legal costs.

Naturally I appealed. Imagine being a student on a university campus, and it’s Israel Apartheid week, and getting into an argument with someone from an extremist Muslim student group who supports legalizing terrorist groups. 

If you called that Muslim activist an anti-Semite, but didn’t clarify that it was your opinion and not a scientific fact, that Muslim activist could take you to court.

It’s obviously a shocking case of libel chill.

Well, the Ontario Court of Appeal disagreed — their ruling overturned the trial judge on one point, but not enough to change the outcome. So earlier this year I appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

The Supreme Court doesn’t take every case that is sent to it. Frankly, my odds are slim. But I still decided to request a hearing.

Here's my lawyer’s 29-page argument.

Tomorrow, the court will announce their decision. And either we fight one more battle, or my nine-year war ends here.

Please read my final court argument. Some of it is technical legal jargon and some of it relates to other issues. But to me, this comes down to freedom of speech as a peaceful way to fight against Muslim extremism and anti-Semitism.

Wish me luck tomorrow, that we will have a chance to fight another day.

But if not — if the Supreme Court refuses my leave to appeal — please know that you have my deepest thanks for having supported me for so many years.

Yours gratefully,

Ezra Levant

P.S. If I lose tomorrow, I will have to pay Awan $80,000 plus legal fees. If that is the case, I will pay it from my own savings — I will not ask anyone else to cover that punishment. But if you support my lawyer’s written argument, please consider chipping in to help pay for his fee to draft it. You can do that by clicking here. Thank you.

P.P.S. If you prefer to contribute by cheque, please make it payable to “Linden & Associates in Trust” and put “Ezra Levant Defence Fund” in the memo, and mail it to:

Linden & Associates
200 Bay Street,
North Tower, Suite 2010
Toronto, Ontario
M5J 2J1

Thank you!

Today Ontario’s Court of Appeal ruled against me and sided with Khurrum Awan, the former youth president of the Canadian Islamic Congress who sued me more than seven years ago.

You can read the full court ruling here. 

I’m worried that this ruling sets a precedent, and it is now legally dangerous to call out an anti-Semite as anti-Semitic. Let me explain.

As you know, Awan was the former youth president of the Canadian Islamic Congress. And one of the reasons I lost was that the trial judge ruled that calling Awan an anti-Semite was defamatory.

But here’s why I had said it: Awan used to be the youth president of an anti-Semitic group — the Canadian Islamic Congress, which was led by a notorious anti-Semite, named Mohamed Elmasry. Elmasry went on TV to declare that any adult in Israel is a legitimate target for terrorism. You can see that video clip here:



And yet the trial judge ruled that it was defamatory for me to call their former youth president anti-Semitic. Because Awan denied he was an anti-Semite in court, and said he never knew about his organization's infamous misconduct. Awan said he wasn’t anti-Semitic, and the judge ruled I did not prove it was factually true.

Even though Awan himself testified at trial that he agreed it's reasonable for people to call certain statements by the Islamic Congress anti-Semitic. 

That trial was in 2014. So I appealed — it cost me more than $30,000 dollars. And today, the Ontario Court of Appeal came out with their ruling.

The three judge panel — led by a Jewish judge, Kathryn Feldman — upheld the trial decision against me, and the $80,000 judgement, plus the $70,000 cost penalty, plus $15,000 more for the appeal. So $165,000 dollars — all for a Muslim activist who never told the court that he lost a single penny because of my comments. 

Now, maybe you think that’s fine — it’s just me, I’m a big mouth. I dish it out, so I should take it. 

But let me read to you a passage in the Court of Appeal’s ruling. And put yourself in the shoes of, say, a Jewish student on campus, being faced with anti-Semites like Mohamed Elmasry every day.

The Court of Appeal actually said the trial judge got something wrong — they agreed with me that calling the Islamic Congress anti-Semitic was an expression of my opinion; I didn’t have to prove it as some sort of scientific fact like the trial judge said.

But then the Court of Appeal wrote that Awan "pled malice. Based on the record, the trial judge concluded that the appellant transferred his animosity toward Dr. Elmasry to the respondent.” 

As in, because I had hard feelings and animosity towards Mohamed Elmasry, that’s what the trial judge called malice. And she said I directed those feelings to Awan, so my defence of fair comment was thrown out.

So let me put that in plain English. If you campaign against anti-Semitism, and if you have hard feelings and animosity towards anti-Semites like Mohamed Elmasry — the Court of Appeal says those hard feelings and animosity take away your right to make a fair comment if they are directed at others associated with them. 

So if you see a vicious anti-Semite like Mohamed Elmasry on TV, justifying the murder of Israelis, and if you feel ill-will towards him, and you call him an anti-Semite or something like it because of that feeling, get ready to pay him $165,000 dollars, because the courts could say you’re malicious — towards him, or if you feel that way about people associated with him.

I resigned as a member of the Law Society of Alberta yesterday. I actually had to apply for permission to quit.

Now, that’s not really news — I haven’t worked at a law firm in 13 years. I’m a journalist and activist. But for some reason, there were more than 100 news stories about my resignation. 

I’ll tell you the reason: because it was a matter of freedom of speech.

You see, even though I was a non-practicing lawyer, I was still governed by the Law Society’s code of professional conduct. That’s supposed to discipline lawyers who do things like steal money from their clients — serious, professional malpractice. But there’s also a catch-all provision to discipline lawyers who engage in “unbecoming” conduct.

Well, over the last eight years, left-wing political extremists have abused that provision to file 26 nuisance complaints against me, claiming my journalism and political activism was “unbecoming”. 

I’m glad I went to law school and I use my legal training almost every day, but I use it to do politics or journalism, not as a lawyer. I haven’t had a client in years.

While I was at the firm, I received no complaints about my professional work. After I stopped practicing law, I kept renewing my Law Society membership and paying my dues, out of habit and sentimentality. Trouble is, by remaining a member of the Law Society, even as a non-practicing lawyer, I gave my political opponents free shots at me through the profession’s complaints procedure.

Starting in 2008, weeks after I launched my political and journalistic campaign to reform Canada’s human rights commissions, I became the target of a series of nuisance complaints to the Law Society. None of the complaints had anything to do with my work as a lawyer – I wasn’t working as a lawyer then. None of the complaints were filed by clients – I didn’t have any clients then. And almost all of the complaints were made by people with no connection to Alberta.

They were filed by political activists who had found a free way to take a run at me because of my politics and journalism. I don’t believe that’s what the Law Societies are about, or what the Code of Professional Conduct is about. But those nuisance complaints were jammed into the catch-all heading of “conduct unbecoming” a lawyer.

I acknowledge that there are some things that could amount to conduct unbecoming for a lawyer, even a non-practicing lawyer. Being convicted of a crime might be one example. But having strong opinions shouldn’t be. Nor should expressing them. Which is good, considering how many opinionated politicians are non-practicing members of the Law Society. Like Premiers Alison Redford, Jim Prentice and Rachel Notley.

It’s been eight years since the first nuisance complaint was filed against me. And as of today, fully 26 complaints have been filed against me, all by political activists. They prefer a Law Society complaint to a letter to the editor, because Law Society complaints compel me to hire a lawyer to defend myself, and to go through a meticulous process, consuming my time and money. And they prefer a Law Society complaint to a civil lawsuit against me, because when their complaints are eventually thrown out, as the 24 resolved complaints have been, they aren’t on the hook for my legal costs. The Law Society of Alberta has become a magnet for every nuisance litigant, crank and shakedown artist in the country. One Ontario left-wing activist – probably living not too far from where I live in Toronto – actually published an online template for how to file complaints against me here in Alberta. Just like me, the Law Society is forced to deal with these tactics.

Every complaint against me has been dismissed so far. But the trouble is, by the time each complaint had been dismissed, another one had been filed. So there has been no free moment to resign from the Law Society in eight years, and I wasn’t going to resign in the face of a complaint. That’s my one complaint: the Law Society has been fair in their dealings with me, and they’ve obviously supported my freedom of speech every single time. But they’ve been slow about it, usually taking more than a year to throw out political complaints.

To my surprise, after eight years of dismissing nuisance complaints without even a hearing, a panel of Benchers recently decided to refer the last two complaints against me to a prosecutor. I really couldn’t believe it – at first I thought it was a typo. The complaints, as you can see, center around a newspaper column in which I called the Alberta human rights commission “crazy”. In a newspaper’s editorial section. We were going to have a full hearing about that.

The Alberta human rights commission is crazy. I know, because I lived through one of their crazier prosecutions – a 900-day blasphemy case against me for the grave sin of publishing the Danish cartoons of Mohammed in a news magazine. But there is no such thing as the counterfeit human right not to be offended. That’s a crazy idea.

I should mention that Syed Soharwardy, one of the imams who filed that human rights commission complaint against me, also filed a Law Society complaint against me too. Both were dismissed.

I believe these last Law Society complaints are a violation of my Charter rights of freedom of expression, freedom of the press and freedom of conscience. I am confident that they would be dismissed, either by a Law Society panel or a court of appeal. The law in this area is well developed.

It was strange to me that after eight years of standing up for my freedom of speech, a panel of Benchers wanted a hearing. I’ve skimmed through the other disciplinary hearings at the Law Society – lawyers stealing money from client trust funds; lawyers making legal settlements without their client’s permission; lawyers too drunk to do their jobs. Real cases of professional conduct issues. And in the middle of that, a hearing because I called the human rights commission crazy.

Well, look. I’d love to have that hearing, and win, and set a strong precedent for freedom of speech – not just for myself, but so that in the future, no lawyer, either on the right or the left, has to go through the expensive hassle of a multi-year investigation of their political opinions.

I just stared down Premier Notley, whose office directed the sheriff to kick my reporters out of the Legislature. The Premier has backed down. This was an important freedom of speech issue, that we fought on behalf of TheRebel.media, but also for the benefit of all journalists. Yet I have no doubt that a Law Society complaint against me is coming, alleging that my comments during this latest fight with the Premier weren’t lawyerly. This merry go round is not going to stop.

To be frank, the cost and inconvenience aside  – I was looking forward to a freedom of speech fight with the Law Society. But a few weeks ago the Law Society raised the idea of resolution without the necessity of a hearing. I was pretty suspicious – what was the catch? Would I be asked to say that the Alberta human rights commission is a great bunch of guys, totally not crazy, really really sane? Or maybe that I shouldn’t have written my newspaper column about it? But that’s not the proposal. It appears all counsel want resolution without a contested hearing which, on their advice, I am prepared to accept.

I haven’t lived in Alberta for years, and I haven’t been at a law firm in over a decade. I actually submitted an application to resign from the Law Society years ago – but on the condition that there are no complaints outstanding against me. So, I’ve been waiting.

I’m a 16-year member of the Law Society without a single disciplinary action on my record. I’d prefer to remain an inactive lawyer, but I accept, that in this situation, it makes little sense for me to remain a member of the Law Society, knowing that the political harassment will continue.

I’ll miss the collegiality of being a lawyer – a little bit. But I won’t miss the nuisance complaints. And I promise I’ll keep fighting for freedom of speech every day in my real job as a journalist and political activist.

I think I know what the Law Society staff wants to do after eight years of nuisance complaints. They want to stop being forced to read my newspaper columns and watch my videos as part of their job. But you’re the deciders here. Let me know what you think is in the interests of the profession, the province, and the Constitution.

P.P.S. It’s a small consolation, but here is confirmation from the Law Society that I leave the profession with a perfect ethical record — despite 26 attempts by left-wing activists to smear me.

Today was the day I was scheduled to be prosecuted for one charge of being “publicly discourteous or disrespectful to a Commissioner or Tribunal Chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission” and two charges that my “public comments regarding the Alberta Human Rights Commission were inappropriate and unbecoming and that such conduct is deserving of sanction.”

Because two years ago I wrote a newspaper editorial calling Alberta’s human rights commission “crazy”.

Here’s a video I made about this prosecution last year:

Here we go again.

This October I will be prosecuted for one charge of being “publicly discourteous or disrespectful to a Commissioner or Tribunal Chair of the Alberta Human Rights Commission” and two charges that my “public comments regarding the Alberta Human Rights Commission were inappropriate and unbecoming and that such conduct is deserving of sanction.”

Because last year I wrote a newspaper editorial calling Alberta’s human rights commission “crazy”.

Have you ever heard of a journalist being prosecuted for being disrespectful towards a government agency? A journalist in Canada, that is — not in China or Russia.

I’ve been through something like this before. In February of 2006, I was the publisher of the Western Standard magazine. We ran a news story on the Danish cartoons of Mohammed and the deadly Muslim riots that followed. Being a news magazine, we included photos of the cartoons to show the central element of the story.

Muslim activists filed “hate speech” complaints against the magazine, and me personally, for reporting this legitimate news story. What followed was straight out of Kafka: a 900-day investigation by no fewer than 15 government bureaucrats and lawyers for the thought crime of publishing news “likely to expose a person to hatred or contempt.” Truth was not a defence; journalism was not a defence. The commission had invented a counterfeit human right not to be offended.

I spent $100,000 on legal fees before the commission dropped the charges against me — because they were taking such a beating in the media. Even the provincial cabinet minister in charge of the commission at the time, the Hon. Lindsay Blackett, told reporters the commission had become a “kangaroo court”. I guess he’s allowed to say that, but I’m not.

Over time human rights commissions have gotten much more scrutiny, and the federal human rights commission even had its censorship powers repealed by Parliament. But last year, Alberta’s commission stumbled back in the news. A Czech immigrant had failed the provincial engineering exam three times, so he complained to the commission that the exam was “discriminatory”. In a shocking ruling, they agreed and ordered Alberta’s engineering profession to lower their standards and pay the complainer $10,000.

I have an opinion about that. I think it’s: crazy. You may have the same opinion and, if you’re not a lawyer, you’re allowed to express it. I expressed it anyway. After all, I was a journalist and hadn’t practiced law in many years. My job was to express my opinion. Sun News hired me, as a journalist, to do exactly that.

This time the commission didn’t come for me. But one of their prosecutors did. Arman Chak filed a complaint to the Law Society of Alberta about my column. Even though I haven’t practiced law in years, I’m still a lawyer. That was his angle.

At first, the Law Society dismissed his complaint without even a hearing, as they do with other nuisance complaints filed against me over the years by my political opponents. It would be unprecedented to prosecute a journalist for having the wrong opinions about a government agency.

Alberta benchers aren’t always so fastidious about courtesy. Earlier this year Dennis Edney, Omar Khadr’s lawyer, stood outside the Edmonton court house, blaming Khadr’s legal situation on the legal system’s anti-Muslim “bigotry”. But like Chak, Edney is a law society bencher himself. He is not being prosecuted. Nor should he be — we need passionate lawyers, zealously advocating for their clients, even if they’re sometimes prickly.

To my knowledge the decision to prosecute me is unprecedented. Unlike Edney and his court-house remarks, I’m not even a practicing lawyer. I’m a journalist who happens to be trained in the law. There are tens of thousands of inactive lawyers like me in Canada. They include politicians like Peter MacKay and Thomas Mulcair. Sometimes these politician-lawyers are polite. Sometimes they aren’t. Two years ago, my fellow member of the Law Society of Alberta, an opposition politician named Rachel Notley, compared the Alberta Energy Regulator to a “banana republic”. It’s a quasi-judicial tribunal, like the human rights commission. But it’s unthinkable that the Law Society would have prosecuted her for being “discourteous” to a government agency. Because we live in a democracy and value public debate.

Well, I do too. And I’m going to keep calling the human rights commission “crazy” for the rest of my life. And the fact is that their old prosecutor is still trying to get me — that is a bit crazy, isn’t it?

Please help me cover the cost of defending against this prosecution. I estimate it will cost me $25,000 in legal fees. I’d be very grateful if you could help me, by making a secure donation