It’s My Bloody Right To Do So

My new hero, Ezra Levant, gives the Alberta Human Rights Commission what for:

More — much more — at his website.

The Alberta Human Rights Commission was investigating his publication, in a now-defunct print newspaper published in Calgary, the famous Mohammed cartoons from Denmark.

Notably, Canada has a very broad statement in its fundamental laws about freedom of speech, restated in 1982: “2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: a) freedom of conscience and religion; b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.” This is a stronger statement than the U.S. equivalent in the First Amendment — the First Amendment limits the power of the government to restrict free speech; it is a negative right. Canada phrases its statement of freedom of speech in an affirmative, not a negative, manner — meaning that it is a personal, individual right that must be honored despite other principles or factors that are at stake.

Good luck to Mr. Levant in his administrative proceeding; should he lose, I hope he is able to challenge that ruling in a real court. Shame on Canada for trying to squelch free speech. And Canada, the nation in the world most similar to the United States, should be a bellweather for us here in the States for what can happen here. This doesn’t mean it’s okay to actually go out and offend people and make fun of them for their religion or otherwise mock them undeservedly — but it means that the sanction for such misbehavior should be social, not legal. That’s as true in Canada as it is in the U.S.A.

Congratulations to Mr. Levant, whose videos of his interrogation by the Human Rights Commission have become the fifth-most popular video on YouTube, and which may have done more than anything else in the past five years to demonstrate how precarious our freedoms are.