Ezra Levant gets his day in what he calls a "kangaroo court"

Ezra Levant, the erstwhile editor of the Western Standard magazine, finally got his day in court with the Alberta Human Rights Commission on Friday and he's making the most of it. The old saying is that the best defence is a good offence, and Levant certainly sets out to be offensive.

As readers may recall, two complaints were made to the commission (see some earlier posts here and here and here.) when the magazine published the so-called "Danish cartoons" that lampooned Muslims.

It has taken more than 18 months to come to a hearing and although in the interim, the Western Standard has ceased to publish in print, Levant had made no secret about relishing the opportunity to fight the government's right to question him. And relish it he did.

You can come to your own conclusions about the hearing and Levant's chosen method of dealing with it because he and his lawyer videotaped the session and, despite being asked not to, made the tape public; Levant is in the process of posting 5 - 10 minute excerpts on You Tube (one segment is above) and has posted them, along with re-posting of the cartoons that started it all, on his personal website.

Levant makes a long opening statement, which his website publishes in full, saying he doesn't recognize Alberta's, or anyone's, right to call him to account for exercising his right of free speech. He concludes his opening statement in this rather grandiloquent way:

I have no faith in this farcical commission. But I do have faith in the justice and good sense of my fellow Albertans and Canadians. I believe that the better they understand this case, the more shocked they will be. I am here under your compulsion to answer the commission’s questions. But it is not I who am on trial: it is the freedom of all Canadians.You may start your interrogation.

Western Standard launches a new "awards" program -- The Globies

The Western Standard has launched a not-altogether-tongue-in-cheek awards program called The Globies, designed to allow readers to vote on their perceptions about bias, or lack of it, in news stories. The site allows readers to click on a 10-point range of choices from "balanced" to "biased" on various highlighted news stories; and to submit their own examples clipped from the nation's papers and newscasts.

Heavy with irony, the site introduces itself:

Welcome to the Globies, where we recognize the most breathtaking examples of unbiased Canadian political print news!

The Ottawa Press Gallery plays a crucial role in our democracy, giving Canadians straightforward, thoughtful insight into Canadians politics.

Without their enlightening and well researched articles, you wonder how average Canadians might ever see beyond their own narrow view of the world.

Help us recognize our nation's political journalists by submitting the most remarkable models of balanced coverage you come across! (News pieces only, not opinion columns).

The site is clearly designed to cock a snook at the Globe and Mail and other mainstream media that the Western Standard considers too liberal. It also seems designed to get attention paid and sell some subscriptions to the upstart Calgary-based magazine which now has a paid circulation of 25,000.

Western Standard sticks it to Justin

To compare Justin Trudeau to Paris Hilton is unfair--to Paris Hilton.

-- Ezra Levant in The Western Standard

I've got to admit, that's a pretty funny line. Levant's disdain for Trudeau, pere et fils, is made quite evident, in the the column and in the cover story by writer Terry O'Neill in the current issue of the Standard, which is starting its fourth year of publication. Levant says the younger Trudeau

"has a startlingly spare resume, and a political philosophy that can only be described as trite. That he would be seen as a great hope for the Liberal party is a mark of how much that party has lost since his father's era."

Given the parlous history of its antecedents, Alberta Report and Western Report, there are many who would not have given very good odds of this magazine reaching its 3rd birthday. But here it is, and apparently prospering. Its Shotgun Blog is home to some of the rudest and most outrageous commenters anywhere. Its redesign has been slick and professional. And it resolutely pokes its finger in the eyes of everyone with whom it disagrees (and they are legion), particularly if the subjects are liberal, eastern or not sufficiently supportive of the Bushies.