A screen shot of the blank spot on Ezra Levant’s website: no link, the plug pulled, presumably by Sun News Network. Below: Mr. Levant in full rhetorical flight.
Where is Ezra Levant’s Sun News Network rant on Roma immigration to Canada, which has been depicted as ethnic stereotyping to foment hate?
For that matter, where is the uncharacteristically silent Mr. Levant?
Just a week ago, on Sept. 5, the Sun News Network commentator – who as Rabble.ca’s Karl Nerenberg astutely observed yesterday, has carved himself a niche as the “nasty buffoon of the Canadian Right” – delivered one of his trademark on-air screeds, this time against what he termed “the Gypsy problem.” 
In his characteristically abusive style, Mr. Levant denied the Roma are a distinct people or culture, and indeed suggested that the term “Roma” should be used for nothing but a tomato. He called this ethnic group “not a race, not a religion, not a linguistic group,” and stated that they have come to Canada “to rob us blind as they have done in Europe for centuries.”
I’m not going to continue quoting Mr. Levant, because I believe that if his on-air remarks did not go over the line, his commentary came very close to the legal definition of hate speech set out in Section 319 of the Canadian Criminal Code.
Regardless, as Mr. Nerenberg pointed out, this opinion – if that’s the word for it – is simply false. “The facts are that Roma are a recognized ‘people’; they have a language, Romani; very few present-day Roma lead nomadic lifestyles; many own property; and many work at all kind of occupations, from musician to lawyer,” Mr. Nerenberg wrote.
Moreover, I’m not really directly quoting Mr. Levant anyway, as I’ve been forced to rely Mr. Nerenberg and other Internet sources because Mr. Levant’s commentary – so proudly posted to Sun News Network’s website last Wednesday – has mysteriously and almost completely disappeared into the cybervoid.
Whether or not Mr. Levant’s commentary about the Roma amounted to inciting hatred against an identifiable group, to paraphrase the language of the Criminal Code, it seems to have prompted responses from some of Mr. Levant’s online supporters that suggest it indeed had that effect. But along with the show, these comments have disappeared down the Sun News Memory Hole as well.
Back in June, when Mr. Levant was annoyed with me for complaining to the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council about his on-air use of a highly offensive Spanish obscenity in a commentary on tar sands and bananas (don’t ask!), he and his supporters repeatedly accused me of attempting to “censor” him for calling for the enforcement of the national broadcast regulator’s rules on profanity.
“I think I’m going to do my TV show tomorrow about you and your censorship activities,” he told me in one email calling on me to appear on his program.
My “censorship activities” regarding Mr. Levant’s commentary this time, however, must be severely curtailed by the simple fact that someone at Sun News Network has censored him first! Those who heard Mr. Levant’s rant with their own ears will have to be the ones who complain.
A hole for the piece remains on his personal website, but the video of his commentary is long gone.
In the spirit of fair play, I emailed Mr. Levant yesterday to ask him if he had been told why Sun News Network removed this link, and how felt about this decision by his employer. Astonishingly, although about eight hours have passed, there has been no response from this commentator normally known for his prolixity.
Nor has Mr. Levant, often a prolific Tweeter, had anything to say about this presumed act of censorship on his Twitter account, which only had a few unenlightening comments yesterday about the 911 tragedy. Perhaps for this reason, too, his merry little band of supporters has been atypically silent.
I hope Mr. Levant responds to my questions and provides his point of view. I would like to ensure he has a fair chance to respond to Sun TV’s action – something that, by the sound of it, he may not get on Sun News Network!
I am also convinced that readers would be interested in what Mr. Levant has to say about Sun News Network’s apparent decision to pull the plug on his commentary, if not his show.
In the mean time, without Mr. Levant’s assistance on this matter, I am left with the conclusion that he has really stepped in it. Perhaps even Sun News Network is growing concerned about the potential for damage to their none-too-sterling reputation by this loose cannon on their lower decks.
If so, Mr. Levant will finally have succeeded in doing to himself what he fatuously accuses others of trying to do to him!
Levant’s rant can be found on the Blazing Cat Fur blog – it was posted there last Friday and is truly reprehensible.
I’m glad to hear that someone has finally told Mr. Levant to put a sock in it. I imagine it was the threat of a hefty lawsuit, which I doubt Sun Media was willing to pick up the tab for, that finally did it. With the loss of his job and a lengthy lawsuit that he would be unlikely to win, I imagine he would find himself up the proverbial creek without the proverbial implement of self-propulsion.
Have there been Roma crooks? Of course, just like there are crooks in every identifiable group, because every group is human. But Mr. Levant should know, as a supposedly educated man, that judging an entire race by the conduct of a few is racism and we still have laws against that. Well, we did the last time I looked, anyway.
An interesting aside – Uri Avnery once accused certain members of the press of antisemitism when they looked the other way after the IDF had perpetrated a horrible crime in Gaza on the premise that, since they were Israeli, they probably had a good reason for doing what they did. He called this antisemitism because the media had judged the actions by who they were rather than what they had done. That would work for the for the last few decades of Western exceptionalism as a justification for invasion and slaughter of people who have never done anything to the invading countries, too, but they’ll never see it.
So, once again I wonder whether Ezra Levant isn’t a few marbles short of a game of Chinese Checkers (which, I found out, is neither Chinese or has anything to do with checkers but sounded like a good marketing ploy in 1928). How else can you explain these bizarre outbursts?
NOTE: After almost 20 hours and a second email, Mr. Levant still has not responded to my queries. He’s a-Tweet about Hilary Clinton and the Mormons today, so he must just not be checking his email.
He made a fool of himself a couple of years ago here in these two videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nt5EvA3NLI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNBJC2fUUUo&feature=BFa&list=PL1339ECBC041EA2C4
They are nos. 10 & 11 of a set of 12 videos on this debate, most of which I have not watched yet:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL1339ECBC041EA2C4
I think that because Gitz made claim to a “holocaust” Ezra decided he was being persecuted or something and could be all bigotted in response
You might want to read Ethical Oil
Chapters 9 & 10.
I just finished posting a brief article on Levant’s singling me out as an anti-Semite for, as he claimed, “scrubbing” KAIROS Canada’s website when KAIROS lost it’s CIDA funding.
http://www.nikbeeson.com/on-being-called-anti-semitic-and-a-liar-by-ezra-levant/
Levant thrives on the attention that controversy brings him and, as a libel lawyer, instinctively knows the very edge of legal libel. He also, unfortunately, seems to instinctively leave a trail of real suffering and divisiveness with no intelligible purpose other than self-aggrandizement. ‘Ethical Oil’, ‘Free Speech’ and ‘anti-Semitism’ appear to be just dummy’s that he uses for his own clown act: none benefit from his performance.
I don’t think he is a libel lawyer. He’s a lawyer and I don’t know if he has ever practiced as one or in what area of law. He’s been sued successfully for libel and I believe he has sued people for libel though I don’t know how or if any such suits were resolved
Seems to be a pattern with Sun Media’s, er, brighter lights.
David
I implore you! Please, please do not link to any of Levant’s sites (especially SUN). And no more pics or video clips either. And you can sanitize any articles with reference to Mark Steyn, Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh – you get the picture. Nothing wrong with the article (good in fact), but my stomach, and sanity, cannot take too much exposure to these nutjobs (clinical term).
The world is fk’d enough without these monsters getting entirely too much free press. They should be made to pay for every second of internet/tv/print time in blood. Think of the children, if nothing else.
So are you being sarcastic or do you want to “censor” Ezra because his views don’t reflect yours. It’s funny cause I came across this Facebook page the other day, “boycott sun news network”. Its how I stumbled on this page.
My cable is basic so I don’t get SNN and nor do I watch Fox News. Occasionally I will watch a sun news media clip just as I watch CBC, CNN and CTV. The only thing on FOX that interests me is NFL football.
Now I have read “ethical oil” and “tar sands”. Both books have valid & debatable points. I did notice that Ezra Levant’s book was awarded book of the year in business class and the CBC’s Peter Mansbridge was on that panel that selected the book. Ezra hasnt said pleasant things about Mr Mansbridge (I think is a class act BTW) but that didn’t stop him from seeing that Levant was making a strong case.
Sure he is controversial. So he published the cartoons of Mohammed in his Western Standard. The result is he took on the right to free speech. He won by the way it cost finically, but he won and his book “shakedown” (another book of the year). Explains why free speech (not hate speech) is important to our survival.
Should he calm down? Yes he needs to stop and take a deep breath before he does cross that line, like some of the other “celebrities” on the RIGHT. But like I have posted on here before, the language used to stereotype people who vote a specific way (gun nuts, pipeline evangelists, union-haters, etc) are not the kinds of words I would use to bridge a gap and run for election at the Privincial or Federal level. I have read enough blogs and posts on several pages to conclude the “right” doesn’t have a monopoly on hate, lies, deciept, manipulation of facts, stretching the truth, scare tactics). The “left” are just as bad.
Ezra is a sick, hate filled bigot. I do not care to read, hear or see any mention of him, or his ilk (reference Mark Steyn, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter, etc.). I would not shake his hand, welcome him into my home, or give him any regard. I believe that we suffer fools, knaves, and charlatans entirely too much in our modern era.
M. Climenhaga can do as his wishes, all I asked is that he not provide access to the rantings of a lunatic.
Levant’s writing and speaking against Omar Khadr is filled with such narrow views but he has been policy maker or propagandist for Vic Toews and helped to delay if not derail Omar Khadr’s return to Canada. Levant has been aided by the way the Omar Khadr story is told in mainstream media. They tended to latch on to some of Levant’s language in their articles that talk about “terrorist” OK or “convicted murder” OK – even though these same journalists earlier wrote about the appalling lack of justice in the Guantanamo plea bargain. I edited a book about Omar Khadr, and my interviews with the mainstream media often included Levant-style questions. While one can turn off SunMEDIA and not watch or read Levant, it’s more challenging to think about the trickle down effect. Perhaps you have other views…
Perhaps Ezra is away to the south, making videos with the ‘the anti-jihad’ Crusaders. What provokes hate he’d hate to miss out on.
or perhaps he flew to Timbuktu to video tape the ancient ruins (a UNESCO site) being destroyed while the world falls asleep.