1. Ezra Isaac Levant was born on February 20,1972 and is a Canadian media personality, political activist, writer, broadcaster, and former lawyer.
58 Facts About Ezra Levant
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Ezra Levant is the co-founder, owner, and CEO of the far-right media website Rebel News.
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Ezra Levant has worked as a columnist for Sun Media, and he hosted a daily program on the Sun News Network from the channel's inception in 2011 until its demise in 2015.
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Ezra Levant rose to prominence in 2006 after publishing the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons in The Western Standard, which led to a protracted legal battle with the Alberta Human Rights Commission regarding hate speech legislation and freedom of speech.
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In February 2015, Ezra Levant co-founded Rebel News with Brian Lilley; Lilley left Rebel News in 2017 citing lack of editorial standards.
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Ezra Levant has been identified by others as belonging to the Canadian far right.
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Ezra Levant has expressed support for the Canadian petroleum industry and for fracking.
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Ezra Levant has been successfully sued for libel on multiple occasions, while apologies and retractions were issued by him or on his behalf on numerous other occasions.
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Ezra Levant was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Calgary, Alberta.
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Ezra Levant's great-grandfather emigrated to Canada in 1903 from Russia to establish a homestead near Drumheller, Alberta.
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Ezra Levant attended the Calgary Hebrew School in his childhood before transferring to a public junior high school.
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Ezra Levant campaigned for the Reform Party of Canada as a teenager and joined it as a university student.
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Ezra Levant was invited to write a guest column for the Edmonton Journal and interviewed on television.
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Ezra Levant spent the summer of 1994 in Washington, DC, in an internship arranged by the libertarian Koch Summer Fellow Program.
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Ezra Levant saw "youthquake," the term he used to describe what he identified as a conservative youth movement of the 1990s, as similar to the 1960s civil rights movement.
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Ezra Levant had been the subject of 26 complaints to the Law Society since 2004 as a result of his public statements and political activities.
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In 2004, Ezra Levant co-founded the Western Standard, an Alberta-based magazine with an emphasis on Western Canada and political conservatism.
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Ezra Levant later sold the publication's remaining assets to Matthew Johnson, the former legislative aide to Rahim Jaffer.
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Ezra Levant refused to apologize and a hearing was scheduled for January 2008.
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Ezra Levant described his experience with the Alberta Human Rights Commission in his 2009 book, Shakedown.
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Ezra Levant criticized other media outlets for refusing to publish the cartoons or the material at Charlie Hebdo.
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From 2009 until 2010, Ezra Levant worked as a lobbyist for Rothman's Incorporated, a manufacturer and distributor of tobacco products, and for Achieve Energy Services Limited Partnership, part of the Alberta oil and gas industry.
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In March 2010, Ezra Levant accompanied fellow conservative personality Ann Coulter on a Canadian speaking tour.
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In 2010, Ezra Levant published the book Ethical Oil, which won the 2011 National Business Book Award.
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Ezra Levant's 2014 book, Groundswell: The Case for Fracking, was a finalist for the 2015 National Business Book Award.
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In 2010, Ezra Levant joined Sun Media as a columnist and was given an on-air position on its Sun News Network as host of The Source, an evening talk show, when that channel launched in April 2011.
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In 2012, during his tenure at Sun News, Ezra Levant received Queen Elizabeth II's Diamond Jubilee Medal.
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Ezra Levant argued his online production would be unencumbered by the regulatory and distribution challenges faced by the Sun News Network.
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Ezra Levant said lower production costs would make it more viable.
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In 1998, Ezra Levant wrote a Reform Party fundraising letter in which he criticized Alberta Progressive Conservative Senator Ron Ghitter.
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In September 2010, Ezra Levant wrote a column for Sun Media accusing George Soros of funding avaaz.
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On 18 November 2010 and 26 January 2011, the Ontario Superior Court ruled that Ezra Levant was to pay Giacomo Vigna, a Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer, $25,000 and $32,500, respectively.
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Ezra Levant accused Vigna of lying to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, tampering with evidence, and suggested he'd been fired.
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At the 2010 hearing, Ezra Levant was ordered to pay $25,000 to Vigna and to remove the libellous materials from his website.
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At the subsequent hearing, Vigna argued for more compensation to cover his lawyers' fees and Ezra Levant was ordered to pay an additional $32,500.
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Ezra Levant was successfully sued for libel by lawyer Khurrum Awan.
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Awan states that Ezra Levant stated that Awan believes it is permissible to lie to further the cause of Islam.
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Ezra Levant distinguished the two suits by saying that Terlesky made "a false, factual claim" and Ezra Levant's motivation in suing was not political.
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Ezra Levant found "that [Mr Levant's] dominant motive in these blog posts was ill will, and that his repeated failure to take even basic steps to check his facts showed a reckless disregard for the truth".
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The group alleges that Ezra Levant defamed them by comparing them to Nazis and calling them "Jew-baiters" over their campaign in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel due to that country's treatment of Palestinians.
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Ezra Levant is suing Day and Stirling individually for $95,000 in damages each.
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Day filed a motion to have the case dismissed under Ontario's anti-SLAPP legislation, arguing that Ezra Levant's suit was an attempt at lawfare intended to silence critics.
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In March 2021, Ezra Levant sued Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault for blocking Ezra Levant on the social media platform Twitter on his individual account.
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Ezra Levant claimed that Guilbeault's account was not a personal account but was functionally an official government account, and therefor should be accessible as a matter of freedom of expression.
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The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council determined that while hosting The Source in 2011, Ezra Levant violated the CBSC's Code of Ethics by using a Spanish vulgarity on air.
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On January 23,2013, Ezra Levant showed video of a protest that had occurred in front of the Sun News office in Toronto in which protesters objected to the Sun's coverage of the Idle No More movement.
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Ezra Levant replayed the clip on a subsequent show and proceeded to identify one couple by name claiming that they were "professional protesters".
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In 1996, Ezra Levant worked with David Frum to organize the "Winds of Change" conference in Calgary, an early attempt to encourage the Reform Party of Canada and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to merge so that a united rightwing party could defeat the Liberal Party of Canada in the subsequent election.
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Ezra Levant supported Preston Manning's United Alternative initiative in 1999, a more advanced attempt to unite the country's conservative movement and was one of the leaders of the movement to create the Canadian Alliance as an attempt to broaden the party's base.
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In 1999, after being dismissed as Preston Manning's legislative-assistant, Ezra Levant left Ottawa to join the editorial board of the fledgling National Post newspaper in Toronto.
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Later in 2001, Ezra Levant returned to Calgary to practise law.
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On November 24,2024, Ezra Levant was arrested by Toronto Police for "inciting" a crowd of anti-Israel protesters who had gathered in a Jewish neighbourhood centred around Bathurst Street and Sheppard Avenue in Toronto.
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Ezra Levant has called himself a libertarian, saying he is "basically someone who believes in freedom," although he says he is more "mainstream conservative" when it comes to social issues and foreign affairs.
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Ezra Levant predicted a Romney victory, with at least 295 electoral votes to 243 for Obama.
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Ezra Levant said that "every poll that shows Obama ahead in battleground states is equally skewed" and were biased in favour of Obama.
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In June 2008, Ezra Levant republished Boissoin's letter on his blog.
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Ezra Levant was featured on Glenn Beck's former show on CNN.
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Ezra Levant later said the protesters were a 'rent a mob' who were paid to attend any protest.