The Canadian establishment is determined to "get" Ezra Levant

Levant published derisive comments about lawyer Vigna that reflected the publically known facts about Vigna's behaviour but the judge said Levant should have interviewed Vigna to get his side of the story before making any comment

"A judge has ordered free speech activist Ezra Levant to pay $25,000 to Giacomo Vigna, a Canadian Human Rights Commission lawyer, for libelling him with "reckless indifference" to the truth in blog posts about a major hate speech case.

By accusing Mr. Vigna -- who once represented the CHRC in the prosecution of Freedomsite.orgwebmaster Marc Lemire -- of lying to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, switching critical evidence, failing to honour a promise to the Tribunal chair, and being fired, Mr. Levant "spoke in reckless disregard of the truth and for an ulterior purpose of denormalizing the Human Rights Commission across Canada which makes his statements malicious in that sense." Mr. Justice Robert Smith also ordered Mr. Levant to remove the libellous materials from his website within 15 days. They remained there Friday night, and Mr. Levant said he is getting advice from his lawyers about an appeal.

Many of Mr. Levant's statements about Mr. Vigna were judged not to be libellous, in that they amounted to fair comment. These included Mr. Levant's assertions that Mr. Vigna is a "buffoon" who "be-clowned himself" in front of the Tribunal, that he is a "three time election loser" and the CHRC is a "dumping ground for extremist politicians," or that Mr. Vigna was a "bully" who sent "goons" to "harass" Mr. Levant's parents, when in fact it was a process server trying to serve the libel notice.

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