Live Updates: Ezra Levant suing Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault in Federal Court over Twitter censorship
Public figures should not be able to ban, cancel, or silence people who criticize them — especially not in a democracy.
Justin Trudeau's Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault blocked Rebel News' Ezra Levant on Twitter. That's why the Rebel News' boss is suing Guilbeault in Federal Court this morning in Toronto.
Today in Federal Court I’m suing Steven Guilbeault, Trudeau’s environment minister, for blocking me on Twitter.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
That might sound minor but it’s a dangerous precedent. What other government services can I be denied because of my politics? Please help at https://t.co/do3KQzDseW. pic.twitter.com/xBsx81rvxA
For more background information on the hearing and to make a donation in support, visit www.TwitterLawsuit.ca
Follow along below for live updates from the hearing:
We're adjourned! I'll have more later tonight on my show.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
If you want to help me fight this fight, please go to https://t.co/do3KQzE04u. Thanks.
Scott Nicol (our second lawyer) says the lawyers should be given two weeks to come up with a proposal for timing, but if we can't agree, the judge should decide it. The Judge likes this idea.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Justice Zinn: Charter rights are at issue -- it should be done quickly.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Justice Zinn says "we're probably looking September at the earliest."
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Justice Zinn says the earlier it can be rescheduled the better -- he says the court is very busy "post-covid", and a two-day matter is hard to fit in.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Guilbeault's lawyer asks which judge should deal with any procedural things. Justice Zinn says it should be him. He says he's pretty quick at replying to emails, etc.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Justice Zinn asks if we need more than a single day for the hearing. He says he thinks this is "a significant issue" and he's not sure it's a one-day hearing.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
We'll adjourn today. I want some indication as to whether it's a two-day trial.
Justice Zinn says even our side has to learn more about the grey checkmarks -- e.g. can they be given unilaterally by Twitter?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Trudeau lawyer (from Justice Department): we need the opportunity to review material and conduct further investigations and make further inquiries.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Chad (our lawyer): we are not opposed to granting an adjournment (i.e. a delay to another day).
Justice Zinn: what do we do now? Are we prepared to proceed, or do we adjourn?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Justice Zinn: I can't see how this would prejudice Guilbeault. The minister and Canada need to have the opportunity to examine and respond to the grey checkmark material if they want.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
On the face of it, it appears to have some probative value.
So it's admitted.
Justice Zinn says he will accept that this material was not available at a (much) earlier date; he's satisfied that admitting this will not unduly delay the matter. The interests of justice would be served by admitting this material. It may assist the court.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Justice Zinn refers to a 2002 Federal Court of Appeal case that's on point: Will it serve the interests of justice and assist the court? Will it not prejudice the other side? Could it have been available earlier?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
The judge is back.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
If you want to help our lawsuit, please go to https://t.co/do3KQzE04u. It's an important case, and no-one else is fighting it. Seriously, where are the @cancivlib, @CJFE, @PENCanada, @caj, @AmnestyNow? Are they fine with Trudeau blacklisting journalists?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Why would they care? I mean, seriously, why would they spend what's got to be $500,000 over the past two years fighting for the power to block me on Twitter? It's madness. But they want the precedent -- for they surely will use it for other government services, too.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
The government is apoplectic about the idea that the court should consider Steven Guilbeault's grey Twitter government verification badge, in a lawsuit that alleges his Twitter account is a government account (and thus a public service). Seven lawyers they've sent to stop me.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Scott Nicol continues: Guilbeault could answer these questions.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Our lawyer Chad jumps up. He reads from a Twitter policy manual. It lists eligible government accounts, and then says "eligible accounts may apply here..."
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
As in, of course this was applied for by Guilbeault.
Nicol: the government could clearly answer all these questions, but they refuse. Guilbeault sent an intern who had no information -- basically flipping the bird to the lawsuit. Nicol says Guilbeault has simply refused to give any information, and has stonewalled.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Nicol says reading Twitter's policy makes it clear that the grey checkmark is an active process.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Nicol (our second lawyer) points out that the list of people who get grey checkmarks are very senior, serious positions within governments -- e.g. kings, prime ministers, etc.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Nicol says this grey checkmark is very relevant to the issues at hand.
Justice Zinn isn't Twitter savvy. (Neither are the government lawyers -- or at least they pretend they're not, to further muddy the waters with their disinformation.). But it's clear that Zinn wants more information, not less.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Nicol: it is only speculation to suggest that Guilbeault could have been government-certified without his request, as Guilbeault's lawyer suggested.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Nicol points out that Steven Guilbeault himself has refused to provide any evidence, and has refused to be questioned in this matter. Nicol says the government could find out the facts if they wanted to.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Nicol says the late filling is only because we found out about the grey checkmark yesterday.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Scott Nicol (our second lawyer) is on his feet now.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Trudeau lawyer: there's no evidence about that
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Zinn: not yet...
Trudeau lawyer: we can't make any conclusions about how Guilbeault got a grey checkmark
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Zinn: would it not be relevant for the court to know if someone in the govt asked that this be designated as a govt account? If that happened, your argument seems to have a big hole in it!
Trudeau lawyer: "we don't know what it means".
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Judge Zinn: your clients know. They would either say yes or no if they knew about it... If that happened that seems to be a very relevant fact."
Trudeau lawyer: it's not an official account.
Zinn: It may be a government account.
Now a Justice Department lawyer is up (there are seven of these guys). He, too, says Guilbeault's grey checkmark "raises more questions than it answers". Really?
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Being certified as a government account doesn't gives us any infor about whether it's a government account?
Guilbeault's lawyer says that his grey government verification checkmark doesn't mean that Guilbeault's account is a government account. He suggests that Twitter doesn't decide if Guilbeault's account is a government account.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Guilbeault's lawyer admits he doesn't know anything about Twitter -- and then goes on to prove it. He has no clue about Twitter's verification scheme. He says we don't know if Guilbeault applied for the government checkmark -- almost suggesting Guilbeault didn't really want it.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
I'm not even kidding, we have seven government lawyers in court, all paid for by taxpayers, to enforce the government power to block any citizen they like from Twitter.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Guilbeault's lawyer claims he didn't know about this grey checkmark until Chad told him about it.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Guilbeault's lawyer says that Guilbeault has been verified for years. But that's only the blue "regular" verification. The grey government verification is very new. The government lawyer is trying to confuse the judge, who admits that he is not on Twitter.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
The government lawyer says we shouldn't be allowed to include this fact because it happened to late in the day. (But he only got this verification in the past two weeks, and didn't tell anybody!)
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Chad said he'd like injunctive relief -- that I should be unblocked.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Chad says this is such an important piece of information that Guilbeault's lawyers had a legal duty to disclose it to the court (and to us).
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
It's astonishing to me that the government's position is that the court should not even know about this.
Chad says the verification of government accounts is not a "passive" process. This is engaged by the applicant user -- so Guilbeault would have had to apply to Twitter for "government" verification. Chad says Guilbeault didn't disclose this to anyone despite this litigation.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Just to be clear, Chad wants to put into evidence the new grey government verification checkmark. Guilbeault's lawyers are opposing this! They are opposing this grey checkmark being allowed in as evidence!
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
SEVEN GOVERNMENT LAWYERS SENT TO STOP THIS.
Chad sums up the new fact of Guilbeault's government certification.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Chad says that, for two years, Guilbeault's lawyers have argued that it's simply not a government account. (That's absurd.) But the revelation of the official grey government checkmark basically dashes that.
There is an urgent matter: Guilbeault has just got his Twitter account "verified" as a GOVERNMENT account, in the last few weeks. (In the past, it was just a regularly blue checkmark). Obviously this is a huge fact that proves this is a government account, a public service.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
Presiding is Justice Zinn. This is the same judge that presided over the 2019 lawsuit where we asked the court to overturn Trudeau's ban on our journalists from the Leaders Debate. So he has, in the past, supported independent journalism and free speech. This is a bit different.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
On my side are Chad Williamson and Scott Nicol. Against us are literally SEVEN people -- four government lawyers and three government articling students.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
They really, really want to preserve their right to block their enemies.
I'm in the Federal Court of Canada in Toronto. We're about to start the hearing of Levant v. Guilbeault, a lawsuit wherein I ask the court to overturn Guilbeault's "blocking" of me on Twitter. I say it's a violation of my rights as a citizen to be denied that government service.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
If a politician can deny public services to his enemies list, where will it stop? Premier Maurice Duplessis stopped his enemy from getting a liquor license for his restaurant. That’s banana republic stuff and it’s illegal. Naturally Trudeau loves it. https://t.co/dPtuamz8l2
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) June 13, 2023
- By Ezra Levant
I’m suing Catherine McKenna and Steven Guilbeault!
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