Protesters rally at University of Calgary against free speech event on residential schools
More than 100 protesters gathered to denounce a Canadian Students for Free Speech event a week after Rebel News' Drea Humphrey and Dr. Tom Flanagan were doused with water.
Article by Rebel News staff
On Friday's episode of The Ezra Levant Show, Ezra was on the ground at the University of Calgary, his alma mater, where more than 100 protesters gathered outside the student centre to denounce a free speech event held there a week earlier.
That event, hosted by Canadian Students for Free Speech, featured Rebel News reporter Drea Humphrey and retired professor Dr. Tom Flanagan debating whether Canada's residential schools were a genocide. It ended with Flanagan being jostled and having a bottle of water poured over his head. Ezra noted the Calgary Police Service has so far refused to lay charges over the assault.
This time, Ezra brought two private security guards and found a university eager to avoid a repeat, with three media relations staff and senior administrators greeting him on arrival. Speakers addressed the crowd from a stage painted in the colours of the 'pride progress flag.'
Ezra found most of the remarks on Indigenous history unobjectionable, but took issue with one reference to the university defining the difference between hate speech and free speech. "Hate speech is a form of free speech. That's the whole point," he said.
Members of the Revolutionary Communist Party, who ran a booth at the rally, were happy to talk, with one fourth-year student explaining the party stands with every movement against oppression. A woman carrying a placard denouncing Rebel News, however, refused to say who made her sign and told Ezra he was not welcome.
Ezra also revisited the Kamloops claims, where no bodies have been exhumed despite millions of dollars in funding, and played a clip of Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew at the Brandon residential school cemetery. "Asking for a forensic investigation of an extreme allegation like that is not racism. It's journalism," Ezra said.
He concluded the university has so far respected free speech and that Canadian Students for Free Speech is off to a strong start.
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Ezra Levant
Rebel Commander
Ezra Levant is the founder and owner of Rebel News and the host of The Ezra Levant Show. He is the author of multiple best-selling books, including Ethical Oil, The Libranos, China Virus, and most recently, Trudeau's Secret Plan.
