On Wednesday's episode of the Ezra Levant Show, Ezra sat down with William Diaz-Berthiaume, a former Rebel News reporter who has just been named the new National Campus Coordinator for Canadian Students for Free Speech, a new organization modelled in part on the work of the late Charlie Kirk. 

William argued that the greatest threat to free expression on Canadian campuses today is not administrators or protesters, but students who silence themselves before anyone else gets the chance to.

"The biggest issue on campus, in my opinion, is self-censorship, and it makes the job of the Left a lot easier when you yourself prevent yourself from speaking so they don't have to take a step forward," William said. "So yeah, you can rest assured we will not be self-censoring, and we'll be moving full steam ahead."

Ezra framed William's return to the free speech fight as one small way of carrying on Kirk's legacy after his killing in the United States. "One of the responses to the murder of Charlie Kirk, I think, is to complete his work, or to try to do so in our own small ways," Ezra said.

Reflecting on why Kirk's approach mattered so much to young conservatives, Ezra added: "That's why the work that Charlie Kirk did was so important and so encouraging. Not only did he go to win debates, he went to inspire and lead by example. It's also a terrible reason why he was murdered, assassinated, because he was quite simply the most effective promoter of conservative ideals to young people."

Canadian Students for Free Speech, backed financially and legally by The Democracy Fund, aims to build a presence on every campus in the country.

"Their goal is to promote and defend freedom of expression on every single university and college campus across Canada," William explained, adding the group also wants to push students to grapple with subjects many schools now avoid, including socialism versus capitalism, religion, faith, abortion, transgenderism, and Indigenous reconciliation. "We want to have a platform on every single university and college campus in Canada that students can debate and challenge themselves to think critically about those issues," he said.

Ezra praised the approach, recalling his own university days at a campus "Speaker's Corner," where students who said something foolish were heckled, and those who said something good were cheered.

"These days universities have trigger warnings and safe spaces," Ezra said. "I think we've gone so far the opposite way, especially on campuses, that we have to bring some of those rambunctious debates back."

William said that Canadian Students for Free Speech already has support at nine university campuses across the country, with events planned at Concordia University and McGill University as soon as next week, followed by an as-yet-undisclosed event at the University of British Columbia in October, plus stops at the University of Calgary and University of Alberta. 

Ezra closed the segment optimistic about the group's prospects. "I think you're going to have success," he told William, "because people still feel it was a cosmic unfairness that someone so broad-minded as Charlie Kirk, who would talk with anybody, was murdered. I think there's a grave deficit there that people want to fill. And I think you're the guy to do it."

Students interested in getting involved can sign up at studentsforfreespeech.ca.