A federal court judge has ordered Trudeau's environment minister, Steven Guilbeault, to stop blocking the account of Rebel News founder Ezra Levant on X, and to ensure it remains unblocked for as long as Guilbeault remains in Parliament.
Court orders environment minister to unblock Rebel News founder on X | CBC News | Jim Bronskill, Canadian Press:
September 12, 2023 - "Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault must unblock Rebel News founder Ezra Levant on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter, under the terms of a court order. The order issued by Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn ends an action Levant filed two years ago claiming the Liberal minister was violating his constitutional rights by blocking him. Levant argued that his inability to see or respond to Guilbeault's posts on the platform limited his ability to engage in debate on matters of public concern.
"The order says the parties acknowledge that Guilbeault and the federal government 'do not admit and in fact deny any liability in respect of the allegations made in the application.' However, under the order, the minister must ensure his X account unblocks Levant immediately and remains unblocked for as long as Guilbeault remains a member of Parliament. The court also ordered the government to pay $20,000 toward Rebel's legal expenses....
"In an affidavit filed with the court, Treasury Board Secretariat official Tracey Headley said Service Canada confirmed that the account in question was not an official Government of Canada social media account. Levant argued in the initial notice of application to the court that the Guilbeault account had all the trappings of an official, state-run account, adding the content was public in nature. The notice said the freedom of expression protected by the Charter of Rights includes the derivative right to access government information where it is necessary for meaningful expression on the functioning of government.
"A federal filing in the case points out that in various Twitter posts while Guilbeault was Canadian heritage minister, Levant called him a 'kook,' a 'thug' and possibly 'the stupidest cabinet minister in Ottawa.' Levant noted in his submission that Guilbeault chose to block him rather than use the social media platform's less intrusive muting function, which allows a user to remove another user's posts from their timeline without unfollowing or blocking that account."
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/steven-guilbeault-must-unblock-ezra-levant-1.6964294
We Beat Trudeau's Cabinet Minister Steven Guilbeault in Court | Rebel News | September 12, 2023:
September 11, 20- "Like his boss Justin Trudeau, Steven Guilbeault hates Rebel News because he can’t control us.... They both admire China’s dictatorship and they think they can act like little dictators themselves, by censoring us. And they’re both thin-skinned and petty. So here’s what Guilbeault did. He ordered his government department to 'block' us on X, formerly Twitter. So we couldn’t receive any government news updates from his department’s Twitter account. We couldn’t read anything, we couldn’t reply, and of course we couldn’t ask him journalistic questions on Twitter. We were effectively kicked out of the public square, which is what Twitter has become....
"So we sued. We went to the Federal Court of Canada and argued that we had a right to see those tweets — that it was a government service like any other.... Guilbeault fought us for more than two years. We had a court hearing in Toronto this summer, and the government had seven lawyers in the court, all just to stop us from seeing their tweets.... Well, today Guilbeault finally caved — he agreed to a 'consent order' against him.... Guilbeault’s government lawyers tried to get me to sign a confidentiality clause, banning me from disclosing the details of his settlement. Even as he was admitting he had violated our rights, he wanted to keep it a secret.... Guilbeault has been ordered by the court to un-block me and to never ban me again, as long as he’s an MP....
"Guilbeault has been ordered to pay Rebel News $20,000 for making us waste two years and enormous legal fees to assert our constitutional rights. Of course, he’ll probably make taxpayers pay that for him, even though it was he who broke the law. $20,000 sounds like a lot of money, and it is — but unfortunately, it’s just a fraction of what we had to spend to finally get this little thug to back down. (I can only imagine how much it cost taxpayers for Guilbeault to have SEVEN government lawyers defending him — he’ll probably try to keep that amount secret, too.)
"In some ways, today’s victory is a small thing. But having the Federal Court smack down government censorship is never a small thing. And it sets a precedent for all other bullies in Trudeau’s government, reminding them that they cannot use public resources to carry out a vendetta against their political critics."
Read more: https://www.rebelnews.com/breaking_news_ezra_levant_defeats_trudeau_cabinet_minister_steven_guilbeault_in_court
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