Earlier this week, I wrote about the noxious effort by the UN to give Islam a right not to hear criticism of its religion or its policies by declaring such criticism “hate speech”. The UN isn’t the first to come up with that rather strange notion of freedom; Canada, through its Human Rights Commissions, attempted to silence critics Mark Steyn and Ezra Levant through the threat of government sanction for publishing their opinions. Levant and Steyn won, but in Levant’s case, it cost him his magazine, the Western Standard.

Now Ezra has a new book, Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights, which details his fight to defend free speech in Canada. Mark Steyn provides the introduction to the book, which should get people interested in advance of its March 24th release date.

Levant calls this a “national wake-up call” to the people of Canada, but it’s really a wake-up call for the West. Freedom of speech is what makes all of the other freedoms possible, and too many among us want to subordinate that to a right not to hear criticism — which would put a straitjacket on public discourse and allow government to dictate the terms of political debate. One only need look at what happened to Levant and Steyn to realize that the day has already arrived in some countries.

I’m looking forward to reading this. Be sure to order your copy now.

Levant has clips of his interrogation at the hands of the Canadian human-rights thought police at his YouTube channel. I’ve included one segment showing Levant ripping into the entire notion of the proceedings: