By Jake Scott
Controversial media personality Ezra Levant was at Ryerson Thursday to speak on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign and about life for pro-Israel students on campus.
Levant was invited by campus group Students Supporting Israel (SSI) and ended up speaking about much more than just the BDS — a campaign that the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) voted on joining last April.
During the opening of Levant’s presentation, SSI president Hadas Hait read the RSU equity statement — which is required to be “read aloud during the opening address of all meetings and events,” according to the union’s policy manual. The statement says that, “hate speech rooted in, but not limited to, anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, anti-Semitic” will not be tolerated, and ends by asking the speaker if they agree.
Levant replied, “no,” prompting laughs from the audience. He went on to describe the statement as an “Orwellian command.”
“I believe in the freedom of speech, I even believe in the right to be racist or anti-semitic,” Levant told The Eyeopener after his speech.
Levant told the audience that he believes the BDS movement is a fundamentally racist approach and goes against what a student union should stand for.
“I think it’s disconcerting that they would think that they have a mandate to engage in anti-semitism for some foreign policy theme,” he said. “The real purpose of a students’ union is to attend to the needs of the students, which is the pretext with which they extract their fees, which is a way of saying student taxes.”
Levant also offered the room anecdotes on attempts at neutrality in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
“It is not appropriate to say, ‘ Well, between the fire and the fireman, I want to be neutral. The police and the robbers both have guns. Can we split the difference?’” Levant said. “I think some politically correct folks would like to say ‘can we split the difference between good and evil in the Middle East?’”
Levant also congratulated attendees for coming to the event.
“Pro-Israel voices are often outnumbered by pro-Hamas, pro-terrorist voices — simply because of the changing demographics in Canada,” said Levant.
His speech was well received, with the exception of one student.
“I was shocked and disappointed when I saw the level of hate in that room,” said Mohamed Zidane, a Ryerson student. “I definitely support the RSU, and I’m proud to be part of the RSU.”
Shannon Riley
RE: Mohamed Zidane’s comment. Mohamed asked a question of Levant. He explained that he was raised in a Muslim household, and had questioned his faith throughout his life. He asked Ezra’s opinion on whether Islam is inherently problematic. Ezra said that, like any religion, Islam has had golden periods and darker periods. He specifically stated that it would be unfair to characterize the entire religion as being “bad”. I’m not sure how Mohamed interpreted that as hateful. It was a very fair and balanced response. I strongly feel that Mohamed came in with a bias and an agenda, and that he would have condemned Ezra Levant and the event regardless of what was said.
There was no hate at the event; the only thing even remotely close to being hated was the policies of the RSU, and terrorism. If you have a problem with hating on terrorism, then your issues run far deeper than outrage at anything that was said yesterday.
Melissa
As for Mohamed Zidane’s comment. I recorded the entire speech and there was no hate speech conducted in the room yesterday.
Doubting Rich
“Controversial media personality Ezra Levant …”
In what way is this controversial, do you doubt he is a media personality?
Yes, I am being sarcastic. This is a ridiculous introduction. Would you bring up an outspoken left-wing TV presenter in that way? Of course not, because having an opinion and making that opinion clear is, or should not be, controversial. Ezra Levan is only “controversial” among the arrogant, self-righteous media elite and others in the left-wing bubble, because his opinion is not the one they are careful to proclaim.
In fact any member of CBC, BBC or CNN news teams should be genuinely controversial, because they bias their news with opinion while claiming to be unbiased. Why is honestly displaying an opinion more controversial than being dishonest about plugging the opposing opinion?