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By Lloyd Mackey
 THE FREE speech issue in Canada is currently something of a rolling story.
After touching only lightly on the issue, I want to dip my toes into the water a little, today, with some analysis of several facets of that story.
The main players in this part of the saga are Ezra Levant, Syed Soharwardy, Licia Corbella and Craig Chandler.
Levant is the founder and publisher of the now-defunct, Alberta-based conservative newsmagazine, the Western Standard. (To be absolutely accurate, the magazine is not fully defunct. While the print edition was put down some months ago, there is an e-zine at WesternStandard.ca.)
Soharwardy is founder of the Calgary-based Islamic Supreme Council of Canada and founder of Muslims Against Terrorism.
Corbella is a veteran Calgary journalist and the recently-appointed editorial page editor of the Calgary Herald.
Chandler was recently ousted as a provincial Tory candidate in a Calgary riding, apparently because of his arguably inflammatory record of anti-gay rhetoric, both as an individual and as the CEO of Concerned Christians Canada. He is now running in Calgary-Egmont as an independent, in the March 3 provincial election.
Connecting the dots between these four is a bit complicated, but I will try to keep the KISS (Keep it simple, s'il vous plait) principle in clear sight. - Levant has been in the news recently by defending his right to free speech when he was hauled before the Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC). His "offence" was the re-publishing of the famous Danish cartoons which castigated the Prophet Mohammed. Islamic leaders do not take kindly to depicting images -- complimentary or otherwise -- of their founder.
- Soharwardy was the person who lodged the complaint against Levant with the AHRC. Then, a few weeks later, he withdrew the complaint. In explaining his withdrawal on the Globe and Mail's website February 15, he said, among other things, that advice given by Jewish and Christian friends had persuaded him. Said he: "[M]y complaint was beyond what I now believe should be the mandate of such a commission. I now am of the view that this matter should have been handled in the court of public opinion."
- In a sense, Chandler could be viewed as a Christian alter ego to the pre-withdrawal Islamic Soharwardy. It would not be too much of a stretch to suggest that, to Soharwardy, the enemies were the "infidels" of the western world. To Chandler, the enemies of Christianity were the gay activists bent, in his view, on destroying marriage.
In an op-ed piece in the Herald of January 5, Chandler distanced himself from human rights bodies' past findings against him. He maintained that he still believes that "freedom of the press, freedom of speech and freedom of religion are under attack . . . and this should concern all people, and not just people of faith." But he tried to move on a little, suggesting that he is using his ouster from the Tory candidacy and subsequent decision to run as an independent as an "opportunity to grow as a person."
He suggested, as well, that one of his new year's resolutions is to "understand that my days as an activist and lobbyist are now over. I understand that a transition needs to be made. Like others who have made transitions from adversarial lobbyists to consensus builders, I, too, will make this transition."
He also suggests that if there have been "any who misunderstood my positions and have been offended by the delivery of my message, I sincerely apologize to you."
Earlier expressions of that last sentiment caused veteran Herald columnist and Preston Manning biographer to suggest, on November 20, that Chandler, the Rottweiler, was becoming a "veritable Beagle of benign behaviour." - Corbella is in an interesting position. She is an evangelical Christian (she readily admits to coming to faith at a 1984 Billy Graham meeting in Vancouver), a trusted advisor to the Manning Centre for Building Democracy, and a journalist who can be both tough and conciliatory at the same time.
Her role in all of the above has been to get on the record the view that one should be very careful about whether proverbial leopards like Chandler and Soharwardy can readily change their spots.
A Herald editorial of December 4, which may or may not have been written by Corbella, but would have been published with her okay, suggested that the provincial Tories: . . . cannot be seen to be associating itself with someone who has been linked to severe anti-gay stances amongst other things.
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| Sometimes, it's not just what is said, but how it's said. Chandler is notorious for offending just about everyone with his abrasive in-your-face style. It's no wonder that virtually every PC MLA was nervous about his nomination.With respect to Soharwardy, Corbella, in a February 16 piece under her own by-line, spoke of the Islamic leader spending two hours with the Herald's editorial board. And her own conclusion was that she was not yet ready to believe he had really changed. She quoted three of his previous writings, containing both anti-Israel and anti-Christian rhetoric -- the latter in connection with the work of Christian aid agencies in Muslim countries after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami which killed 280,000 people.* * *
For all the players in this saga, there is a good deal of work yet to be done. For those who want to have their own positions understood, they need, perhaps to have patience to give others some time to observe the conciliatory changes that they claim to have made.
And, for people like Corbella, there is a need to see that newspaper editorial pages are used to create light, as well as heat -- and to enable those with strong views to express them in ways that helps turn enemies into friends.
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Lloyd Mackey is a member of the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa and author of Stephen Harper: The Case for Collaborative Governance (ECW Press, 2006). He can be reached at lmackey@canadianchristianity.com.
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Calgary Muslim leader Syed Soharwardy says he is withdrawing his Alberta Human Rights Commission complaint against former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant. The complaint was launched in February, 2006, after the Western Standard and the Jewish Free Press reprinted cartoons from a Danish newspaper that many in the Muslim world felt insulted the Prophet Muhammad.
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Why I'm withdrawing my human rights complaint against Ezra Levant
The reprinting of the cartoons wasn't about free speech. The originals are readily available on the Internet for any who wish to see them. The reprinting seem aimed more at forcing people who are deeply unhappy about the cartoons, and who would not seek them out, to be faced with them again.
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Imam undercuts himself by twisting his own words
Soharwardy is trying to take back his complaint, but it's already too late. Levant's resolve is too strong and freedom of expression too fundamental a right to be so easily shrugged off after the microscope of world attention ended up being turned on Soharwardy.
Licia Corbella, Calgary Herald, February 16
February 20/2008
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