Ezra Levant

His great-grandfather emigrated to Canada in 1903 from Russia to establish a homestead near Drumheller, Alberta.

Levant grew up in a suburb of Calgary.

He attended the Calgary Hebrew School in his childhood before transferring to a public junior high school.

Levant campaigned for the Reform Party of Canada as a teenager and joined it as a university student.

Ezra Isaac Levant (born February 20, 1972) is a Canadian far-right media personality, political activist, writer, broadcaster, and former lawyer.

Levant is the founder and former publisher of the conservative magazine, The Western Standard.

He is also the co-founder, owner, and CEO of the far-right media website Rebel News.

From 1990 to 1993, while at the University of Calgary, his two-person team won the "best debating" category in the Inter-Collegiate Business Competition held at Queen's University.

The first two of those years, his debate partner was future Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi.

He has subsequently accused Nenshi, who is Ismaili, of "anti-Christian bigotry" as mayor.

Levant saw "youthquake," the term he used to describe what he identified as a conservative youth movement of the 1990s, as similar to the 1960s civil rights movement.

In his eyes, instead of being enslaved by racism, his generation was "enslaved by debt", and in order to liberate itself, society needed to dismantle elements such as trade unions, the minimum wage, universal health care, subsidized tuition, and public pension plans.

In 1994, he was featured in an article in The Globe and Mail on young conservatives after accusing the University of Alberta of racism for instituting an affirmative action program of hiring women and Indigenous professors.

After his actions outraged Indigenous law students, feminists, and a number of professors, Levant was called to a meeting with the assistant dean who advised him of the university's non-academic code of conduct and defamation laws.

As head of the university's speakers committee, Levant organized a debate between Doug Christie, a lawyer known for his advocacy in defence of Holocaust deniers and accused Nazi war criminals, and Thomas Kuttner, a Jewish lawyer from the New Brunswick Human Rights Commission.

Levant was invited to write a guest column for the Edmonton Journal and interviewed on television.

He spent the summer of 1994 in Washington, D.C., in an internship arranged by the libertarian Koch Summer Fellow Program.

In 1995 he worked for the Fraser Institute and wrote Youthquake, which argued for smaller government, including privatization of the Canada Pension Plan.

Levant was called to the Bar in 2000 and began practising law, working in a law firm for less than two years, but ceased his practice c. 2003 in order to pursue interests in politics and the media.

Levant had been the subject of 26 complaints to the Law Society since 2004 as a result of his public statements and political activities.

24 of the complaints were dismissed and the final two were pending when he resigned.

In 2004, Levant co-founded the Western Standard, an Alberta-based magazine with an emphasis on Western Canada and political conservatism.

Levant rose to prominence in 2006 after publishing the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons in The Western Standard, which led to a protracted legal battle with the Alberta Human Rights Commission regarding hate speech legislation and freedom of speech.

The complaint against Levant was ultimately withdrawn.

On February 13, 2006, the Western Standard published the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons depicting unflattering images of Muhammad.

Syed Soharwardy, a Calgary Imam and president of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada, complained about the publication to the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.

In October 2007, the magazine ceased publication of its print edition after failing to become profitable, becoming an online magazine.

Levant later sold the publication's remaining assets to Matthew Johnson, the former legislative aide to Rahim Jaffer.

On December 21, 2007, Soharwardy withdrew his complaint against the magazine when Johnston apologized directly and publicly to Soharwardy and Canada's Muslim community for publishing the cartoons.

Levant refused to apologize and a hearing was scheduled for January 2008.

On the day of the hearing, Levant republished the cartoons on his personal website.

At the request of Levant and his lawyers, Levant was allowed to videotape his interview with Shirlene McGovern, a human rights investigator with the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

Levant has also worked as a columnist for Sun Media, and he hosted a daily program on the Sun News Network from the channel's inception in 2011 until its demise in 2015.

In February 2015, Levant co-founded Rebel News with Brian Lilley; Lilley left Rebel News in 2017 citing lack of editorial standards.

Under Levant, Rebel News has been described as a platform for the anti-Islamic ideology known as counter-jihad.

Levant self-identifies as a libertarian conservative; however, he has also been identified as belonging to the Canadian far right.

He is a prominent supporter of the Canadian petroleum industry and fracking.

Levant has been successfully sued for libel on multiple occasions, while apologies and retractions were issued by him or on his behalf on numerous other occasions.

Levant was born to an Ashkenazi Jewish family in Calgary, Alberta.

Though a non-practising lawyer, he maintained his membership in the Law Society of Alberta until 2016 when he resigned.