<div><strong><em>BRAND NEW EXTENDED FUNDRAISER STORY AS OF MAY 19, 2025. IF YOU'RE NEW TO ALL OF THIS, START HERE!</em></strong>
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<div>Since many readers might not be familiar with this eye-rolling saga based on how long it's been dragging on, this is a much more comprehensive overview than what was here before, so make yourself comfortable and I will lay it all out for you.
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<div>It was back in May of 2016 that serial grifter and notorious right-wing propagandist Ezra Levant -- in response to the devastating Alberta wildfires that savaged the town of Fort McMurray -- decided that, rather than properly directing people to the Red Cross in order to maximize the value of their donations to help the residents of Fort Mac, he would register his own self-serving, Rebel Media-promoting vanity Indiegogo fundraiser, and implored his readers to send their money to <em>him</em> rather than to the Red Cross, with the promise that he would eventually hand it all over.
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<div>From the beginning, Ezra made three implausible or clearly impossible claims to convince the rubes to send him their cash:
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<li>that he would turn over the <strong><em>full 100%</em></strong> of received donations to the Red Cross (he promised this publicly several times),
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<li>that he would hand over all of that money in time for it to be "matched" and thereby tripled in value, and
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<li>that all donors to his fundraiser would get charitable tax receipts.
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<div>The response to these claims was immediate and brutal -- within the first 24 hours of Ezra making these bold assurances on Twitter, he was savaged by countless critics pointing out that these claims were nonsense for obvious reasons:
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<li>It was impossible to turn over the full 100% of donations since the Indiegogo fundraising platform takes 5% of all donations as their service fee,
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<li>It was impossible to turn over that money in time for matching since Indiegogo does not release <em>any</em> donations until after a fundraiser is over, which in Ezra's case was <strong><em>after</em></strong> the hard matching deadline of May 31, 2016, and
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<li>Neither Ezra nor Rebel Media was a registered charity under CRA rules, and thus had no ability to issue charitable tax receipts.
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<div>Despite these obvious and indisputable facts, Ezra continued throughout the month of May 2016 to make these misleading and unsupported claims. Specifically, I was one of the people pointing this out, to which Ezra's response was to sue me for malicious defamation for, well, pointing out that he was making misleading claims.
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<div>I have previously written at length about those first two issues. About Ezra's insistence that he would turn over the full 100% of all donations to the Red Cross, I eviscerated that claim in detail <a href="https://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2019/01/when-is-100-not-really-100-part-one.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a> and <a href="https://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2019/01/when-is-100-not-really-100-part-two.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>, showing beyond any doubt that Ezra did <em>not</em> in fact keep that promise, falling short by several thousands of dollars.
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<div><em>(SIDE NOTE: It is worth pointing out that, in addition to donations coming in through his Indiegogo website, Ezra also accepted donations by cheque. From my examination of Ezra, I know </em><strong><em>exactly</em></strong><em> what that additional amount is, which means Ezra's shortfall is even </em><strong><em>larger</em></strong><em> than what you can read at my blog posts.)</em>
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<div>Regarding Ezra's promise that all donations would be matched by both the provincial and federal governments (and thereby tripled in value), I again dissected that claim in excruciating detail <a href="https://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2019/01/you-keep-using-that-matched-i-do-not.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a> and <a href="https://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2019/01/yeah-about-that-matching-part-deux.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>.
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<div>In short, both of those claims of Ezra Levant were absolute nonsense from the beginning, he <em>knew</em> they were nonsense, and yet he chose to sue me, claiming I had defamed him by ... pointing out the facts. (It is worth noting that, in the intervening years, Ezra has reluctantly conceded that I was entirely correct about what I wrote, but he insists on going to trial over this. More on this later.)
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<div>There is one more bit of Ezra-flavoured dishonesty that is worth noting before we get back to the main story. In his 2016 Statement of Claim, Ezra accused me of defaming him by claiming that I said that he committed (among other things) accounting fraud, tax fraud, embezzlement, theft and a raft of other criminal acts. Serious charges indeed, except that not a single one of those accusations is true, as I proved to the court <a href="https://canadiancynic.blogspot.com/2019/01/yeah-im-pretty-sure-i-never-said-that.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>.
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<div>Make sure you appreciate how thoroughly I debunked every single one of Ezra's accusations there; I searched my own Twitter timeline for any of those accusations and even common variations of them, and found nothing. Nada. Zip. In other words, Ezra simply <em>fabricated</em> all of those accusations and presented them to the Court in his Statement of Claim and his Reply. All nonsense. All made up. Which brings us to the obvious question -- why is this taking so long?
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<div>What happened is that, not long after Ezra filed his utterly worthless and meritless lawsuit against me, I was informed that Ontario had just passed some interesting new legislation; some anti-SLAPP legislation whose sole purpose was to put the boots to the increasing number of frivolous SLAPP suits being filed. My then-lawyer and I checked it over, and it seemed perfect for this -- every bit of that new legislation favoured my position -- so that's where this went. With unfortunate results.
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<div>What happened was that, at the time, that anti-SLAPP legislation was so new that few Ontario judges knew how to interpret it and, while I know that I should refrain from dumping on members of the Ontario judiciary, the only way for you to appreciate why this is taking so long is to explain that the motions judge who heard my anti-SLAPP motion was stunningly incompetent and clearly did not understand the first thing about it (and showed no interest in learning). Seriously, not a freaking clue. Her eventual ruling against me was, literally, wrong in every paragraph.
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<div>Worse, the three-member panel at the Court of Appeals was (hard to believe) even <em>less</em> qualified to hear the appeal, similarly getting almost everything wrong, which is how we find ourselves almost nine years later preparing to schedule a pre-trial conference, with Ezra Levant clearly determined to take this to trial despite knowing that he wildly misrepresented his own fundraiser and knowing that what I said at the time was absolutely correct and, more importantly, that I have the receipts to prove it.
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<div>I'm fairly confident that I am going to win at trial, but this has dragged on for almost a decade and even if I win, this has cost me a good deal of money, much of which I will never get back. It's not clear to me how Ezra expects to win given that he has, over the years and in some of his legal filings, reluctantly admitted that, no, he did <strong><em>not</em></strong> turn over the full 100% of donations and that, no, he did <strong><em>not</em></strong> turn over all those donations in time to be matched and that I can prove that I never said any of the things he accuses me of saying.
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<div>I can prove <em>all</em> of this; I have the receipts in terms of screenshots, and emails from the Red Cross, and emails from Indiegogo, and opinions from the charities department of the Canada Revenue Agency, and so much more; regardless, Ezra is apparently determined to push on with this so I'm organizing all of my evidence to kick his ass in court.
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<div>Meanwhile, if you want to keep up with developments, I've decided to be fully public about all of this, and I'm posting about it over at my Bluesky account, <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/canadiancynic.bsky.social," target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener"><a href="https://bsky.app/profile/canadiancynic.bsky.social," target="_blank" class="" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">https://bsky.app/profile/canadiancynic.bsky.social,</a></a> using the hashtag #ccezralawsuit so interested readers can filter on just this topic. And having explained all of this in thigh-sucking detail, what is it that you, the loyal reader, can do to help? Easy.
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<div>Obviously, you can donate. If you support me in standing up against Canada's most notorious bully and serial litigant and SLAPP suit generator, that's the first and most obvious way to help. In return, as I said, I'm going to make these proceedings as public as humanly possible and continue posting about it over at Bluesky. I think it's only fair that if people support me, they deserve to be able to keep up with developments on a regular basis.
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<div>The second way to help is to spread the word -- you can follow along at my Bluesky account and repost my postings related to this, to make sure as many people as possible who want to see me kick Ezra's pasty ass in court know about all of this.
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<div>Finally, there is one more way to help and that is bit more specific and I'm going to emphasize this. <strong>In addition to simply promoting this on Bluesky or elsewhere, I'm sure I have followers who are also followed by some truly prominent people on social media; people who have tens of thousands if not hundreds of followers. If you have such followers, it would be useful to not just repost my stuff, but to perhaps drop them a chat message so that this stuff does not get lost in a mass of generic notifications. Even a single social media promotion by someone with hundreds of thousands of followers could make a huge difference, so if you have personal access to any major social media "influencers" who you think would help, fire off a message to them and invite them to help.</strong>
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<div>I think this should do for the moment; take your time, read this story, follow the links and convince yourself that this is a good cause if you would like to see me take it to Canada's most prolific propagandist and bully, Ezra Levant. Because I am not backing down and I intend to stand up to Ezra and his relentless, right-wing intimidation. And if you want to help out, I've just explained where to start.
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<div><strong><em>ADDENDUM 1</em></strong>: Over at Bluesky, I recently published a short thread that proves incontrovertibly that Ezra misled his donors regarding both the 100% turnover claim and the matching claim. You can read that thread <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/canadiancynic.bsky.social/post/3lphwxi4uec2u" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">here</a>, which shows based on a short email exchange between myself and a Ms. Susan Larkin of the Red Cross that Ezra did <strong><em>not</em></strong> turn over the full $162,476 of what was donated and, further, that he fell <strong><em>far</em></strong> short in turning over those donations in time to be fully matched and thereby tripled in value (thereby depriving the Red Cross of well over $100,000 in donations).
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<div>All of that can be seen in the space of three short emails; despite this, Ezra is determined to go to court and claim that I defamed him maliciously for saying things that were absolutely correct and which I can prove based on correspondence with the Red Cross.
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<div>Go figure.
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<div><strong><em>ADDENDUM 2</em></strong>: Over at Bluesky, a few people are worried that by being this public about this lawsuit and publishing so much of my evidence, I could be jeopardizing my case.
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<div>Their first worry is that Ezra Levant's pantheon of high-priced lawyers, if they are at all competent (all evidence to the contrary), might be scraping all of my social media postings to use against me at trial. To which I can respond ... go ahead. Everything I'm posting is going to end up in filings before trial so it's not like I'm revealing anything that they won't get to see, anyway. If they're relentlessly collecting all of this, all they're getting is more and more proof that their client has no case and has fabricated his accusations against me. But there's another reason I'm doing this.
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<div>Obviously, I would like people to support me financially and donate to this fundraiser, but it's perfectly reasonable for such donors to ask whether this is a good cause in terms of being <strong><em>winnable</em></strong>. That is, can donors feel confident that, when this gets to trial, I will be in a position to kick Ezra's pasty ass?
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<div>Hence, my investing the time to make sure people really understand how meritless is Ezra's lawsuit, and how thoroughly I have been screwed over by the Ontario legal system. I'm posting all of this because I want supporters to truly feel comfortable that I am in an extremely strong position legally in terms of winning this thing when it goes to trial, so if you're unsure of that, well, you just have to read all of the stuff I've been posting to appreciate how I can prove that Ezra misled his donors and how I have all the receipts to prove that everything I said was true.
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<div>In any event, the offer is that you donate and, in exchange, I invest the time to make sure you know all the details. I think that's only fair.
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