The Federal Court of Appeal upheld a decision that the Rebel News founder’s use of lawn signs to promote a book highly critical of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was an act of unlawful campaign activity.
Rebel News founder Ezra Levant was initially fined $3,000 by the Elections Commissioner in 2021 for his book entitled, “The Libranos: What the Media Won’t Tell you About Justin Trudeau’s Corruption.”
The Libranos details the various scandals and corruption charges faced by the Trudeau government since first taking power in 2015.
The book was published in 2019 during a federal election but had been written earlier.
The cover of the book featured Trudeau and his then-cabinet ministers in an image akin to the popular promotional poster for the hit series The Sopranos, which focused on a mob boss and his family.
The Commissioner referenced the book title as a reason behind the charge at the time, writing “…the book title’s reference to ‘Libranos’, which was clearly designed to create an association between the name of a registered party and The Sopranos, a mafia-themed television show, and to link the party to corruption.”
“The advertising message also contained an edited version of a graphic used to promote the show; drawings of the show’s characters were replaced with drawings of the leader and other public figures of the party,” the Commissioner continued.
Ads using its cover were taken out to promote and sell the book, including billboard ads and lawn signs which were available for purchase.
The ads came under fire by Elections Canada, which it deemed to be a form of unregistered campaign advertising, prompting the fine.
Levant appealed the decision but was rejected by the Federal Court of Appeal on Monday.
In an 11-page ruling, the judges cited Levant’s use of lawn signs to promote the book for not including “the information as required by section 352 of the Act; and (b) Rebel News incurred at least $500 in relation to the lawn signs and did not register as a third party for that Federal election as required by subsection 353(1) of the Act,” referring to the Canada Elections Act.
The Federal Court determined that Levant’s distribution of lawn signs to promote the book was an act of election advertising and thus violated election campaign advertising laws.
In a recent statement responding to the latest ruling, Levant said the years-long court battle involved “More than a dozen bureaucrats. Half a dozen lawyers. Not just government lawyers, but they hired expensive law firms, too.”
“I’m not sure why they did that. You’d think I was the Chinese Communist Party trying to interfere in the election,” said Levant, adding that there “were 24 books published about Trudeau in the 2019 campaign. 23 of them were friendly to him. Mine was critical. Guess which one was prosecuted as an illegal election activity?”
Elections Canada said that they were not going after the book itself, but instead issued two notices of violation that were specifically directed at the lawn signs used to promote it.
However, Levant argues that the lawn signs simply displayed the cover of his book with the words “buy the book” and were not designed to be viewed as campaign signs for an alternative political party.
“They effectively criminalized the cover of the book, because they said the picture of Trudeau was negative,” said Levant. “They absolutely hated that photo. In all four of the hearings, the government’s lawyers were obsessed by it. I think they must have had some specific instructions from Trudeau to go after that picture. It was really quite strange.”
Levant could now appeal the latest decision with the Supreme Court of Canada. However, the case would have to be accepted by the court beforehand.
“And I think my odds of overturning this latest decision are very low,” he said.
