UPDATE: We've appealed The Libranos ruling at the Federal Court

We just wrapped up at the Federal Court of Appeal in the case of Trudeau's Elections Canada Commissioner against me and Rebel News for my book, The Libranos.

It was a very large courtroom, where I was the only one in the gallery. Sarah Miller, our excellent lawyer, was arguing against a massive team of government lawyers, all paid for by your tax dollars.

There were two main arguments that Sarah made. The first regarded a legal exemption for books, and the second involved lawn signs promoting the book.

“Our submissions relied on the fact that coinciding or planning around an election does not mean that a book was not otherwise going to be published regardless of the election,” Sarah explained. “And the second point was related to the scope of what can be done with a book's advertisement.”

Other books were published at the same time, like the clearly pro-Trudeau book by CBC government journalist Aaron Wherry. I wouldn't want his book banned, but I would ask — why is The Libranos banned when his isn't?

It's an uphill battle in these courts; they defer to the lower decision-makers. They would say Elections Canada are “experts” in election law, we want to defer to them even if they get it wrong, as long as they are “reasonable”.

“The standard of review is a reasonableness standard that has some standard built into it,” added Sarah. 

Whenever you're at the Federal Court of Appeal trying to overturn something, right from the outset you're on the backfoot. There's been no support from book publishers, journalists or authors groups for The Libranos. You would think they'd care about the de facto criminalization of a book.

I think the reason that no other book publisher in Canada cares is because they get massive subsidies from the federal government. I'm relying on you, my friends.

The Libranos is out there, it's still on the shelves. But this is an important fight; we can't let them set the precedent that books and the promotion of books be banned because some bureaucrat thinks it's being mean to Trudeau. They literally talked about how the cover of the book looks like The Sopranos and it's really mean.

I don't think that should be the standard for censorship. Go to TheLibranos.com to see how you can help, or to get your copy of the book today.

Ezra Levant

Rebel Commander

Ezra Levant is the founder and owner of Rebel News and the host of The Ezra Levant Show. He is the author of multiple best-selling books including Ethical Oil and most recently, China Virus.