“I first raised Kaambakhsh’s case almost two weeks ago, to provide some context for all the hyperbole surrounding Ezra Levant’s troubles, about which Alan Borovoy has now had more than a few intelligent things to say.
“I’m a great admirer of Borovoy, with whom I notoriously share a nostaligia for ‘the memory of North America’s tough-minded democratic Left’ as well as an antipathy to the hard-line, conservative approach to refugee claimants — an approach that casts such a wide net in the effort to keep Canada free of terrorists that it also excludes ‘asylum seekers who are legitimate freedom fighters from totalitarian regimes.’
“I’m still not 100 per cent convinced by his position on free-speech, though. I’m more inclined to the slightly different position set out here. Context is everything. But for now, at least, I’m going with Borovoy regardless. He’s way, way smarter that I am.
“Speaking of the proper context in which to place hyperbole about ‘state persecution’ in Canada, can we please at least bear a thought or two next Wednesday for the dozens of student activists the thug regime in Iran has jailed in recent weeks?”
