FOR OR AGAINST THE OIL PIPELINE, CONSIDER THE ISSUES

Quebec Liberals pressure billboard company to ban pro-pipeline ad. 

For months we've had a billboard right across from Montreal's City Hall demanding that their Liberal mayor, Denis Coderre, stop blackballing an oil pipeline from western Canada.

 

Quebec Liberals love equalization payments from Alberta and Saskatchewan oil. But they refuse to let that oil pass through in a safe, state-of-the-art pipeline, called Energy East. As if they don't drive cars or fly jets in Montreal.

 

Of course they do — they just prefer oil from OPEC dictatorships, like Saudi Arabia.

 

And that's the message of our new billboard:

 

rien-billboard-shariaoil-final-01.jpg

 

In English, that means "when Denis Coderre says no to the Energy East project, he's saying yes to sharia oil exported by OPEC." That's the king of Saudi Arabia.

 

But the billboard company refuses to run the ad. They ripped up our contract.

 

We asked them why, and they told us: they are afraid of offending Muslim activists and even the Saudi dictator himself.

 

But the billboard company also told us that Montreal's city hall was pressuring them to stop running our ads — and if they continued, their business might be in jeopardy. Liberal politicians might not give them any more permits.

 

Click here to see the e-mails and hear the phone call where the billboard company told me we're forbidden from criticizing the Saudi king — and that Liberals were threatening their business. It's shocking. But somehow not surprising.

 

But I live in Canada, not Saudi Arabia, and not some banana republic where Liberals can threaten businesses.

 

We have free speech here. We're allowed to criticize the King of Saudi Arabia, or the Liberal mayor of Montreal.

 

So help me God, we're going to run this billboard in Montreal, even if I have to literally stand on the street corner and hold up the poster myself.

 

We'll find another billboard company, or we'll buy radio ads, or we'll even hire a blimp to carry the message.

 

This is Canada. We prefer ethical oil to conflict oil. And we prefer Canadian freedom of speech, to Saudi-style, Liberal-style censorship.,

 

Ezra Levant