Ezra Levant is pictured on the Sun News Network in this 2011 still image from video. THE CANADIAN PRESS
Republished September 29, 2014 - 5:50 PM
Original Publication Date September 29, 2014 - 1:50 PM
OTTAWA - Sun Media apologized Monday to Justin Trudeau after Ezra Levant's on-air rant about the Liberal leader and a wedding photo he appeared in recently. Trudeau boycotted the media company over Levant's comments about Trudeau's parents.
It's not the first time Levant's remarks have prompted anger and subsequent apologies. Some examples:
To Trudeau, from Sun Media:
"It is the view of Sun News that this segment was in poor taste and should not have been aired. We understand why many viewers found both the content and language of this segment to be offensive. We apologize to Mr. Trudeau, his family and to our viewers."
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Levant's personal apology to the Roma community in March 2013, following an on-air tirade months earlier that prompted a hate crime investigation:
"I regret having made these statements and I’m hopeful that those remarks will serve as an example of what not to do when commenting on social issues. I have the privilege of commenting regularly in this forum and I'm committed to doing so responsibly."
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To his broadcast audience in June 2012 after the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council ("idiots," according to Levant) ordered him to apologize on air for telling a Spanish banana executive, in Spanish, to have sex with his own mother:
"I didn't break any rules. Not that I care about the rules of some blowhard censors." Sun Media, however, did issue an apology to the Chiquita executive that Levant later read on-air.
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A 2010 Sun Media apology after Levant mentioned George Soros in a newspaper column, making false statements about the Democratic fundraiser's conduct as a young teenager in Nazi-occupied Hungary:
"The management of Sun Media wishes to state that there is no basis for the statements in the column and they should not have been made. Sun Media, this newspaper and Ezra Levant retract the statements made in the column and unreservedly apologize to Mr. Soros for the distress and harm this column may have caused him."
Follow Lee-Anne Goodman on Twitter at @leeanne25
News from © The Canadian Press, 2014