The Supreme Court of Canada has dismissed a request to hear an appeal of a lower-court libel ruling against right-wing commentator and self-described provocateur Ezra Levant.

The plaintiff in the case was Khurrum Awan, a lawyer based in Saskatchewan who successfully sued Levant for defamatory comments. Levant, founder of Rebel Media, was ordered to pay $80,000 in damages and remove the libelous material about Awan from his personal website – a decision the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld in January this year.

In an email to iPolitics Thursday, Awan’s lawyer said Awan was “finally and fully vindicated” when the Supreme Court announced it had refused to hear the case.

“For years, Mr. Levant has maintained that his false statements about Mr. Awan were true,” Brian Shiller wrote. “Hopefully, he will respect the decisions of three courts and 13 judges that his statements were both false and caused damage to Mr. Awan.

“It is time for Mr. Levant to make a formal apology to Mr. Awan.”

Levant told iPolitics he does not intend to make an apology and is “disappointed” by the Supreme Court’s refusal to hear his appeal. As usual, the top court did not give reasons Thursday for rejecting Levant’s leave to appeal.

The roots of the libel case against Levant go back to a Maclean’s column titled “The future belongs to Islam” – written by Mark Steyn – which the magazine published in October 2006.

Awan, a law student at the time, and three other students complained to Maclean’s about the article, saying it portrayed Muslims unfairly. The magazine’s refusal to publish a reply article, as well as meetings between the students and Maclean’s publishers and its editor-in-chief at the time, eventually became the subject of three human rights complaints, filed in Ontario, British Columbia and with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Awan testified at the hearing before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, which Levant attended and live-blogged. Levant, who worked for Sun Media the time, wrote that Awan was a “liar”, “an anti-Semite” and an “illiberal Islamic fascist.”

Awan subsequently commenced an action against Levant in Ontario Superior Court.

During the trial, Levant’s lawyer argued the commentator’s words were not defamatory because of his reputation as an “outspoken provocateur and troublemaker” and that his statements qualified as ‘fair comment’, according to media coverage at the time.

The Court did not mince words in its 2014 ruling, which found that Levant’s defence was defeated by malice.

Justice Wendy Matheson concluded: “I find that the defendant’s dominant motive in these blog posts was ill-will, and that his repeated failure to take even basic steps to check his facts showed a reckless disregard for the truth.”

Levant brought the case to the Ontario Court of Appeal, which upheld the lower court’s ruling.

In an email to iPolitics Thursday, Levant said he fears the outcome of this long legal battle will be “a chilling effect over free speech in Canada.

“This is a great day for lawfare, for SLAPP suits, for using the law to shut up pro-Israel and Jewish activists,” he wrote. “It’s a great day for Muslim censors. It’s a great day for sharia law. But it’s embarrassing that our politically correct Canadian courts have gone along with it.”

The Conservative media personality gave his subscribers a heads-up about the Supreme Court’s impending decision in an email sent Wednesday evening, in which he called the case “a shocking case of libel chill.”

“To me, this comes down to freedom of speech as a peaceful way to fight against Muslim extremism and anti-Semitism,” he wrote in the newsletter.

In a postscript, Levant – who has been named in numerous defamation suits – also appealed to his subscribers to make a contribution to his legal fees. If the Supreme Court decided not to hear the case, Levant said he would pay the $80,000 penalty out of his own pocket; however, he asked readers to consider donating money to help pay the fee for his lawyer’s written argument.

“Left-wing political activists have filed literally dozens of nuisance lawsuits and legal complaints against Ezra, just to slow him down and cost him money,” reads the fundraising page on standwithezra.nationbuilder.com.

The webpage provides the option to make a one-time donation or set up a recurring monthly contribution.

More recently, a Montreal-based activist group filed a libel action against Levant on Dec. 22, 2016.