I took my daughter Lyla to a social justice and climate change rally two weeks ago on the lawns of Queen’s Park. We got into an encounter with one of Canada’s most contentious conservatives.

Things started poorly that day. And quickly got worse.

So I have some things to explain, some mistakes to acknowledge, and some apologies to make.

As regular readers know, I’ve been trying to expose Lyla to many forms of community activism. This started because on our way back from the zoo one day last spring, she told me protests don’t change anything.

That seemed pretty cynical for age 9. I’ve been trying to show her otherwise.

When we saw Ezra Levant at the rally, Lyla wanted to talk to him. She’s been asking me a lot about why people don’t believe in climate change. Levant is a well-known skeptic. I thought it might be a learning moment for her.

This was a mistake. If there are two world views guaranteed to clash, they are Levant’s and mine.

From my perspective, the encounter was unpleasant. I came way from it angry. My daughter left it upset.

Afterwards, I wrote a column about the protest for the Star, which started with the encounter with Levant. In it, I critically described his demeanour and conduct.

This too was a mistake. I did not attend the rally intending to write about Levant. I had my notepad with me but didn’t take notes then.

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I included the encounter only because I thought it captured the poor start to the first protest I’d taken my daughter to, and things could only get better from there. I wrote those few paragraphs too quickly, working from memory. I was still angry and defensive about the encounter.

It did not help that I wrote it on my first day of vacation, as I was preparing to leave on a family canoe trip. I was rushed.

Once he learned of this column, Levant, unsurprisingly, posted to his website his version of events and the video taken by his camerawoman.

We continue to disagree about the exchange we had before the camera was turned on.

He maintains I did not identify myself as a Star journalist. I did, as I always do.

Levant also maintains that I pushed my daughter upon him like some overzealous stage mother. I did not.

Raw video provided to the Star by Levant clearly shows my daughter doing what I described in the column.

She can be seen approaching him to see what’s going on, walking back to me and picking up her sign, then returning to Levant.

She can be seen standing beside Peter McQueen, the man in the chicken costume, waiting for her turn to talk to Levant.

Levant described this scene as a fiction I had made up. It was not.

His tape captures most of the exchange between us.

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On reflection, the tape shows I portrayed Levant in a harsher light in my column than his conduct warranted. I should have written that he was polite to my daughter and that the fight — by which I meant a heated argument — I mentioned was not with her but with me. For that, I apologize.

It was not my best work. And in journalism, unlike many other lines of work, our bad days occur in public.

I have heard considerable criticism, both from friends and from those — their insults make clear — who aren’t.

Many raise questions about my part in things that day. Why did I talk to Levant at all? Why did I do so with the camera rolling?

Good questions. My bad decisions — ones that have kept me awake many nights.

People have suggested it might be unwise to mix my family and professional roles. This has given me great pause. I will think more about it.

People have suggested there is a conflict between being a journalist and engaging in social activism.

Well, that’s what I do. I am a columnist who is also a social justice activist. I don’t always get involved in the causes I write about, but when I do, I am transparent about it — to my subjects and my readers. My bosses at the Star not only condone this, they encourage it.

I should say also that Levant was quite right about the fact I misquoted my daughter in the column.

She did not say: “You’re being mean to my mom,” just before he walked away from our unfortunate encounter. (She did say that afterwards and repeated words to that effect many times. It took us some time to decompress from the exchange.) What she said at that moment, caught on tape, was: “You’re talking to my mommy, you know that, right?”

I am sorry that I got that wrong.

It’s said that we don’t learn anything on our good days. For me, mistakes are my best teachers. This one has lots of wisdom to impart. I am still learning from it.

I hope you can forgive the shortcomings in that column.