On the eve of activist and author Yves Engler’s criminal trial in Montréal, veteran civil liberties lawyer Julius Grey is sounding the alarm about what a conviction would mean for free expression in Canada.

Engler is set to stand trial tomorrow, Friday, November 28, 2025, at the Palais de Justice in Montréal. The case centres on a peaceful email / letter-writing campaign that Engler launched after being charged with allegedly harassing media influencer Dalia Kurtz. Although those original harassment charges were dropped in July, Engler is still facing four criminal counts for supposedly “harassing” and “interfering with” the Montréal police by encouraging supporters to email them and ask that the charges be abandoned.

During a webinar held the day before the trial, Alex Tyrrell of Global Green News asked Julius Grey what kind of precedent it would set if Engler were convicted—and what he made of the fact that Engler had already spent five days in jail over this case. His answers were stark.

“Free speech would become a luxury”

Grey was blunt about the implications of a guilty verdict.

If Engler is convicted, he said, it would send a message that free speech is safe only on unimportant topics, and dangerous wherever powerful interests are involved.

“The precedent would be that on those issues on which there is a powerful lobby, it’s not safe to speak,” Grey warned. “Free speech would become a luxury that you can use on uncontroversial matters. You could discuss whether you like one movie or another, or what holidays you want. But as soon as you reach the controversial issues, it becomes dangerous.”

Grey noted that most people—especially professionals such as doctors, professors, and lawyers—will simply self-censor rather than risk their careers, their reputations, or even jail time.

“Most people do not want to have their careers end or spend time in prison, or be discredited and insulted by mainstream media,” he said. “What it would mean is that people would more or less shut up, or would only speak behind closed doors.”

In his view, Engler’s case is not an isolated oddity but part of a broader effort to cordon off Palestine and Israel from normal democratic debate, turning it into a zone where critics speak “at their peril.”

Five days in jail for a letter-writing campaign

Global Green News also asked Grey what he thought about the fact that Engler spent five days behind bars before a judge struck down a proposed bail condition that would have effectively gagged him from mentioning Kurtz or the case at all.

Grey did not mince words.

“I think it’s a scandal,” he said. “Nobody should spend five days in jail on these types of matters.”

He linked Engler’s incarceration to a broader Canadian trend of tightening bail and keeping more people in pre-trial detention, a trend he believes is being misapplied to political speech cases.

“Unfortunately, right now the trend in Canada is to narrow bail. People are afraid that people who are out on bail commit crimes, and so there is a very strong movement to leave more people incarcerated pending trial,” Grey explained. “It shouldn’t apply to Yves. He is not going to do anything to anybody if he’s out on bail.”

Grey argued that on accusations like “harassing the police” or allegedly bothering a public figure, the only legitimate time anyone should be jailed is after conviction—and even then, he suggested, these are not the kind of offences that warrant imprisonment.

“No one has a right not to be offended”

Although Grey is not leading Engler’s criminal defence, he is at the centre of the civil defamation battle involving Engler and musician Roger Waters, who are both being sued by Kurtz.

Drawing on his long career in constitutional law, Grey placed the defamation case squarely in the context of freedom of expression and SLAPP-style tactics designed to silence critics.

He recalled a Supreme Court decision he argued in the Ward case, which confirmed that “no one has a right not to be offended.” For Grey, that principle is fundamental to any democracy worthy of the name.

In the Kurtz case, he expects her to rely heavily on claims of “moral damages”—that she was hurt or offended by harsh criticism—and to seek exemplary (punitive) damages by trying to link criticism of Israel to antisemitism. Grey rejected that framing outright:

• Being offended, he said, is not a valid legal harm in itself.
• Anti-Zionism and antisemitism are not the same thing, and attempts to conflate them are politically motivated.

SLAPPs, lobbies and the Palestine exception

Grey repeatedly tied Engler’s situation to the wider use of SLAPPs—Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation—as a tool to shut down dissent, especially on Palestine.

He noted that SLAPP tactics were first refined by corporations going after environmental and labour activists, and are now widely deployed against those who criticise Israeli policy.

“There is a constant, relentless attack on people who criticize [Israel],” he said, describing complaints to professional bodies, publishers, and employers as part of a coordinated strategy.

He stressed that the problem is not limited to one lobby or one issue, but that Palestine and Israel have become the most extreme example of this trend in recent years:

• In some places it is safer to march “Down with President Trump” than to criticise Israel.
• Critics of Israel face career-ending accusations and the constant risk of legal harassment.

In that context, the criminalization of Engler’s letter-writing campaign looks, to Grey, like one more step in normalizing the punishment of dissent.

“We will continue to defend freedom of expression”

Despite his stark warnings, Grey said he does not believe that Engler will ultimately be convicted for emailing the police. But if the court does hand down a guilty verdict, he insists it will not be the end of the fight.

“Even if she should win, which I don’t believe likely, I would be horrified, but the battle won’t end there,” he said. “We will continue to defend freedom of expression.”

He pointed to past victories in controversial cases—from language rights in Québec to the Ward decision—as evidence that courts can still be persuaded to defend dissent, even on unpopular issues.

On the eve of tomorrow’s trial, Grey’s message is clear: this case is about much more than one activist.

If a peaceful email campaign to the police can be turned into “harassment,” he argues, then anyone who challenges power—on Palestine, the environment, Indigenous rights, or any other contentious issue—could be next.