Even many Canadians I've spoken with seem to struggle with our concept of free speech. I say it makes the idiots easy to spot and keep an eye on them.
Look at this very article. If he weren't in jail, would Irving have such a lofty perch from which to preach? I suppose Canadians and Europeans are more authoritarian than Americans and are more likely to see imprisonment as a natural discreditation of ideas, but if one agrees with the idea, then imprisonment tends to reinforce the validity idea. See Nelson Mandela.
Irving is just mad that he couldn't get a furlough to go to Tehran.