Syed Soharwardy, 53, has come a long way since he filed a human rights complaint in Alberta in 2006 against Ezra Levant, who published the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in his magazine, the Western Standard. An engineer by trade and an imam by training, Soharwardy became the face of Muslim outrage as Levant was called before a commission staffer to explain his actions. He has since faced his own accusations of discrimination, and has undergone a conversion of sorts when it comes to human rights commissions. This summer, he joined other religious leaders in a multi-faith walk across Canada that began in Halifax. Maclean's caught up to him near Thunder Bay, Ont.

Q: How are you doing — physically, I mean?

A: Well, when I first began, my legs and feet hurt a lot. I was having trouble getting through the day. But now I feel great. I actually feel bad if I'm not walking. We're covering 40 kilometres a day. I'm getting 4.5 kilometres per hour in the mountains and between 5.5 and six kilometres per hour on the flat land.

Q: What do you hope to accomplish?

A: It's about one thing: getting out the message that violence is wrong, whether we're talking about war, domestic violence in the home, violence against women or terrorism. I'll tell you, I've gotten more of an education on this walk than I have in all my years of school or university. I now know how blessed this country is, how powerful it is, how tolerant and educated its people are. People have welcomed me with open arms, regardless of whether I'm of their colour or language. I've walked through Quebec, where I'd read so much about how intolerant it could be. It couldn't have been further from the truth. I met Quebec women with tears in their eyes telling me they support what we are doing.

Q: You came to Canada 13 years ago, having lived in the Middle East and the U.S. What made you choose this country?

A: Actually, it was the 1988 Winter Olympics. I was living in New Jersey at the time — East Orange, where I was attending university. I'd watch the Olympics every night on television and I was very captivated by Calgary. This is funny, but I actually prayed that I would one day come to live there. It looked like it would provide all the opportunities of living in a big city but all the benefits of living in a small one. And it was beautiful, of course. Just marvellous countryside. I already knew that Canada was an open and tolerant society, so when the opportunity came to take a position there, I leapt at it.

Q: You came to national prominence with your human rights complaint against Ezra Levant, which a lot of Canadians interpreted as an attack upon free expression. You later withdrew that complaint, saying its purpose had been misrepresented. Is it safe to say you miscalculated the public response?

A: It was not a miscalculation. I honestly believed at the time that, in Canada, if you felt offended by something that had been said about your religion or identity, this was the way you resolved the issue. I felt genuinely hurt by Mr. Levant's decision to publish the cartoons, and I still feel he did it intentionally to offend my religion. Based on what I'd seen in the media and read on the Internet, I thought this was a process that brought the parties together to set things right. I had seen, for example, that other groups, including members of the homosexual community, had done it. And for the first year of this whole controversy, I was quite convinced I had done the right thing. I had no intention of controlling Mr. Levant's speech.

Q: But you must have known, having read the law, that if you succeeded, that is exactly the effect your complaint would have.

A: Yes, but you must understand this is not what I set out to do. This whole controversy, and some of the other things that I've seen, have changed my view of the role of human rights commissions in Canadian society.

Q: How so?

A: Well, while all this was going on, I was on an interfaith committee with Bishop Fred Henry [of the Catholic diocese of Calgary], who told me he was facing complaints of his own at the human rights commission. He'd spoken out against same-sex marriage, and he was very upset that he'd been taken to the human rights panel, and that struck me as wrong. They were interfering with his religious freedom, and I don't want religious freedom to be controlled. If freedom of speech is available to any other group then it is available to me too, to speak about religion. I think I use it responsibly, and I can only hope people will be able to recognize what is responsible use of freedom of speech and what is irresponsible use of it.

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