Last week, one of our own Tribune columnists proudly proclaimed, "I can say pretty much whatever I want [in my column], because that is part of what being a Canadian is about… We hold our right to free speech as dear as we hold our right to due process-and any perceived challenge to said rights arouses fierce opposition and fury."
She expressed a noble sentiment, indeed. If only that were really the case here in Canada.
Canadians live under the veneer of free expression, as granted by their precious Charter of Rights and Freedoms. However, just beneath the placid surface of Canadian jurisprudence lies a whole host of thorny anti-liberal restrictions on freedom of speech and expression.
The Canadian Charter shamefully abridges and limits free expression, and restrictions on free speech go deep. For example, under Section 318 of the criminal code, Canadians don't have the right to "promote hate," no matter how silly, satirical, farfetched or shallow their 'advocacy' is meant to be. Quebec language laws dictate what content must be written in which language-a restriction antithetical to private property and free expression rights. Canadian trade law even gives the state the power to ban books such as Salman Rushdie's Satantic Verses (which was almost banned as anti-Islamic) and certain gay and lesbian fiction (sometimes confiscated at border crossings).
But even more disgracefully, Canadian human rights law gives plaintiffs with no standing or actual injury the right to sue publishers and authors who express or publish controversial views. An excerpt of author Mark Steyn's book America Alone that appeared in Maclean's has led several Canadian law students to sue under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Steyn's interlopers have cited Islamophobia as the basis for their complaint and three provincial human rights tribunals have acknowledged this.
According to such human rights tribunals, Canadians do not even have the right to insinuate that the British Royal family descended from a race of space lizards. In an op-ed, Steyn noted that one human rights complaint focussed on former BBC anchor David Icke, who was convinced that the Queen and her ilk were shape-shifters who had been born of extraterrestrial creatures. Lawyer and activist Richard Warman -- a plaintiff in almost 50 per cent of all federal section 13 human rights complaint -- told the Independent, "What benefit can there be in allowing him to speak?"
Apparently, Icke's wild ideas resemble typical anti-Semitic conspiracy theories too closely, even though Icke himself has repeatedly said of the space lizards, "We are being manipulated and I do not care if you are Jewish, Chinese, [or] Catholic."
One of the central tenets of liberalism is that there is no monopoly on truth and that all points of view are equally relevant in a truly free society. Orthodoxy must be challenged and dissenting viewpoints must be permitted. Banning allegedly racist, anti-Semitic, Islamophobic or homophobic views is a form of control over expression that has no place in a truly free society. Such sentiments wll always exist among an angry minority, and it is problematic for small groups to decide who deserves censorship or not. Canada's human rights kangaroo courts and anti-liberal restrictions on free speech have not actually made the country any more united or free of bigotry and may belittle more serious human rights cases. Canada suffers from strife over integration issues in a way that the United States does not-with a fierce "reasonable accommodation" debate raging and anti-Islamic sentiments being expressed by otherwise credible and mainstream political figures.
Countries with similar restrictions as Canada on free speech are hotbeds of hatred. France, Britain and the Netherlands all restrict some forms of expression and all are breeding groups of anti-Semitic, anti-Western and anti-liberal sentiment. These countries suffer from both small groups of disgruntled radical immigrant communities certain of the West's decadence and nativist right-wing racists who seek to end all foreign immgration. Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was assassinated by radical Muslims for expressing controversial views on Islam, while France's über-right wing politician Jean-Marie Le Pen thrives off anti-immigrant racist sentiment. Meanwhile, Britain suffers from homegrown Islamic terrrorism and domestic radicalism. Banning free expression in Europe and Canada has not lead to more harmony, only strife.
Just the fact that a country as safe and democratic as Canada even has human rights tribunals makes a mockery of real tragedy and injustice occurring abroad. It's time that Canadians everywhere actually took their right to free expression seriously-even if that means permitting unpopular or even bigoted speech.
The original version of this article mistakenly implied that Richard Warman filed a complaint against David Icke, and that he was a plaintiff in 50% of all Canadian human rights cases (instead of the more specific section 13 cases. The Tribune apologizes for the error.
