In his editorial about the censorship powers of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Glenn Kauth calls free-speech advocates in Canada “right-wingers.”
Some of us are. But free speech is a liberal value, too. I’m proud to stand in solidarity with organizations like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Association of Journalists, Egale Canada, and PEN Canada; with Liberal MPs like Keith Martin and Liberal senators like Jerry Grafstein; with Muslim liberals like Salim Mansur and Tarek Fatah; with leftist icons like Noam Chomsky; and with every liberal newspaper in the country from the Toronto Star to the Montreal Gazette to Eye Weekly.
Each of these has called for the repeal of the Canadian government’s censorship powers.
Censorship violates true liberal values. With the recent ruling in the Warman v. Lemire case, we now know it violates the Charter, too.
Some of us are. But free speech is a liberal value, too. I’m proud to stand in solidarity with organizations like the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Association of Journalists, Egale Canada, and PEN Canada; with Liberal MPs like Keith Martin and Liberal senators like Jerry Grafstein; with Muslim liberals like Salim Mansur and Tarek Fatah; with leftist icons like Noam Chomsky; and with every liberal newspaper in the country from the Toronto Star to the Montreal Gazette to Eye Weekly.
Each of these has called for the repeal of the Canadian government’s censorship powers.
Censorship violates true liberal values. With the recent ruling in the Warman v. Lemire case, we now know it violates the Charter, too.
Ezra Levant
Calgary
Calgary
