"charged, convicted and sentenced"

The months since July 2007 have been among the busiest of my career, so I've been unfortunately unable to devote the kind of time I'd like to addressing various matters (legal, political and otherwise) on this blog.  In particular, the recent brouhahas over human rights commission complaints being filed against Maclean's and against Ezra Levant and the Western Standard engage free expression issues in which I have a particular interest, so it's been frustrating for me to be silent on the matters, but others have been doing a much better job of covering them then I'd be able to.  I have been, let us say, derelict in my duties as a member of the vast rightwing conspiracy.  Happily, others have been addressing the issues with much more eloquence and attention than I'd have been able to muster, so my voice has hardly been missed.  A couple of weeks ago I did find the time to pen an op-ed piece which the good folks at the National Post were generous enough to publish today.  It can be found online here, and on page A16 of the print edition.

The piece doesn't begin to contain much of what I'd like to say about the matters, but I thought it might provide some useful context for at least part of the discussion.  I don't love the title ("The Free-Speech Myth") which was appended to the op-ed, but I wasn't really able to offer any better suggestions.  Of more concern, there was one paragraph which lost a sentence in the editing process, which I'd like to add back in because the nuance is important - the underlined portion was in the original but missing from the final version:

Canadians have long sought to define the proper limits of speech and expression: The government once banned the tracts of Jehovah's Witnesses, and pulled Witness children who refused to salute the flag not just out of school, but out of the home of their parents. When the Doukhobor religious sect staged events of public nudity to give expression to their rejection of secular authority, the government responded by amending the Criminal Code to add a specific crime carrying an increased jail term.  These days, and for many years now, various mayors of Toronto have happily participated in Pride parades which feature enthusiastic displays of public nudity.

I was trying to highlight the juxtaposition in how we respond to public nudity: it was once considered a threat dire enough to warrant parliamentary attention, but our concerns have sufficiently morphed over the years that leading public figures will happily associate themselves with it.  The point, and hopefully the theme which came through in the column, isn't the normative aspect of the behaviour, but that our responses to the behaviour are in a constant state of reassessment and revision.  Much the same with free expression: what is considered acceptable expression has rather radically changed over the decades, and will likely continue to do so.  This is all a political project, and should be treated as such.  As I wrote, "In short, the objects of our piety may have changed, but the inclination to government oversight of speech and expression isn't terribly different".

Comments

[Jim Whyte]

An intelligent historical perspective, something lacking in a lot of the commentary there has been about the Levant/Steyn cases. If it doesn't keep the wider debate honest, it will at least keep me honest.

Now put your pants back on, Tarantenko.

[Johnny C]

Thanks Bob!

Current arbiters of speech reside in places like: Advertising Standards; the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council; the Canadian-Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission; provincial Press Councils; and of course the Human Rights Commissions.

Are we going to have to wait until a big name broadcaster or personality is targeted by one of the former groups before exposing the whimsical and arbitrary reasoning behind their collective decisions?

Don't these decisions impact the way all Canadians are allowed to publicly communicate about, and with, one another?

It has taken a series of decisions against little guys for HRC folks to get the courage to take on Steyn and Macleans.

Why is it that it only becomes a serious censorship issue when the anointed are at the pointy end of their sticks?

Are journalists going to start questioning the groups a little mores seriously now when Jimmy Noname is lashed and made example?

Seriously.