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CANADIAN AUTHORS SPEAK OUT
What Freedom of Expression Means to Me
SLAPPED IN QUEBEC
Small Press Sued by Mining Giants
MACLEAN’S AND MUSLIMS Free Speech v. Human Rights
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Celebrating years SUED FOR POLITICAL SATIRE
B.C. Activists Offend CanWest
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Get Involved Ideas for Educators
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book and periodical council volume 25
W W W.F R E EDOMTOREAD.CA
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FREEDOMTOREAD This year is the twenty-fifth anniversary of Freedom to Read Week. We’re proud to have served those fighting for free speech and free expression in Canada. And yet, sad to say, our work seems more necessary than ever. So let’s begin with some inspiration. Read our special section called “25 x 25” to see the passion that 25 of Canada’s writers and publishers bring to free speech and free expression. In this issue of Freedom to Read, we review the major events that have affected free expression in Canada in the last 25 years. “Freedom of Expression in Canada, 1984–2008: A Chronology” by Franklin Carter lists events that affected print media across the country. “Little Sister’s Big Battles: A Timeline” by Guy Cribdon and Robin Perelle focuses on one bookstore’s epic battle with Canada Customs over censorship. Freedom to Read 2009 also explores current threats to free expression in Canada. Charles Montpetit looks at a legal dispute in Quebec between two large mining companies and a small publisher. Marc Edge looks at a legal dispute in British Columbia between one of Canada’s largest media firms and political satirists. And Dr. John Hoey considers the battle over scientific and medical research. What role is the federal government playing when cabinet ministers refuse to publish science that they dislike? We also look at the balance between press freedom and human rights. Throughout the first months of 2008, the dispute between Maclean’s magazine and the Canadian Islamic Congress over the magazine’s allegedly Islamophobic reportage riveted Canadians. How as a society do we balance these rights, and who if anyone should adjudicate the complex issues? It’s a thorny issue that will arise again. Finally, our Get Involved section offers fresh ideas for students in the classroom and for promoting Freedom to Read Week in the community. We think there’s something for everyone. Please send your comments and ideas for future issues of Freedom to Read to the Book and Periodical Council, Suite 107, 192 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C2. Phone: (416) 975-9366. Fax: (416) 975-1839. E-mail: info@theBPC.ca. Visit our Web site at www.freedomtoread.ca for more information.
2009
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THE BOOK AND PERIODICAL COUNCIL (BPC) WOULD LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING FOR THEIR GENEROUS SPONSORSHIP OF FREEDOM TO READ WEEK 2009:
Canadian Library Association
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THE BPC WOULD ALSO LIKE TO THANK THE FOLLOWING ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS FOR THEIR SUPPORT AND IN-KIND DONATIONS:
Saskatchewan Learning
Nunavut Public Library Services
Provincial Library
Manitoba Library Association
Canadian Library Association
reva pomer design
THE FOLLOWING PEOPLE CONTRIBUTED AN INCREDIBLE AMOUNT OF TIME AND ENERGY PRODUCING THE KIT AND POSTER AND MAINTAINING THE WEB SITE AT WWW.FREEDOMTOREAD.CA: FRANKLIN CARTER, PEGGY MCKEE, SCOTT MITCHELL, MARG ANNE MORRISON, REVA POMER, SANDRA RICHMOND, EMILY SINKINS, PETER STEVEN. WE ALSO THANK THE MEMBERS OF THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION COMMITTEE: HELENA AALTO, RAY ARGYLE, RON BROWN, FRANKLIN CARTER, MARILYN FRASER, RONDA KELLINGTON, DAVID KENT, MARK LEIREN-YOUNG, ANNE MCCLELLAND, MARG ANNE MORRISON, JULIE PAYNE, TONI SAMEK, EMILY SINKINS (CHAIR). THE BPC, ALONG WITH THE FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION COMMITTEE, THANKS ALL WRITERS, PHOTOGRAPHERS, AND ILLUSTRATORS FOR THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE FREEDOM TO READ KIT OF 2009. THE BPC GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE SUPPORT OF THE CANADA COUNCIL FOR THE ARTS AND ITS MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS.
FREEDOMTOREAD
2009
Contents
Editor
Peter Steven c o n s u lt i n g E d i t o r
Franklin Carter De s i g n
Reva Pomer P o s t e r De s i g n
Reva Pomer Contributors
Benita Aalto, Jalal Barzanji, Ron Brown, Franklin Carter, Peter Carver, Guy Cribdon, Marc Edge, John Hoey, Heather Lash, Mark Leiren-Young, Charles Montpetit, Cynthia Pay, Julie Payne, Robin Perelle, Toni Samek, Peter Steven © Book and Periodical Council 2008
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the Book and Periodical Council or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). Please credit the Book and Periodical Council on any copies of kit materials. Forward all suggestions for future Freedom to Read kits to the Book and Periodical Council in Toronto.
The opinions expressed in Freedom to Read 2009 do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Book and Periodical Council or its member associations. ISBN 978-0-9739099-3-7
4 Position Statement: Freedom of Expression and Freedom to Read 4 Book and Periodical Council Members 2008–09 5 News Bytes By Franklin Carter 8 25 x 25: Freedom of Expression and Freedom to Read
24 My Tribute to Nancy Fleming By Peter Carver 25 Literacy, Violence, and the Freedom to Read By Heather Lash 26 Little Sister’s Big Battles: A Timeline By Guy Cribdon and Robin Perelle
Freedom of Expression in Canada, 1984–2008: A Chronology By Franklin Carter
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Extraordinary Evil: Another Book Challenged in Toronto Schools By Peter Steven
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Excerpts From Letters to the Toronto District School Board By Patsy Aldana, David Davidar, and the Book and Periodical Council
30 Back to My Passion By Jalal Barzanji
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Response to the Report of the Special Review Committee Examining Barbara Coloroso’s Extraordinary Evil By Gerald Caplan
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19 Meanwhile in Quebec . . . By Charles Montpetit 20 CanWest Sues B.C. Pranksters By Marc Edge CANADA’S EVENT CALENDAR FOR FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • A LIST OF BOOKS RECENTLY CHALLENGED IN CANADA • TIPS ON HOW TO OBSERVE FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • A CHRONOLOGY OF BOOK BANNINGS AND BURNINGS IN WORLD HISTORY • POSTER ART FOR 25 YEARS OF FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • LINKS TO OTHER ON-LINE RESOURCES • AND MUCH MORE . . .
Conservatives Use Tax Policy to Keep Filmmakers in Line: Canada’s Bill C-10 By Mark Leiren-Young
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17 Censoring Science and Scientists: The Insite Example By John Hoey
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21 Harsh Words: Maclean’s Magazine v. the Canadian Islamic Congress 21 Muslim Students Challenge Maclean’s Magazine By Cynthia Pay 22 Julian Porter’s View 22 The National Post Weighs In
27 Little Sister’s Big Sister: An Interview With Janine Fuller By Benita Aalto 28 2008 Awards for Freedom of Expression/Freedom to Read
30 Information Is Power: Government Censors an Essential Database By Julie Payne The Writers’ Union of Canada and Freedom of Expression: A Retrospective By Ron Brown
32 The Library Push for Workplace Speech By Toni Samek 33 Challenged Books and Magazines
Get Involved 35 Ideas for Educators 35 Organize an Essay Contest During Freedom to Read Week 37 Create an On-Line Media Release 38 Connect With Street Writers in the Libraries 38 Make Use of University Student Media 39 Freedom to Read Week Activities and Events Across Canada 2008
thebpc BOOK AND PERIODICAL
COUNCIL
The Book and Periodical Council is the umbrella organization for associations involved in the writing, editing, publishing, manufacturing, distributing, selling, and lending of books and periodicals in Canada.
MEMBERS 2008–09 FULL MEMBERS Access Copyright Association of Canadian Book Wholesalers Association of Canadian Publishers Canadian Authors Association Canadian Booksellers Association Canadian Library Association Canadian Publishers’ Council Editors’ Association of Canada League of Canadian Poets Literary Press Group of Canada Magazines Canada Periodical Marketers of Canada Playwrights Guild of Canada Professional Writers Association of Canada The Writers’ Union of Canada
ASSOCIATE MEMBERS Association of Book Publishers of British Columbia Association of Manitoba Book Publishers Book Publishers Association of Alberta British Columbia Library Association Canadian Children’s Book Centre Canadian Copyright Institute Manitoba Writers’ Guild Inc. Ontario Library Association Organization of Book Publishers of Ontario PEN Canada The Word on the Street The Writers’ Trust of Canada
Position Statement
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND FREEDOM TO READ A statement of the basic tenets of the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Council
“Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms . . . thought, belief, opinion, and expression.” — Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IS A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT OF ALL CANADIANS, and freedom to read is part of that precious heritage. Our Committee, representing member organizations and associations of the Book and Periodical Council, reaffirms its support of this vital principle and opposes all efforts to suppress writing and silence writers. Words and images in their myriad configurations are the substance of free expression. The freedom to choose what we read does not, however, include the freedom to choose for others. We accept that courts alone have the authority to restrict reading material, a prerogative that cannot be delegated or appropriated. Prior restraint demeans individual responsibility; it is anathema to freedom and democracy. As writers, editors, publishers, book manufacturers, distributors, retailers and librarians, we abhor arbitrary interpretations of the law and other attempts to limit freedom of expression. We recognize court judgements; otherwise, we oppose the detention, seizure, destruction or banning of books and periodicals—indeed, any effort to deny, repress or sanitize. Censorship does not protect society; it smothers creativity and precludes open debate of controversial issues. Endorsed by the Book and Periodical Council February 5, 1997
TO ORDER KITS
Freedom to Read kits may be ordered from the Book and Periodical Council for $15 plus shipping and handling charges. Orders for 10 kits or more, shipped to a single address, receive a 20 per cent discount and may be
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Disticor Magazine Distribution Services Fraser Direct Distribution Services Georgetown Terminal Warehouses Ltd. Pal Benefits Sameday Right-O-Way Universal Logistics Inc.
rolled, full-colour posters are available for $10
BPC EXECUTIVE Chair: Stephanie Fysh (Editors’ Association of Canada) Vice Chair: Melissa Pitts (Association of Canadian Publishers)
BPC STAFF Executive Director: Anne McClelland Project Co-ordinator (Intern): Jessica Bartram
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BOOK AND PERIODICAL COUNCIL 192 Spadina Avenue, Suite 107 Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C2 Phone: (416) 975-9366 Fax: (416) 975-1839 info@theBPC.ca www.freedomtoread.ca www.bookandperiodicalcouncil.ca
newsbytes By Franklin Carter
Canada SUPREME COURT OF CANADA AGREES TO HEAR LIBEL CASE The Supreme Court of Canada has agreed to hear a libel case called Douglas Quan et al. v. Danno Cusson in 2009. The court’s eventual ruling could have important consequences for libel law in Canada. The dispute began in Ontario. On September 25, 2001, the Ottawa Citizen published an article by Douglas Quan about Danno Cusson, a provincial police officer who went to New York to help the rescue effort after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center had occurred. The article included negative comments by a New York State police officer about Cusson. Later, in Ontario, a jury found that the New York State police officer had libelled Cusson and that the Ottawa Citizen had broken the law by repeating the libel. The court awarded damages to Cusson, and the newspaper appealed the verdict. In 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeal upheld the lower court’s decision but also created a new defence against charges of libel: the public interest responsible journalism defence. The Ontario Court of Appeal said that a person’s reputation cannot override the public’s right to know the news as long as journalists can show that they researched and wrote their stories responsibly. “The defence rests upon the broad principle that where a media defendant can show that it acted in accordance with the standards of responsible journalism in publishing a story that the public was entitled to hear, it has a defence, even if it got some of its facts wrong,” wrote Justice Robert Sharpe. The Supreme Court of Canada will
decide whether this defence, which promises to liberalize press freedom, stands or falls. The hearing is tentatively scheduled for February 17, 2009.
FEDERAL COMMISSION REOPENS QUESTION OF INTERNET REGULATION The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) plans to hold public hearings in 2009 to decide whether the Internet needs government regulation. The CRTC does not regulate the Internet now. But on October 15, 2008, the commission announced its decision to hold hearings to review this policy. A review is appropriate, the commission said, because the Internet has changed dramatically in the last 10 years. During the hearings, the CRTC intends
to examine the significance of broadcasting in new media. The commission also intends to find out whether incentives or regulatory measures are necessary to create and promote Canadian broadcasting content in new media. The hearings are scheduled to begin on February 17, 2009, in Gatineau, Que.
MOON URGES REFORM OF FEDERAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW Parliament should repeal the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s power to investigate and censor on-line hate messages and leave the job to police, prosecutors, and Internet service providers, said a report released on November 24, 2008. Richard Moon, who wrote the report, said that the commission’s mandate to CONTINUED ON PAGE 6
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probe on-line messages that are “likely to expose” a complainant to hatred is too broad. Moon is a professor of constitutional law at the University of Windsor. “We must develop ways other than censorship to respond to expression that stereotypes and defames the members of an identifiable group,” he wrote.
B.C. JUDGE RULES ON HYPERLINK CASE A judge in British Columbia has ruled that a Web site does not violate libel law when the Web site merely links to defamatory comments on another Web site. On October 27, 2008, Justice Stephen Kelleher of B.C.’s Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit of Wayne Crookes, a businessman and former Green party activist, against Ron Newton, the operator of a Web site called p2pnet (www. p2pnet.net). In court, Crookes said that p2pnet had posted links to Web sites in the United States that defamed him. He asked the court to rule that posting links to defamatory comments on other Web sites is the same as publishing defamatory comments. The judge, however, rejected the argument. He compared a hyperlink to a footnote or a reference to a Web site in a newsletter. Justice Kelleher also noted that p2pnet did not reproduce any of the disputed comments or comment on them. “I conclude that there has been no publication,” he wrote.
FEDERAL TRIBUNAL HEARS DISPUTE OVER FORMER MP’S PAMPHLETS In October 2008, a tribunal of the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) held a hearing to determine 6
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whether a former member of Parliament mailed “discriminatory” political literature to his constituents. Jim Pankiw represented the riding of Saskatoon–Humboldt in Saskatchewan for more than seven years. He was elected in 1997 and re-elected in 2000. His career as an MP ended when he was defeated in the election of 2004. During his time as an MP, Pankiw mailed pamphlets (called “householders”) to his constituents to keep them informed about his activities and political issues. Between 2002 and 2004, his office mailed householders that examined aboriginal issues. Three different householders called for an end to hiring quotas, court sentencing provisions, hunting and fishing privileges, and tax exemptions for aboriginal Canadians. The householders also said treaties should not be valid in modern times. One householder, which bore the words “Stop Indian Crime,” showed a photograph of Mohawk unrest in Oka, Que., in 1990. The photo’s caption described an aboriginal protester as a terrorist. Nine people filed complaints with the CHRC. The complainants allege that the householders discriminate against aboriginal Canadians. During the tribunal’s hearing in October 2008, Pankiw denied the discrimination charge and said that he believes in equality for all people. The tribunal is expected to rule on the dispute in 2009.
HUMAN RIGHTS PANEL CENSURES FORMER CHRISTIAN PASTOR On May 30, 2008, a panel of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission (AHRCC) ordered Stephen Boissoin to stop disparaging gays and lesbians in public. The panel also ordered Boissoin to pay $5,000 to complainant Darren Lund and apologize
to Lund in a local newspaper. On November 30, 2007, a panel of the AHRCC ruled that Boissoin had broken the law when he expressed anti-gay sentiments in a letter to the Red Deer Advocate. The panel said that the letter was likely to expose gays and lesbians to hatred or contempt. The Red Deer Advocate published Boissoin’s letter on June 17, 2002. Under the headline “Homosexual Agenda Wicked,” the letter condemned homosexual rights activists and programs. It associated gays and lesbians with pedophiles, drug pushers, and pimps. Lund (who is heterosexual) complained to the commission about the letter. Boissoin, a former Christian pastor, maintains that his beliefs about gays and lesbians are rooted not in hatred but in religious faith and a concern for the traditional family. He appealed the ruling.
International AUSTRALIA MOVES TOWARD COMPULSORY INTERNET FILTERING In the autumn of 2008, the Australian government took steps to introduce national Internet filtering. The government wants to block pornographic Web sites as part of a plan to protect children from the dangers of the Internet. On November 10, 2008, the government invited Internet service providers (ISPs) to take part in a test of Internet filtering. The government hopes to assess the impact of content filtering on the delivery of Internet services. The test would begin in December 2008 and would last for at least six weeks. The announcement stoked a national debate about whether Internet filtering would benefit Australians and whether the government would censor only pornography. Stephen Conroy, Australia’s communications minister, said the test would affect about 10,000 Web sites. Thirteen hundred of the Web sites had already been identified as illegal by the
Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA). “The pilot will test filtering specifically against the ACMA blacklist of Internet prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content,” Conroy said in the Senate on November 10.
DISSIDENT POET IMPRISONED IN MYANMAR FOR WRITING VERSE In November 2008, a court in Rangoon sentenced Saw Wai, a poet, to two years in prison for writing a “love poem.” The poem—ostensibly a Valentine’s Day verse—had appeared in a weekly magazine in Myanmar in January 2007. But the first word of each line conveyed a message about the leader of the country’s military government: “Power Crazy Senior General Than Shwe.” The court convicted Saw Wai for disturbing the peace. Dozens of antigovernment activists received prison sentences in Rangoon in November.
U.S.-LED COALITION LAUNCHES “GLOBAL NETWORK INITIATIVE” On October 28, 2008, a coalition of Internet companies, human rights organizations, academics, and investors launched the Global Network Initiative to protect free expression and user privacy on the Internet. The coalition includes Microsoft, Google, Yahoo!, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Human Rights Watch, Trillium Asset Management, Boston Common Asset Management, and the University of California’s School of Information at Berkeley. Most participating organizations are based in the United States. The coalition launched the initiative because “companies in the information and communications industries face increasing government pressure to comply with domestic laws and policies that require censorship and disclosure of personal information in ways that conflict with internationally
The Jewel of Medina by Sherry Jones (Beaufort Books, 2008)
recognized human rights laws,” a press release said. The coalition also published guidelines that tell participants in the Global Network Initiative how to protect the free expression and privacy rights of Internet users when repressive governments demand censorship or users’ personal information. Compliance with the guidelines is voluntary. In February 2006, two subcommittees of the U.S. House of Representatives questioned the lawyers of Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft, and Cisco Systems about the Chinese government’s use of Western computer technology to censor information and to locate and arrest political dissidents.
BRITISH BOOK PUBLISHER’S HOME FIREBOMBED In the early hours of September 27, 2008, the home of Martin Rynja was firebombed in London. Rynja is the publisher of Gibson Square publishing house, and his home doubles as his business office. Police had the home under surveillance when the crime occurred. With the help of firefighters, police broke down
the door to put out the fire. No one was injured and damage was minimal. Rynja had pledged to publish The Jewel of Medina, a novel by the American author Sherry Jones. The Jewel of Medina is a fictionalized account of the life of A’isha, the child bride of the Muslim prophet Mohammed. The story is set in the seventh century. British police immediately arrested three men on terrorism charges. The Crown alleges that the men attacked Rynja’s home because they objected to the publication of the novel. One woman was arrested for obstructing police during searches of homes in the London area. In October, Rynja decided to postpone publication of The Jewel of Medina in Britain. However, publishers in other countries—including the United States, Germany, Italy, Serbia, and Spain— decided to publish the novel, said the author’s literary agent.
AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION NAMES MOST CHALLENGED BOOKS IN THE UNITED STATES In 2007, the most frequently challenged book in U.S. public libraries was And Tango Makes Three, announced the American Library Association. The children’s book by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell tells the story of two male penguins raising a baby penguin in a zoo. Americans who sought to have And Tango Makes Three removed from libraries objected to the theme of same-sex parenting. Americans complained that the picture book promoted “homosexuality” and “anti-family” values. Some complainants described the book as “anti-ethnic” and “sexist.” In 2007, the second most frequently challenged book in U.S. public libraries was The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. The third most frequently challenged book was Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes. Complainants said that both books were “sexually explicit” and contained “offensive language.” • FREEDOM TO READ 2009
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FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AND FREEDOM TO READ To mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of Freedom to Read Week, we asked people who work in Canada’s book and periodical industries what freedom of expression and freedom to read mean to them. Freedom of expression is a fundamental right in any democracy because we are our stories. Without our stories we do not exist. Having that right enshrined in our Charter not only protects us, but bestows upon us an imperative to defend the rights of others, to shine a light into dark corners where people are denied access to information, literacy, and the rights to speak, write, read, and/or listen—the rights to be fully, freely human. Camilla Gibb, author of Sweetness in the Belly
dialogue with any author or set of authors who share one’s language. It is also the freedom to challenge the status quo (whatever it is), to imagine alternative governments, and to conceive of a new Utopia and what it might look like. It is also the freedom to face ugliness, brutality, and terror from a “safe” distance, yes, but still to see, for oneself, their reality. “Freedom to read” is, necessarily, the freedom to read dissentingly, differently. George Elliott Clarke, author of Whylah Falls and Black
Being allowed to express ourselves without fear means having access to a great variety of ideas and opinions. We can choose from among them, add our own, and mix it all up. Fear closes doors, shuts minds, and keeps notebooks empty. Even disagreeing with someone stretches our minds, forces us to think, and helps us decide both who we are and who we want to be. Deborah Ellis, author of Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak
We like to think everyone has freedom of expression in Canada. While we may not be tortured or imprisoned simply for expressing our opinions and beliefs, censorship, repression, and even downright invisibility are still big problems. To me, our commitment to maintaining an extensive, free public library system is a testament to our belief in the notion that every person should have the freedom to read and access to knowledge that spans centuries and cultures. Emily Pohl-Weary, author of Strange Times at Western High and A Girl Like Sugar
While there is wide room for disagreement among Canadians about which values should be taken as universal, the categorical imperative for me is freedom of expression—that all voices should be heard; that silence is not golden and eliminating people does not eliminate ideas or truth; that communication with enemies and opponents is superior to killing them; that tolerance and generosity and choice are more powerful than torture and genocide; that violence is the antithesis of intellectual freedom; that the first casualty of war and murder is human freedom in all of its manifestations. Alvin M. Schrader, author of Fear of Words and past president of the Canadian Library Association “Freedom to read” is the freedom to study, to dream, to debate ideas within one’s own head. It is also the freedom to 8
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Freedom of expression is the shameless flowering tree of a healthy society. Balanced in its latitude; rooted in its responsibility. Tessa McWatt, author of Dragons Cry and This Body Public discourse has been horribly debased in the age of television. The only hope of escaping the mind-numbing, consumerobsessed world of television today is through reading. Linda McQuaig, author of Holding the Bully’s Coat: Canada and the U.S. Empire After the fatwa landed on Salman Rushdie, one of his friends lamented that they would all be deprived of his sense of humour. In 1998, when Rushdie resumed a somewhat normal touring schedule, the University of Toronto Book Store hosted
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a packed reading at Convocation Hall for 1,700 carefully scrutinized admirers. It was an earnest and solemn crowd, excited to be in the presence of the great martyr, but Rushdie wasted no time putting that notion to rest. He opened with a wisecrack and went from there, quickly getting us laughing. Book-banners rob us of nobility, yes, but also laughter. Nick Pashley, recovering bookseller and author of Notes on a Beermat: Drinking and Why It’s Necessary
Winston Churchill and the invasion of Normandy, which I heard reported live on the radio, because I had read Moses’s story many times and lived it when I looked across the wide water of Turtle Lake. Those who censor our reading are tyrants who would deprive us of our finest human qualities: our memory, our curiosity, and our creative imagination. Rudy Wiebe, author of Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest
To express ourselves fully or to witness that expression in another is to have an opportunity to experience our deepest humanity—both the light and the dark side of the human condition. To limit self-expression in one is to limit it in all. It is to both fear and limit our humanity. It is in a sense a rail against truth. Therefore, to be a truly free society, and one that thrives in the light of truth, we must not limit individual expression. Maureen Medved, author of The Tracey Fragments
“Never let the censor operate when you write” is an essential precept when starting out to explore where a story or an investigation will lead. In fiction writing, this means not worrying about whom your words might affect. In non-fiction, it means not being afraid that what you discover will have consequences for yourself or others. The spectre of outside censorship casts a long, long shadow over writers, killing the potential for honest writing in the bud. With it there is no freedom of expression, and therefore no freedom to read the best that the writer’s heart and intellect can produce. Mary Soderstrom, author of The Violets of Usambara
It is only through a wide and vital reading that we can shed the comfort of our ignorance. Peter Unwin, author of The Wolf’s Head: Writing Lake Superior and Rock Farmers We take our freedom to read and express ourselves for granted, but it is an unequal freedom. Concentrated corporate ownership of our media means fewer voices of dissent are aired; fewer resources are put into necessary investigative journalism that raises troubling questions. Around the world, the Internet has been a great liberating tool for journalists, but many countries censor the Web. Worse still, last year 64 journalists were killed, making it the deadliest year for the press in more than a decade. Freedom comes at a cost and that’s why it has to be fought for and preserved. Julian Sher, author of Angels of Death: Inside the Bikers’ Empire of Crime Freedom of expression means giving oneself permission to invent the most horrifying, immoral, obscene book imaginable, a work which is “a loathsome sore unbandaged, a dirty act done publicly.” Am I extolling pornography? No, this is an 1891 review of Ibsen’s Ghosts, a play that we now consider to be a classic. In our country, we have state-sponsored censorship by Canada Customs officers. But the real danger lies in the limits imposed by the International Disneyfied Megaculture on our most extravagant, violent, sexual, and radical imaginings. Sky Gilbert, author of An English Gentleman and Wit in Love Reading is the pure, timeless delight of the creative imagination. For me as a boy in Saskatchewan during World War II, Moses and the parting of the Red Sea were more real than
Challenges to intellectual freedom are never very far from our doorstep. There’s always someone who wants to tell you what to think, believe, or read, because she or he knows better than you do. It’s when that someone seeks to prevent other people’s access to such expressions that we have to be particularly vigilant. A responsible citizen is one who is always watchful over such intrusions. Peter Carver, editor and author We all believe in freedom of expression. However, freedom of expression requires access to the vehicles of expression. In our present society, access to the vehicles of expression is largely controlled by the corporate and political elite. So while we legally have freedom of expression, for most it is only an empty ideal. Errol Sharpe, president of Fernwood Publishing, Halifax In this fractured, frightening, complex, and miraculous world, one tool we must give to children is the clear-eyed truth: those deep truths that fiction expresses in its unique, powerful, indirect way. Writers can help them understand the strange and beautiful mysteries of life; we can help them perceive nuances of good and evil, and contribute to their store of inner resources and courage when faced, as they inevitably will be, with overwhelming pain. Writers who withhold truths or deliberately distort them out of a misplaced desire to protect, or out of fear, do a great disservice to young readers. Susan Patron, author of The Higher Power of Lucky CONTINUED ON PAGE 10
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As mature adults, we participate in our enlightened society by exchanging points of view and, on the political front, we engage in the informed discussion that is the basis of our democracy. The counterpart of this strongly held belief seldom gets attention: the “freedom” to be heard, read, or seen. But this most basic human need—to be heard—is denied us. Our children are taught from foreign-authored, foreign-produced books. Our bookstores and libraries are full of the same. The freedom to express one’s self is only as significant as is the freedom to be heard; the former without the latter is just noise. Marc Côté, publisher of Cormorant Books Inc. In Canada, freedom of expression allows exploration without suppression. This permission to flourish allows me to go beyond boundaries if I choose. For me, the freedom to go beyond these boundaries lets me unearth creative, intellectual, or humanitarian layers that can be spun into a story. It is a human right to have the freedom to be educated by reading and writing. There is possibility for personal, social growth in a singular word or phrase. We need to read them. Words make history accountable. I am a fiction writer and an avid reader, so the freedom to read and the freedom of expression are as basic to my soul as breathing is to my being. Darcy Tamayose, author of Odori You have asked what freedom of speech means to me. I’m reminded by the question that we don’t realize at all what complete freedom we enjoy in this country. We don’t measure it; we take it for granted. In Quebec, since the disappearance of all religious and political censorship in the years of the Quiet Revolution, no writer has had to worry about freedom of speech. We don’t so much need to celebrate our freedom of speech as deplore that so few writers make use of this priceless freedom to think about the world and question ready-made ideas. Jacques Godbout, author of Operation Rimbaud In the face of the globalization of access to information through the Internet, it is now even more important to ensure people have the choice to explore and experience art and literature. This freedom will only bring us together. I hope the world will look upon Canada as a cultural leader—a land where all freedoms are supported. As a child, I was not allowed to read certain books because my father—a very religious man—was worried about how they might affect me. I read them anyway. And became a writer. There will be others. We must always ensure that. Aaron Bushkowsky, author of The Vanishing Man and Other Stories
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Growing up, I had access to any book I laid my hands upon. I was able to read and think about anything that crossed my path. What this did was encourage me to become a critical thinker. Canada and the world need the freedom to read and freedom of expression so that everyone has the continued opportunity to become a critical thinker: to consider what others have to say and to develop ideas that help us all grow. Kathlyn Bradshaw, author of The Frankenstein Murders The right to read freely exercises the right to dream. The power of the imagination forms faith, hope, and love, the writer’s creative virtues. Without these things, the writer is lost. The written word dies and with it, I would say, inspiration’s staying power and the chance of dream becoming action. The freedom to read and to create links me with the world. But these joys entail responsibility. Carol Bruneau, author of Purple for Sky, Berth, and Glass Voices Where to start on Freedom to Read? I guess it begins with a flashlight under the covers. Children, I learned as a child and later as a writer who wrote for children, are the first to be affected by censorship. My father, who gave me open access to his large library, drew the line at a dog-eared copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover I’d acquired through the child underground. I fought back. Using flashlights is a fundamental human right. For writers, that means telling the truth, whether it is genocide, a fart under the blanket, or the miracle of birth. Use it or lose it. Linda Rogers, author of The Empress Letters Every aspect of my being as a Canadian reader, writer, researcher, historian, archivist, mother, grandmother, and engaged citizen is predicated on the freedom to read and express myself. Without those freedoms, my life—and my country’s life—would be a shadow of what it is and should be. Given what has happened to my birth country of the United States, especially since 9/11, and whatever threatens my chosen country of Canada when decision makers cave in to external pressures, ignorance, or blind prejudice, I am constantly aware of the fragility of these freedoms. Without them, democracy dies … people die … and the soul of a nation dies. Sally Gibson, author of Inside Toronto •
ftr 25 09 y e a r s
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION IN CANADA
{1984–2008} A Chronology
By Franklin Carter
In the last 25 years, Canadians have witnessed many events that affect their freedom of expression and their freedom to read. Here are the highlights. Sept. 4, 1984: Canadians elect a Progressive Conservative government. Brian Mulroney becomes prime minister.
Officials decide the novel isn’t anti-Muslim hate propaganda and release it to the importer.
Sept. 16, 1984: In Toronto, the Freedom of Expression Committee of the Book and Periodical Development Council launches its first Freedom to Read Week.
Nov. 3, 1989: Attorney General Ian Scott of Ontario announces the results of a six-month police investigation into Jean Philippe Rushton’s research on race. Insufficient evidence exists to justify charging the professor with spreading false news or wilfully promoting hatred, Scott says.
Apr. 23, 1985: In the House of Commons, the Special Committee on Pornography and Prostitution tables its report. The study recommends the censorship of violent and degrading pornography. 1985: Varda Burstyn edits Women Against Censorship. The collection of feminist essays explores sexual imagery and censorship in Canada. June 10, 1986: Justice Minister John Crosbie introduces Bill C-114 to broaden the legal ban on pornography. Within weeks, the bill dies on the order paper. Mar. 20, 1987: In the District Court of Ontario, Judge Bruce Hawkins rules that Canada Customs wrongly seized The Joy of Gay Sex as prohibited obscenity and allows Toronto’s Glad Day Bookshop to import the book. May 4, 1987: Justice Minister Ramon Hnatyshyn introduces Bill C-54 to broaden the legal ban on pornography. Opposition from artists, librarians, women’s groups, and others eventually kills the bill. Jan. 19, 1989: Jean Philippe Rushton, a professor at the University of Western Ontario, summarizes his research on racial differences at a scientific convention in San Francisco. Anti-racist activists in Canada subsequently demand Rushton’s dismissal from his job. Feb. 17–19, 1989: During Freedom to Read Week, Canada Customs seizes copies of Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses.
June 7, 1990: In Vancouver, Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium files a lawsuit in B.C.’s Supreme Court against Canada Customs. The bookstore seeks to prevent Canada Customs from censoring imported homosexual publications. Dec. 13, 1990: In R. v. Keegstra and three similar cases, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds the ban on hate propaganda. Although the ban infringes the Charter right to free expression, the ban is justified by the wider goal of defending democracy and racial tolerance, the justices say. September 1991: In Manning, Alta., 30 angry parents enter Rosary Catholic School, forcibly detain the principal, and demand the removal of Holt Rinehart’s Impressions. The parents say that the fairy tales and poems in the language arts series convey morbid, Satanic themes. The school removes the books. Feb. 27, 1992: In R. v. Butler, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds the ban on sexually obscene publications. Censoring violent and degrading pornography is necessary to ensure the equality rights of women and is a justifiable limit on free expression rights, the justices say. Mar. 16, 1992: In the House of Commons, Pierrette Venne of the Bloc Québécois attacks Mordecai Richler for writing Oh Canada! Oh Quebec! She accuses Richler of calling Quebecers “a meanCONTINUED ON PAGE 12
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spirited racist tribe” and demands to know whether the government will ban his book as hate propaganda. The government ignores her. Aug. 27, 1992: In R. v. Zundel, the Supreme Court of Canada strikes down a ban on spreading false news. The vaguely worded law jeopardizes free expression rights, the justices say. Ernst Zundel, a Nazi propagandist who had been convicted in Ontario under the law, goes free. June 1993: The House of Commons and the Senate pass a Progressive Conservative bill to amend the ban on child pornography. The new law criminalizes depictions of people under the age of 18 engaged in explicit sexual activity. July 5, 1993: In St. Catharines, Ont., Justice Francis Kovacs orders a publication ban at the trial of Karla Homolka, the wife of Paul Bernardo. The ban prompts Canadians to seek information about the sensational murder trial in U.S. news media and on the Internet. Oct. 25, 1993: Canadians elect a Liberal government. Jean Chrétien becomes prime minister. Mar. 1, 1994: During Freedom to Read Week, in Alberta’s legislature, Victor Doerksen calls for the removal of books that feature profane or anti-Christian language from Alberta’s public schools. Doerksen says John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is particularly offensive. Apr. 20, 1995: In a Toronto courtroom, Justice David McCombs rules on the Eli Langer case. Langer is the first artist to have his work confiscated for violating the newly amended ban on child pornography. McCombs says that Langer’s oil paintings and penImages from left: CHIEF JUSTICE BEVERLEY MCLACHLIN of the Supreme Court of Canada. Photo by Philippe Landreville. Copyright SCC; Fear of Words by Alvin Schrader (Canadian Library Association, 1995); TARA SINGH HAYER. Photo courtesy of the Honours and Awards Secretariat, British Columbia; The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie (Vintage Canada, 1997)
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cil sketches of nude children and adults show artistic merit and pose no realistic risk of harm to children. He releases the art to the artist. 1995: Alvin Schrader publishes Fear of Words: Censorship and the Public Libraries of Canada. The book is the first detailed study to describe the number and variety of challenges to books and magazines in libraries across Canada. Feb. 25, 1996: In Quebec, the first French version of Freedom to Read Week—Semaine de la liberté de lire—begins. May 10, 1996: In Toronto, Pat Findlay and Marty McKay fail in their decade-long attempt to rid variety stores of men’s sex magazines, such as Penthouse and Hustler, when Chief Commissioner Rosemary Brown of the Ontario Human Rights Commission decides not to refer the issue to a board of inquiry. May 1997: In Winnipeg, municipal police order librarians to pull copies of Nancy Friday’s Women on Top: How Real Life Has Changed Women’s Sexual Fantasies from the shelves. In British Columbia, the RCMP demands the book from librarians in Merritt and Sparwood. Police initially suspect the book is criminally obscene but lay no charges. June 10, 1998: A Senate committee kills Bill C-220. The legislation seeks to prevent convicted criminals from making money by writing about their crimes. Critics say the bill will prevent the publication of important books like Roger Caron’s Go-Boy! Memories of a Life Behind Bars and Stephen Reid’s Jackrabbit Parole. Nov. 18, 1998: In Surrey, B.C., Tara Singh Hayer—the Sikh publisher of the Indo-Canadian Times and a critic of sectarian violence—is shot to death at his home by an unknown assailant. Feb. 3, 1999: The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal fines Doug Collins $2,000 for writing negatively about Jews in four opinion columns in 1994 in the North Shore News, a newspaper published
in North and West Vancouver. The elderly Collins dies (in 2001) before a court can hear an appeal. May 17, 1999: The CRTC announces its decision not to regulate the Internet. Government regulation would hurt the competitiveness of Canada’s Internet industries, says Françoise Bertrand, chair of the commission. 1999: Alan Borovoy publishes The New Anti-Liberals. The book examines the increased support for censorship among left-wing activists and thinkers in Canada. Sept. 13, 2000: Michel Auger—one of Quebec’s top crime reporters—is shot six times while standing in the parking lot of Le Journal de Montréal. He survives the attack, but the would-be assassin escapes. Nov. 30, 2000: In a Toronto courtroom, Crown lawyers abandon their first attempt to prosecute Stephen Williams. Williams is the author of Invisible Darkness: The Horrifying Case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka. The Crown alleges that Williams, while researching his book, violated a court order by viewing the murderers’ videotapes of their crimes. The Crown breaks off its prosecution to avoid replaying the videotapes in court. Dec. 15, 2000: In Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium v. Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada declares that Canada Customs acted wrongly by routinely seizing, turning back, and destroying imported books and magazines with homosexual themes. But the justices uphold the constitutionality of government censorship of “sexually obscene” publications. Jan. 26, 2001: In R. v. Sharpe, the Supreme Court of Canada upholds the law that criminalizes possession of child pornography. The decision requires John Robin Sharpe—a retired town planner in Vancouver—to stand trial again for the crime. June 2001: Canada Customs resumes censoring publications imported by Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium in Vancouver. Feb. 26, 2002: Bowing to pressure from writers and librarians,
Mayor Yves Ducharme of Gatineau abolishes a six-month-old policy that discourages people from reading adult comic books in Hull’s public libraries. Librarians move 180 comic books from a closed room at the main library back onto the open shelves. May 30, 2002: In Nova Scotia, the Tri-County District School Board rejects a call from black citizens to remove three novels from classrooms because the books—In the Heat of the Night, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Underground to Canada—contain the word nigger. But the board agrees to train teachers to teach the novels with sensitivity to students. Dec. 20, 2002: In Chamberlain v. Surrey School District No. 36, the Supreme Court of Canada declares that public school trustees in Surrey, B.C., erred by banning children’s storybooks about homosexual parents from the elementary grades. B.C.’s School Act requires public schools to promote tolerance and respect diversity, the justices say. 2003: After Stephen Williams publishes a new book about Karla Homolka and creates a Web site devoted to her and Paul Bernardo’s crimes, authorities in Ontario resume their prosecution of Williams. May 4: Police arrest Williams. July 18: Police raid the home of Williams and Marsha Boulton in Mount Forest and confiscate both writers’ work. Oct. 22: Williams faces 97 criminal charges related to publishing information covered by a court-ordered publication ban. June 23, 2003: Photojournalist Zahra Kazemi—an Iranian-born Canadian citizen—is arrested in Tehran for taking pictures of a student protest outside Evin prison. July 11: Kazemi dies in Tehran after being brutalized in an Iranian prison. Jan. 21, 2004: In Ottawa, the RCMP raids the home and office CONTINUED ON PAGE 14 Images from left: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling (Raincoast Books, 2000); MARSHA BOULTON. Photo by John Reeves; Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker (Penguin Books, 2003); JULIET O’NEILL. Photo by James Bremnar
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of Juliet O’Neill, a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen. Police search for the name of the federal government employee who leaked classified information about the Maher Arar affair to O’Neill in 2003. O’Neill faces criminal prosecution for having received the information. Jan. 14, 2005: In Toronto, Stephen Williams’s lawyer and the Crown’s lawyer negotiate a plea bargain. Williams pleads guilty to one charge of breaching a court order by publishing the names of Paul Bernardo’s sexual assault victims on a Web site. He receives a suspended sentence. July 21, 2005: In Ottawa, Bill C-2 receives royal assent. The Liberal bill amends the legal ban on child pornography. Jan. 23, 2006: Canadians elect a Conservative government. Stephen Harper becomes prime minister. February 2006: Canadians debate whether reprinting 12 Danish cartoons of Mohammed—which are inspiring Muslim riots overseas—is principled or legal. Most Canadian news agencies refrain from reprinting the cartoons to avoid offending Muslims. Peaceful Muslim demonstrations against the cartoons occur in Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver. Feb. 8, 2006: In Ontario, the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) objects to the inclusion of Deborah Ellis’s Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak in a voluntary reading program in Grades 4–6 in public schools. The CJC fears the effect of the book on youthful minds. By mid-March, at least five school boards restrict student access to it. Apr. 13, 2006: The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal rules that Hugh Owens—an evangelical Christian—did not violate the province’s human rights code when he cited four anti-gay Biblical verses in an ad in Saskatoon’s StarPhoenix newspaper in 1997. Oct. 19, 2006: In Ontario’s Superior Court, Justice Lynn Ratushny strikes down sections of the Security of Information Act that prohibit the receipt or communication of secret information without government authorization. Ratushny then quashes the warrants used by the RCMP to search the office and home of Juliet O’Neill in 2004. Nov. 3, 2006: Federal Justice Minister Vic Toews announces he will not appeal Justice Lynn Ratushny’s decision of October 19. The decision frees Juliet O’Neill from the threat of criminal prosecution for having received information from a government source to write a newspaper story about the Maher Arar affair. 2006: Pierre Hébert, Kenneth Landry, and Yves Lever publish their encyclopedic Dictionnaire de la censure au Québec : Littérature et cinéma. Images from left: The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman (Yearling, 2001); Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak. © 2004 by Deborah Ellis. Photo © David Turnley and Micah Walter (Corbis/Magma). Published by Groundwood Books Ltd.
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Jan. 19, 2007: In Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium v. Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada denies public money to the bookstore to fund its latest lawsuit against Canada Customs. The bookstore’s challenge to government censorship lacks enough public importance to merit the awarding of advance funds, the justices say. Nov. 30, 2007: A panel of the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission rules that Stephen Boissoin—a former Christian pastor—broke the law when he expressed anti-gay sentiments in a letter to the Red Deer Advocate in 2002. The letter exposes gays and lesbians to hatred or contempt, the ruling says. Dec. 18, 2007: In Ontario, the Halton Catholic District School Board votes to ban Philip Pullman’s fantasy novels—The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass—from its schools. The board objects to “atheist” themes in the books. June 27, 2008: In WIC Radio Ltd. v. Simpson, the Supreme Court of Canada entrenches and expands the legal defence of “fair comment” in libel cases. The court dismisses a libel suit against Rafe Mair, a radio host who had described a conservative antigay activist in British Columbia as a bigot in 1999. Aug. 1, 2008: The Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission dismisses a complaint filed by Muslims against Ezra Levant, former publisher of the Western Standard. The commission decides that the February 14, 2006, issue of the newsmagazine—which features eight Danish cartoons of Mohammed—does not incite hatred against Muslims. Oct. 10, 2008: The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal rules on a dispute between Maclean’s magazine and the Canadian Islamic Congress. The tribunal says that an article about Islam by Mark Steyn in the October 23, 2006, issue of the newsmagazine does not expose Muslims to hatred or contempt. •
Extraordinary Evil: Another Book Challenged in Toronto Schools
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By Peter Steven
n 2008, for the second time in three years, the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) reacted to public complaints and pulled a book from a course reading list.
In January, the Council of Turkish Canadians challenged Barbara Coloroso’s Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide. According to the council, the book perpetuates the “myth” that the Turkish government orchestrated the genocide of Armenians in 1915. In response, the TDSB committee that was reviewing a new Grade 11 course on international genocide commissioned a report from three Canadian academics. After receiving a report heavily critical of Coloroso’s scholarship, the committee decided, in late April, to drop the book from a recommended reading list. The reaction from authors, the publisher at Penguin Canada, the Book and Periodical Council, and others was swift and forceful. Nelofer Pazira, the president of PEN Canada, wrote: “Under the circumstances, PEN has to question why the TDSB is engaging in what can only be described as censorship.” On June 19, Canadian genocide scholar Gerald Caplan analyzed the course committee’s assessment. He showed how
Extraordinary Evil by Barbara Coloroso. Published by Penguin Group (Canada), 2008
academic discourse, which appears neutral and precise, can stifle controversial points of view and free speech. In June, likely due in part to the literary community’s reactions, course committee members reversed their ruling. In a classic case of damning with faint praise, they stated that “while the book is not necessarily the best example of rigorous historical scholarship, it could be included among readings on the social psychology of genocide as the extreme extension of bullying.”
The committee also changed the course title to Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Thus the course will be broadened, and the debates over the meaning of genocide will presumably be avoided. This fight is also international and the stakes are high. Many scholars, such as those in the International Association of Genocide Scholars, do define what happened in 1915 as genocide. Canada and other countries see it that way too. But Turkey has been fighting hard to deny the genocide label: Turkish officials say that Armenian deaths were simply a part of the First World War. The stakes are high for freedom of speech in Canadian education as well. Several mysteries remain. Why did the TDSB’s committee not anticipate this controversy and prepare itself? (The issue arose in 1988 at Ottawa’s board of education and regularly makes international headlines.) Is Coloroso’s thesis that genocide is an extreme form of bullying too radical for some academics, who respond by questioning her credentials? I hope that the Toronto high school students who take this important and timely course will get to discuss book censorship and how their reading list came to be. This is not dry, old history —it’s a battle still being fought. •
Excerpts From Letters to the Toronto District School Board Patsy Aldana Publisher, Groundwood Books May 16, 2008 As the publisher of Groundwood Books, I am suffering from déjà vu. Once again you are succumbing to pressure and pulling a book. This is the Three Wishes controversy all over again. ... What is offensive in your decision is that it reflects what seems to have become the TDSB’s habitual response
to pressure—get rid of books that are “problematic.” … Is Barbara Coloroso’s argument unworthy of being considered, discussed, debated? ... Have you learned nothing? Our children need, urgently, to be educated to be critical thinkers capable of drawing their own conclusions based on a range of ideas. TDSB does not seem to embrace this principle, quite the contrary. You are once again doing the
children you have been charged with educating a terrible injustice. David Davidar President and Publisher, Penguin Group Canada May 22, 2008 Board documents describe Ms. Coloroso as a “renowned educator” and the book’s inclusion in the reading list in the first place attests to its value as a CONTINUED ON PAGE 16 FREEDOM TO READ 2009
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legitimate contribution to the study of genocide. Dropping the book from the list is apparently based on vociferous objections by segments of the Turkish Canadian population who … dispute Ms. Coloroso’s credentials as an historian. In fact, Ms. Coloroso has never claimed to be an historian and in the Introduction to her book, she emphasizes that she is writing “as an educator, a parent, and a former nun. All three of these influence and colour this text.” We suggest that the Board follow [its] philosophy … which states … “Genuine historical controversies do belong in
a high school curriculum and can be beneficial in giving students an in-depth understanding of complex events and in teaching students critical thinking.” Book and Periodical Council May 27, 2008 Extraordinary Evil is not a trivial or an irresponsible work. Even if some scholars dispute Ms. Coloroso’s thesis that genocide is the consequence of extreme bullying, we think that high school students should have the opportunity to read the thesis and debate it in class. After all, students are not obliged to accept the arguments and conclusions of this (or any other) publication. •
Response to the Report of the Special Review Committee Examining Barbara Coloroso’s Extraordinary Evil” Gerald Caplan June 19, 2008 I find that the evidence [the committee members] themselves marshal in no way justifies their conclusion. … The committee members make a series of weighty accusations. They assert that her book is “guilty of conceptual confusions, factual errors, historical dogmatism, and historical misrepresentation”—tough language in the world of academics. But they prove none of it. While someone with little knowledge of the subject matter might find their arguments plausible, in fact almost none of them stands up to scrutiny. On the contrary. Over and over again, the committee takes minor matters and blows them up into something significant. It’s very hard to understand why they would make such mountains out of what are at most mere molehills. Often their criticisms are based on word games and semantics. Or they take responsible, justifiable statements and simply disagree with them. With one exception, virtually all their many harsh criticisms are really at most nitpicking 16
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little flaws that every book contains. Some of their points seem to me simply wrong. ... [On Armenia] Coloroso is criticized for calling Armenia in 1915 a definitive genocide. Yet most of my colleagues in the International Association of Genocide Scholars concur that Armenia is one of the definitive genocides of the twentieth century. Many of them have said and written as much. On March 9, 2000, a group of 126 preeminent Holocaust scholars, among them Elie Wiesel, … issued a statement declaring that “the World War I Armenian Genocide is an incontestable historical fact …” Those who criticize Coloroso’s book have put forth two dissenting authors, whose impartiality and objectivity has been questioned far more than Coloroso’s ever has. Can their much-criticized work really be given more weight than that of the overwhelming number of impartial and objective genocide scholars ... ? [On Bullying] The committee asserts that Coloroso’s thesis is that “genocide is merely the
freedomtoread.ca
CANADA’S EVENT CALENDAR FOR FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • A LIST OF BOOKS RECENTLY CHALLENGED IN CANADA • TIPS ON HOW TO OBSERVE FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • A CHRONOLOGY OF BOOK BANNINGS AND BURNINGS IN WORLD HISTORY • POSTER ART FOR 25 YEARS OF FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • LINKS TO OTHER ON-LINE RESOURCES • AND MUCH MORE . . .
extreme extension of bullying.” The key word here is merely, which conveys a sense of simple-mindedness and even silliness about the book. This is of course a subjective finding. But I believe that most readers, like me, will find her thesis to be much more complex and thought-provoking than that. •
Further Reading Coloroso, Barbara. Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide. Toronto: Penguin Books, 2007. MacDonald, Scott. “Coloroso’s Publisher Weighs In.” Quill & Quire: Quill Blog, May 23, 2008. www.quillandquire.com/ blog/index.php/2008/05/23/colorosospublisher-weighs-in/#comments. Toronto District School Board. “Equity in Education: New Locally-Developed Course on Genocide.” www.tdsb.on.ca/_ site/ViewItem.asp?siteid=15&menuid =8920&pageid=7811. Grade 11 course outline and reading list. Villett, Michelle. “Coloroso Changes the Subject.” Quill & Quire, November 2006, 8–9. A profile of Coloroso.
CENSORING SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS The Insite Example
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By John Hoey
ensored is a powerful and friendless word with few public advocates. When Galileo, perhaps the most famous censored scientist, published his proof that the universe is not geocentric but heliocentric (that is, the earth is not the centre of the universe but revolves around the sun), the idea was unacceptable to the Catholic Church of late Renaissance Italy. The proof was banned, books were burned, and Galileo himself sentenced to house arrest. Today, there are few similar examples. Yet in the privacy of our homes, offices, businesses, and governments, ideas and evidence are suppressed, often to the point of un-speakability. Just try to get scientists working in industry or government to comment on their work: one is quickly referred to communications departments. This censorship, which is ongoing and comprehensive, has given us “whistle-blowers” and freedom of information legislation. Health and health care are quintessentially political. Nowhere is this clearer than in populations marginalized by poverty, skin pigment, body weight, gender, and addiction. Scientific findings and proposals confront popular ideologies embodied in our elected governments. Faced with science that they can’t publicly ignore, governments turn to other techniques: distortion, suppression,
delay, and denigration. These techniques are less visible than the red pen, but all are attempts to create a culture that denigrates science as elitist, impractical, and amoral (the last of which is, of course, what science is supposed to be).
How Is Science Marginalized? Politicians often find themselves near the centre of controversial ideological discussions. Although expected to act rationally, politicians are in politics because of their ideologies. They are highly motivated to champion causes favoured by the people who voted for them or may vote for them. Science provides only approximations or estimates of absolute truth. So, in the face of uncertainty, called upon to make wise decisions using the best scientific evidence, yet finding that evidence contrary to ideology, politicians in government try to marginalize the science. Harassment of scientists by denying or threatening to deny funding for research, or by denying access to data needed for research, is a common recourse of governments. In the case of Vancouver’s Insite clinic (see sidebar), the federal government cut all funding for research, precluding scientific evaluation of the facility and making it virtually certain that there will be no further comprehensive evaluation. Disparagement of science and scientists is another tactic used by governments (and others) when faced with
uncomfortable scientific evidence. In a classic instance of shooting the messenger, federal Minister of Health Tony Clement, in testimony before a session of the Standing Committee on Health (May 29, 2008), said: “On the question of science, let me assure you I’ve read many of the studies that have been published on Insite. These studies have the weight of publication as well as some articulate proponents who insist that their positions are the correct ones. Many of the studies are by the same authors who, quite frankly, plough their ground with regularity and righteousness. Indeed, while in our free society scientists are at liberty to become advocates for their position, I’ve noticed that the line between scientific views and advocacy is sometimes hard to find as the issue on Insite is developed.” These comments deprecate all of science, cast the aspersion that published studies somehow have an unfair advantage over unpublished ones, and are on the edge of libel in their characterization of the scientists evaluating Insite. Another government tactic is sidestepping the evidence by creating alternative bodies such as expert advisory committees. In the case of Insite, Minister Clement relied in part on the Ministerial Advisory Council on the Federal Initiative to Address HIV/AIDS in Canada. Formed in 1998, the council issues reports (and I am informed has visited Insite), but CONTINUED ON PAGE 18
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INSITE
these reports and the work of the committee are published (or censored) at the discretion of the health minister. The mandate (dated November 2007) includes this stunning paragraph: “These [reports, policy papers, and meeting minutes of the expert advisory committee] are considered as confidential
SCIENCE NEVER REVEALS A TRUTH BUT WORKS TO REMOVE UNCERTAINTY; POLITICS CLAIMS TO REVEAL TRUTHS AND DEFINITELY CREATES UNCERTAINTY. advice to the Minister and their release and dissemination are therefore subject to the Minister’s review and approval.” In fact, the last published annual report is for the year 2004– 05. (I am told that the missing reports are being “translated” and will be published shortly.) Will these reports be censored? Will they be complete? Will we know? I do not doubt the good will, sincerity, and expertise of the members of the advisory council, but I do wonder at the willingness of advisory committee members to accept such a constraint on their work. It might limit their inquiries to those likely to be acceptable to the minister and raises questions about the independence and political naiveté of scientists who sit on such committees.
Making Science, Not Policy, the Target Is it really possible to scientifically evaluate a program such as Insite? Science never reveals a truth but works to remove uncertainty; politics claims to reveal truths and definitely creates uncertainty. Science rarely provides a yes/no answer: Is needle exchange effective? Do injection centres improve addicts’ health or the health of communities in which they live? These public health problems are too complex, the time frame for evaluations too short, and scientific strategies too limited. (We can’t do randomized clinical trials, for example.) Governments and other ideological critics often expect too much from science, and then criticize and disparage the reports they receive. Insufficient scientific evidence of program effectiveness is equated with showing no evidence, a profoundly illogical conclusion. Gathering evidence, and then setting up special committees to examine and summarize it, is not wrong if the process is done at arm’s length from the government. The problem is misusing science: censoring, underfunding, and disparaging science and the scientists; claiming falsely that insufficient proof of effectiveness equals absolute proof of ineffectiveness; and camouflaging ideological policy as rational science-based public management. Cutting funding, not publishing reports and deliberations of 18
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he Downtown Eastside of Vancouver—described as Canada’s “poorest postal code”—is home to about 0.5 per cent of the population of the province and to 63 per cent of its injection drug users. Of the latter, 30–40 per cent are believed to have HIV/AIDS, 90 per cent have hepatitis C, 20 per cent are homeless, 80 per cent have been incarcerated, 38 per cent are involved in the sex trade, and 60 per cent have reported a non-fatal drug overdose. Insite, a clinic in the Downtown Eastside, was established in 2003 by the City, its public health department, the Vancouver police, and a neighbourhood association— the Downtown Eastside Community. The facility aims to provide a safe environment where users of illicit drugs (mainly cocaine and heroin) can inject their drugs under supervision with sterile equipment, where users can obtain emergency care in the event of overdoses (illicit drugs are of unknown strength), and where they can get counselling, referral to other services such as primary health care, addiction counselling, and treatment and mental health services. The federal and B.C. governments supported the program financially. Health Canada also funded research to evaluate Insite and granted Insite and the neighbourhood an exemption to federal laws restricting the use of illicit drugs. expert panels, denigrating science and scientists, bypassing the rigours of publication and independent peer review with confidential and in-house documents, and placing the blame for policy inadequacy on the scientists are all forms of censorship. Politics is hard, the decisions are tough, and the ideologues are vocal and voting; but still the right thing to do is make public the policy dilemma and all of the evidence, however fragmentary and fragile. • John Hoey is a medical doctor. He is on the faculty at Queen’s University and an associate editor of Open Medicine. A longer version of this article may be found at http://johnhoey.blogspot. com. The terms of reference for the Ministerial Advisory Council on the Federal Initiative to Address HIV/AIDS in Canada may be found at www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/aids-sida/fi-if/pdf/tor_e.pdf.
Meanwhile in Quebec . . .
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By Charles Montpetit
t first glance, the censorship situation should be the same in Quebec and in the rest of Canada. Obviously, we’ve all been angry over Bill C-10, we’ve all been victims of the Conservatives’ cuts to artistic programs, and we’ve all been affected by Customs’ seizures (gay bookstore Serge et Réal felt the pinch for months before closing down in December 2007). Yet major Canadian cases such as Mark Steyn’s and Ezra Levant’s barely rate a blip on francophone radars, while the latest antics of pundit/therapist “Doc” Mailloux (May 2008) and shock jock Jeff Fillion (July 2008) are virtually ignored in English-speaking provinces, though they routinely elicit complaints on Quebec airwaves. Is there a deep schism involved here or is this just a matter of language barriers? Well, yes and no. The spat over the film Young People Fucking could not have happened in a province where the title becomes Jeunes adultes qui baisent; not only does the translation dispel the impression that minors are involved but that all-important F-bomb has no shocking counterpart in la langue de Molière. Besides, the word is rarely censored in French media, even when it is uttered at 5:00 p.m. on a RadioCanada series such as Rumeurs (2002– 08). Still, other words do get banned, as the Assemblée nationale demonstrated when it proscribed the use of girouette (weathervane) to describe one’s opponent on the debate floor (October 2007). The epithet joined effronté (daring), enfantillages (kid stuff ), stratagème, and cheap on a long list of no-nos, seriously undercutting the province’s liberal reputation in the process.
2008). Écosociété was immediately sued by Canada’s world leader in gold production, Barrick Gold, for describing Barrick’s mining practices in Tanzania. Though all the information in the book had been already released by organizations such as the United Nations and Human Rights Watch without prompting a lawsuit, the company now demanded $5 million to compensate for “psychological harm” as well as $1 million in punitive damages.
Noir Canada edited by Alain Denault and the Collectif Ressources d’Afrique (Édition Écosociété, 2008)
Denouncing censorship certainly is not a strong tradition in Quebec: for the last 12 years, the French version of Freedom to Read Week has essentially been a one-man labour of love by yours truly. But the media did chime in on several controversies in the past months, such as the government’s withholding of a study about French Montrealers’ new minority status (January 2008) and a foundry’s refusal to cast Martin Bureau’s contribution to Quebec City’s 400th anniversary exhibition—a manhole cover depicting Queen Elizabeth as a caribou (June 2008). In addition, three books about freedom of expression were released in 2008: La censure dans tous ses états, Anastasie ou la censure du cinema au Québec, and J.A. DeSève, diffuseur d’image. So, it’s not as if censorship attempts go unnoticed. The most significant case occurred when small press Écosociété released 1,700 copies of Noir Canada: Pillage, corruption et criminalité en Afrique (April
Then another enterprise holding gold extraction rights in the Congo, Banro Corporation, filed a second lawsuit in Ontario’s Superior Court for $5 million. This brought the total amount close to 50 times Écosociété’s annual revenue— not counting the added expense to the publisher of having to defend itself in a different jurisdiction, under a different legal code. On June 12, 2008, the president of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois (UNEQ), Stanley Péan, hosted a benefit concert launching a campaign of support for the publisher. That very day, the provincial government introduced its Bill 99, which would “prevent abusive use of the courts” by enabling judges to throw out strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs) in which public-interest groups and individuals are silenced with costly litigation. While such laws are common in the United States, this would be the first one of its kind in Canada. Unfortunately, when Quebec elections were called in November 2008, all pending bills were trashed. So is Quebec lagging behind or a front runner for free expression? Stay tuned, won’t you? • Charles Montpetit is the freedom of expression co-ordinator for UNEQ. For more information, e-mail him at cmontpetit@hotmail.com.
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CanWest Sues B.C. Pranksters
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By Marc Edge
ften demonized for dominating West Coast news media, CanWest Global Communications is being condemned for using the courts to stifle criticism of apparent bias in its news coverage. The Winnipeg-based corporation has filed two lawsuits against critics in Vancouver. One lawsuit against an activist for Palestinian rights has been criticized as a groundless SLAPP suit (strategic lawsuit against public participation). That writ was issued against retired college professor Mordecai Briemberg, who admits helping to circulate a parody of CanWest’s Vancouver Sun but denies being behind its production. CanWest has also sued Rafe Mair for a column he wrote in The Tyee that criticized the dropping of political cartoonists at CanWest’s Vancouver Province newspaper. The lawsuit against Briemberg has been denounced by the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, the Canadian Library Association, and the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators. “The suit can only be understood as a bullying tactic to try to silence him and to intimidate others,” said Anne Roberts, a Langara College journalism instructor. “CanWest already controls 70 per cent of the media in the Vancouver region, but apparently it isn’t enough. Now it’s turning to the courts to stop people from expressing their own opinions.” Roberts helped form a committee to defend Briemberg that organized a June demonstration outside Vancouver Sun offices. The protest prompted the newspaper’s publisher to justify the lawsuit over the parody. “This piece was not satirical,” wrote Kevin Bent. “It was not a clever spoof. It was a deliberate act to mislead and misinform thousands of people by using the actual Vancouver Sun masthead, logo, and layout.” CanWest became Canada’s largest news company after buying the Southam newspaper chain from Conrad Black in 2000. CanWest acquired numerous television-newspaper combinations across Canada, but journalists feared that the company also gained control of news content. In Vancouver, CanWest gained a near monopoly on news media. In addition to both daily newspapers, it owns BCTV, which commands a supper-hour news audience of more than 70 per cent, and almost all of the non-daily “community” newspapers in Greater Vancouver. CanWest also publishes the National Post, and in Victoria it owns the dominant television station and the only daily newspaper. The company was founded in 1974 by Izzy Asper, a Winnipeg tax lawyer who turned it into Canada’s most profitable broadcaster by cashing in on the “simultaneous substitution” rule. The rule allowed CanWest to insert its own ads in U.S. network programs carried at the same time on Canadian cable systems. For relying heavily on Hollywood reruns, CanWest was dubbed 20
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JEF KEIGHLEY presents the 2008 Golden Gag Award to CanWest
the “Love Boat Network.” The profits enabled expansion to New Zealand, Australia, Chile, and the United Kingdom. The Southam purchase gave CanWest a dozen metropolitan dailies and more than 100 other Canadian newspapers. Since Asper’s death in 2003, CanWest has been operated by his three children. They have followed their father’s example in denouncing the CBC and its Middle East coverage, which they feel is biased against Israel. CanWest’s coverage of the Middle East prompted publication in 2007 of a four-page parody of The Vancouver Sun that lampooned its coverage as pro-Israel. Mocking the Sun’s slogan “Seriously Westcoast Since 1912,” the satire carried the motto “Seriously Zionist Since 2001.” About 12,000 copies of the satire were distributed in Vancouver and Victoria. CanWest promptly filed a lawsuit for conspiracy and trademark infringement against Briemberg, numerous John and Jane Does, and printer Horizon Publications. Early in 2008, two local activists said they were behind the stunt. Calling themselves the Palestine Media Collective, Carel Moiseiwitsch and Gordon Murray noted that CanWest’s Middle East coverage bore little resemblance to what they had observed on a 2006 visit to the occupied Palestinian territories. “In CanWest publications, Israelis are almost always portrayed as innocent victims and Palestinians as inhuman terrorists,” they wrote in the Georgia Straight. CanWest has since added Moiseiwitsch and Murray to the lawsuit as defendants. The committee formed to defend Briemberg blogs about the dispute at www.seriouslyfreespeech.wordpress.com. [In November 2008, CanWest dropped its lawsuit against Briemberg, but the lawsuit against Moiseiwitsch and Murray continues.—Ed.] • Marc Edge is the author of Asper Nation: Canada’s Most Dangerous Media Company (Vancouver: New Star Books, 2007).
HARSH WORDS
Maclean’s Magazine v. the Canadian Islamic Congress
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n November 30, 2007, the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC) filed three complaints against Maclean’s magazine with the federal human rights commission and two provincial human rights commissions. The CIC alleged that Maclean’s had published articles—including an excerpt from Mark Steyn’s book America Alone—that exposed Muslims to hatred and contempt. Denying the charge, the magazine’s spokespersons said that Maclean’s published provocative but legal reportage. The complaints touched off a vigorous debate about the balance between press freedom and human rights in Canada. Freedom of speech is at risk, said many alarmed observers,
including the Canadian and B.C. Civil Liberties Associations, the Canadian Association of Journalists, and PEN Canada. But Haroon Siddiqui of The Toronto Star said nothing could be further from the truth. He quoted Karim Karim, a journalism professor at Carleton University, who said journalists “are fixated on their own rights and privileges. What about the rights of people to be free of discriminatory and hateful speech?” 1 In this section, we present three perspectives on the dispute. Cynthia Pay, a human rights lawyer, provides background information and offers her assessment. Julian Porter, the lawyer for Maclean’s, and the National Post’s editors offer contrasting opinions.
Muslim Students Challenge Maclean’s Magazine
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By Cynthia Pay
series of articles published by Maclean’s magazine in the last two years has led to a heated debate between competing rights to freedom of expression and to freedom from discrimination. One of the articles, “The Future Belongs to Islam” by Mark Steyn, raises the spectre of an “enfeebled” Europe too weak to resist its “transformation into Eurabia.”2 It cites a youthful and fast-growing Muslim demographic well positioned to take over Western society, with its declining birthrate and misguided policies of tolerance and the welfare state. Steyn writes: “On the Continent and elsewhere in the West, native populations are aging and fading and being supplanted remorselessly by a young Muslim demographic. Time for the obligatory ‘of courses’: of course, not all Muslims are terrorists—though enough are hot for jihad to provide an impressive support network of mosques from Vienna to Stockholm to Toronto to Seattle. Of course, not all Muslims support terrorists—though enough of them share their basic objectives.”3 This article is one of more than 20 published by Maclean’s in 2006 and 2007 that promote a similar theme,
warning that Muslims pose a serious and imminent threat to Western society and values and that “Europe will become Islamized within the lifetime of our children.” Other articles include Barbara Amiel’s “Wake Up Ostriches” and “A Twilight Zone of Insanity” where she states that “one of the easiest things to start off is a Muslim mob.”4 Groups representing Muslim Canadians, such as the Canadian Islamic Congress, raised concerns about these articles, complaining that they promoted Islamophobia by representing Muslims as violent and a threat to Western values such as democracy and freedom. They requested an opportunity to respond to the articles, but apparently the two sides could not reach an agreement. The CIC reports that it was told by Maclean’s editors that the magazine “would rather go bankrupt than allow us to publish a response.”5 The CIC then filed human rights complaints against Maclean’s with the Ontario Human Rights Commission, the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, and the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The Canadian commission, which could only deal with the publication of the articles on the Internet, dismissed the complaint because the article did not
reach the legal threshold required for hate speech.6 The Ontario commission found that there was no jurisdiction under the Ontario Human Rights Code to deal with complaints about magazine articles, but voiced its “serious concerns” about Mark Steyn’s article.7 B.C.’s tribunal, which does have jurisdiction to deal with “discriminatory publications,” held a hearing of the complaint in June 2008 and dismissed the complaint in October 2008. The response of the media to the filing of the complaints and the B.C. tribunal’s hearing has been largely one of self-interested hysteria and outrage, focusing on the perceived threat to freedom of expression posed by the intervention of the state and “wacky” human rights bodies. Maclean’s stated that “no human rights commission … has the mandate or expertise to monitor, inquire into, or assess the editorial decisions of the nation’s media,” and in another column, Mark Steyn described the Canadian human rights process as a “kangaroo court.” The National Post sounded the alarm that Canada’s human rights bodies “are out of control, far more interested in imposing political correctness than defending free speech.”8 CONTINUED ON PAGE 22
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However, are these human rights bodies really the threat that some media outlets claim them to be? So far, none of the complaints have resulted in action by the state—in fact, two of the three human rights bodies declined jurisdiction. While there is cause for concern if such bodies exercise their mandate in a heavy-handed manner, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that this power is only to be used in extreme cases of hate speech, and only with “caution and restraint” so that “the limitation on free speech would be minimized to the greatest possible extent.”9 In such cases involving “extreme feelings of opprobrium and enmity,” it does seem appropriate that the power of the media should be balanced by some state action to protect vulnerable minorities. The owner of Maclean’s, portrayed as a victim of the “human rights racket” and subject to “costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars,” is Rogers Communications, which earned $301 million in the second quarter of 2008, and owns 70 consumer and business publications and 51 radio stations, television stations, Internet services, etc. Similarly, the National Post, another vocal proponent of freedom of expression, is owned by CanWest, one of Canada’s largest media companies, which also owns 10 other major Canadian newspapers as well as the Global Television Network. Are these corporations really under threat by the actions of a few law students? Or does
their very existence raise serious concerns about the Canadian public’s access to a diverse range of information and ideas? As noted by Article 19, an international freedom of expression group, freedom of expression includes not only a right to be free of state, political, and commercial interference, but also the right of the public to “maximum diversity of information and ideas.”10 Ultimately, this debate is a false one. The actions of the Muslim Canadian organization that launched these complaints, and the response by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, have not resulted in a restriction on expression. They have in fact increased our access to a wider range of opinions with respect to the role of the Muslim Canadian community, as well as the impact of the articles printed by Maclean’s. Cynthia Pay is past president of the Chinese Canadian National Council and is a staff lawyer and clinical instructor at Parkdale Community Legal Services in Toronto.
Julian Porter’s View Julian Porter is one of Canada’s bestknown libel lawyers. He and a colleague defended Maclean’s before the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal in June 2008. On July 2, The Globe and Mail published an article by Jacquie McNish about him. Here are excerpts from “The Fading Line Between Free Speech and Libel.” “Libel law is under siege,” says Julian Porter. After four decades of suing or defend-
1. Haroon Siddiqui. “Hate Laws a Reasonable Limit on Free Speech,” The Toronto Star, June 22, 2008.
2008, http://lawiscool.com/2008/07/. A blog entry on the legal threshold of hate speech.
2. Mark Steyn. “The Future Belongs to Islam,” Maclean’s, October 20, 2006, http://www.macleans. ca/culture/books/article.jsp?content=20061023_ 134898_134898.
7. “Commission Statement Concerning Issues Raised by Complaints Against Maclean’s Magazine,” Ontario Human Rights Commission, 2008, http://www.ohrc. on.ca/en/resources/news/statement.
3. Ibid.
8. “Here’s Hoping Professor Moon Reins in the Canadian Human Rights Commission,” National Post, June 19, 2008.
4. Barbara Amiel. “A Twilight Zone of Insanity,” Maclean’s, February 7, 2006, http://www.macleans. ca/columnists/article.jsp?content=20060213_121438_ 121438. 5. Khurrum Awan et al. “Maclean’s Magazine: A Case Study of Media-Propagated Islamophobia,” 2007, http://www.canadianislamiccongress.com/ar/Report_ on_Macleans_Journalism.pdf. 6. “In Defense of Free Speech,” Law Is Cool, July 28,
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9. Decision of the Commission: Canadian Islamic Congress v. Rogers Media Inc., Canadian Human Rights Commission, October 10, 2008, http://www.macleans. ca/multimedia/pdf/CHRC.pdf. 10. Access to the Airwaves: Principles on Freedom of Expression and Broadcast Regulation, Article 19, March 2002, http://www.article19.org/pdfs/standards/ accessairwaves.pdf.
ing prominent authors, journalists, and businessmen entangled in some of Canada’s most memorable libel cases, Mr. Porter warns that it is getting harder to defend reputations or preserve freedom of speech—rights honed over centuries of case law. One culprit … is quasi-judicial bodies such as human rights tribunals, which are operating “far beyond their jurisdiction.” When these agencies investigate slander and defamation charges, he argues, they operate outside the bounds of civil court procedure. Defendants cannot rely on traditional libel defences such as truth, fair comment, or good intent.
The National Post Weighs In In 2008, the National Post published numerous editorials about Maclean’s, the CIC, and human rights commissions. After the Canadian Human Rights Commission declined to hear the CIC’s complaint, the newspaper published one such editorial on June 28. Here are excerpts from “Finally, Good News on ‘Human Rights.’” News reports from the past few months has [sic] turned the phrase “human rights” into something of a joke. On the one hand, a group of Muslim activists has gone before three separate human rights commissions in a highprofile bid to censor critics of militant Islam—realizing the worst fears of critics who, years ago, predicted that “human rights” would become an instrument of thought control. ... But good news is at hand. On Friday, it was announced that the Canadian Human Rights Commission has dismissed the complaint filed against Maclean’s magazine by Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress (CIC). ... [But] the very fact that human rights bureaucrats presume to sit in judgment as to what can and cannot be published in this country is appalling in itself. What is needed now is a ... root-andbranch reform of the Human Rights Act ... •
Conservatives Use Tax Policy to Keep Filmmakers in Line
CANADA’S BILL C-10
By Mark Leiren-Young
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oung People Fucking is a movie title that was intended to attract attention, but who could have imagined that in the twentyfirst century the F-word could still shock anyone enough to fuel government attacks on arts and culture? Early in 2008, the CanCon sex comedy became the first battleground in the same sort of “culture wars” that started tearing the United States and U.S. arts funding apart in the early 1990s. The U.S. culture wars kicked off in 1989 when religious conservatives such as Republican Senator Jesse Helms attacked government arts funding, citing a National Endowment for the Arts grant that helped finance Andres Serrano’s controversial photo of a crucifix dipped in urine, called Piss Christ. Young People Fucking—a sexual comedy of manners that was tame enough to play festivals and theatres all over the
Young People Fucking (Maple Pictures, 2007)
clause be removed or, at least, clarified. Filmmakers were concerned the clause could make it difficult to fund potentially controversial material, since labour tax credits—which have nothing to do with content and are based on how many
Bill C-10 contained a clause that declared the minister of Canadian Heritage could deny labour tax credits to any film or TV project the minister deemed “contrary to public policy” world—was cited repeatedly in debates over Bill C-10, a tax bill that looked so innocuous it appears none of our members of Parliament bothered to read it until after it passed. Unanimously. When news broke that Bill C-10 contained a clause that declared the minister of Canadian Heritage could deny labour tax credits to any film or TV project the minister deemed “contrary to public policy,” practically every arts organization in Canada jumped to the barricades demanding the
Canadians are employed on a project— have to be cited in the financing structure when filmmakers apply to Telefilm and banks. Fans of the clause seemed convinced it would stop taxpayers from funding all sorts of “offensive” films and shows, despite the fact that the minister of Canadian Heritage was either unwilling or unable to name a single project that would have lost funding because of Bill C-10—including the movie with the nasty title everyone was talking about.
The Senate banking committee launched hearings to review the bill. They quickly became hearings on the nature and value of cultural funding, as a who’s who of the Canadian culture scene—including Sarah Polley, Paul Gross, and David Cronenberg—faced off against leading lights of the religious right such as Diane Watts of REAL Women of Canada and evangelical leader Charles McVety. Meanwhile, Minister of Canadian Heritage Josée Verner said Bill C-10 was never intended as a form of censorship. “Nothing could be further from the truth,” she told the House of Commons. “Our government continues to passionately defend freedom of expression.” Passage of the bill was stalled in the Senate and the controversial clause died during the federal election campaign when Conservatives released a platform declaring that “a re-elected Conservative Government will not reintroduce the Bill C-10 proposals to change film and video tax credit eligibility.” But reassurances that Bill C-10 wasn’t intended as an attack on culture rang hollow when the government axed PromArt—a program that funded international travel—and a leaked Conservative party “talking points” memo suggested PromArt was killed because left-wingers such as Avi Lewis and Gwynne Dyer shouldn’t receive public funding. The memo made it look like being critical of the government is “contrary to public policy.” • Mark Leiren-Young represents the Playwrights Guild of Canada on the BPC’s Freedom of Expression Committee. He wrote and directed The Green Chain, a feature film. His comic memoir Never Shoot a Stampede Queen was released by Heritage House in 2008. It’s probably not contrary to Canadian cultural policy, but you never know ... FREEDOM TO READ 2009
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My Tribute to Nancy Fleming Nancy Fleming died in Toronto on February 24, 2008, on the brink of Freedom to Read Week. For 20 years (1979–99), she was the executive director of the Book and Periodical Council. In 2002, she was named co-recipient of the Canadian Library Association’s Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada, along with Sarah Thring and Peter Carver.
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By Peter Carver
ancy Fleming’s contribution to the cause of intellectual freedom arose out of a passionate and principled conviction that no individual or organization or government agency should interfere with an individual’s right to read and think and write freely. And, like many of us who have been soldiers in the cause of intellectual freedom, she recognized that the urge to censor, to control thought, is a frequent trait (one might say an unfortunate aberration) of the human character that has been with us as long as humans have thought and told stories and expressed opinions.
When we got into the meat of the kit, Nancy shifted gears. She was as indignant as anyone about a threat from a group of parents to burn school texts in Manning, Alta. She was a great friend and ally of June Callwood in the battle against schools that banned books by Margaret Laurence and Alice Munro. She voiced steady support for Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium in Vancouver in the store’s interminable fight against Canada Customs’ confiscation of books coming over the border into Canada; her blood boiled at the thought that a branch of our government would attack the book trade and the gay and lesbian community in this way. She detested what she saw as the suddenly chic gospel of political correctness that sought to limit writers’ freedom to explore the stories of the world’s cultures and belief systems. She met with and talked to individual teachers and writers and publishers who in some way or another had felt the rough hand of censorship slapping at their rights. Nancy was a remarkable person. But she was probably most engaged emotionally with the work of the Freedom of Expression Committee, the group that planned the annual Freedom to Read Week. While the United States had its Banned Books Week, we in Canada took a more positive tack to support 24
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Courtesy of Peter Fleming
So, in directing Freedom to Read Week, she exhibited a longrange comprehension of what we were doing that helped guide us all, though I think she was also shocked that the censors could behave so illogically. From time to time, as we geared up for another year’s kit preparation—and the kits became more and more ambitious in form and dimension—Nancy would exhibit some weariness with having to compose yet another annual summary of the excesses committed by book-banners and would-be censors.
NANCY FLEMING
intellectual freedom—a reflection of Nancy’s character—and she was very much a party to that approach. The cause of intellectual freedom in Canada could not have had a more level-headed, thoughtful leader. Nancy’s passion, her wry sense of humour, her ability to manage a disparate crew of workers and build them into a team, her energy and thoroughness—these qualities were key to whatever success we had over the years. The year that the fatwa on Salman Rushdie was issued, I remember walking with Nancy to a press conference on the issue at Queen’s Park in Toronto. There was a palpable feeling of risk and excitement in the crowded room at Ontario’s legislature. Somehow we felt suddenly on the front lines through the sheer act of standing up for people’s freedom to read Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. And Nancy made the comment: “Perfect timing for Freedom to Read Week!” •
Literacy, Violence, and the Freedom to Read
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By Heather Lash he censorship of printed material is appalling and frightening. Hating the written word—even advocating against it—is one thing, while disallowing the members of civil society even to see it is quite another. Both our intuition and historical memory are roused to suspicion by the banning of a book.
But imagine, now, not the forbidding of a particular text, but the forbidding of a particular group of people from reading a text. Imagine, say, all expectant mothers banned from reading a book. What agenda could possibly fuel such an interdiction? This disturbing thought experiment offers needed perspective to our thinking about reading and literacy. Few would deny that literacy is a right, human or civil. Various literacies (reading, writing, numeracy, and all the skills needed to negotiate communities, institutions, and bureaucracies) are the sites of contact between individuals and mechanisms that put us more or less in charge of our lives. But a look at why this right is not enjoyed by certain people—and who they are—might renew or even radicalize the discussion about the “freedom to read.” It is useful to consider what people struggling with literacy have in common. Poverty is an unsurprising answer. Illiteracy is founded on economic violence and the social violence of a culture that ignores this phenomenon and takes advantage of it. According to Jenny Horsman, a leading researcher and author on violence against women and literacy, violence is the most salient word every time. Statistics Canada’s 2008 report on family violence, which again shows that many Canadian women have experienced violence in their lifetimes, provides one source for Horsman’s work. (See the suggested readings below.) Experiences of violence underpin perhaps the majority of the accounts of people who have “fallen through the cracks.” In fact, physical, sexual, mental, and emotional abuses reveal precisely those cracks. The effects of violence do not leave individuals broken and in need of “healing”; in Horsman’s analysis, they are more like the canaries that miners used to test for lethal gas underground. She suggests that reactions to violence are “useful warnings that societal violence needs to be brought under control. If society is a toxic mine, there is no place free of toxic irritant.” Sexual and gender-based violence thus figure overwhelmingly in the literacy struggles of women. Past and/or present violence undermines the self-esteem required to learn. Learning—which involves making mistakes, trial and error, and confusion— makes us all feel vulnerable. On a cognitive level, trauma can compromise capacities essential to learning: complex thought,
Past and/or present violence undermines the self-esteem required to learn. memory, attention, and resiliency in front of correction or criticism. On an emotional level, literacy work (even simply being in an institutional setting) can be stressful and trigger another trauma. Violence truncates the capacity to learn but does not destroy it. Given safety and encouragement, given a politic that insists that past bad experiences are not their fault, given access and flexibility in curriculum and methodology, people can thrive as learning adults. They can gain an awareness that leads to selfadvocacy and breathing room to see life as something not just to survive but to be built intentionally. This is mobility; this is freedom. The problem is not the result of a conspiracy but is the result of a criminal lack of planning, of vision, of understanding. And, when literacy development remains a low priority, the result is as stark as censorship. Advocating for adequate conditions to assist this learning will reveal what the canary has shown over and over: We need to change. We can’t live like this. We are not free like this. • Heather Lash sits on the Board of Directors for Parkdale Project Read in Toronto.
Further Reading Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics. Family Violence in Canada: A Statistical Profile. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2008. Horsman, Jenny. Too Scared to Learn: Women, Violence and Education. Toronto: McGilligan, 2000. See also www.jennyhorsman.com. Learning and Violence. www.learningandviolence.net.
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LITTLE SISTER’S BIG BATTLES A Timeline By Guy Cribdon and Robin Perelle
1983: In Vancouver, Jim Deva, Bruce Smyth, and Barb Thomas open Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium. The store sells books and magazines with gay and lesbian themes. Since very few such publications are available in Canada, Little Sister’s must import about 90 per cent of its stock from the United States. May 1985: Canada Customs seizes a shipment of the lesbian magazine Bad Attitude that is destined for Little Sister’s. Customs officials will not say why the publication has been seized. December 1986: Canada Customs seizes 59 titles headed for Little Sister’s. Two days later, officials seize another 19 titles, including 75 copies of the January 3, 1987, issue of The Advocate. Little Sister’s appeals the seizures. By the end of the month, Customs has seized more than 600 books and magazines bound for the store. May 1987: Little Sister’s and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) launch proceedings against Canada Customs for the detention of two issues of The Advocate. The trial date is set for May 1988. June 1987: Customs detains Anne Cameron’s Dzelarhons. The book is deemed obscene because it contains the legend of a woman who is forced to marry a bear. Customs releases the book later in the month. December 1987: A bomb is thrown into the stairwell leading up to Little Sister’s. Police estimate that the bomb causes $2,000 in damage. February 1988: A bomb is thrown through the back door of Little Sister’s downstairs neighbour, Thurlow’s Restaurant. Broken glass showers diners, but no one is seriously hurt. April 1988: Just weeks before their case against Canada Customs over the seizure of The Advocate is set to get underway, Little Sister’s and the BCCLA learn that the federal government has conceded that the newsmagazine is not obscene. Seizures of other gay and lesbian materials imported by Little Sister’s continue. June 1990: Little Sister’s and the BCCLA file a statement of claim in B.C.’s Supreme Court. They challenge Canada Customs’ powers to detain and ban books as unconstitutional under Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The trial date is initially set for September 1991 but will be postponed three times. January 1992: A smoke bomb explodes in the stairwell leading up to Little Sister’s while the store is still open. No one is injured, but there is considerable damage. February 1992: The Supreme Court of Canada
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renders a decision in R. v. Butler and upholds the obscenity section of the Criminal Code of Canada. Although the court acknowledges that some of the obscenity provisions are unconstitutional, it finds them necessary and justifiable to avoid harm to society. September 1992: Little Sister’s Charter challenge of Canada Customs’ powers is postponed until October 1993. November 1993: Canada Customs intercepts a shipment of Gael Baudino’s Shroud of Shadow. This is the first time that Customs detains a domestic shipment to Little Sister’s. Customs releases the books and says its action was a mistake. Minister of National Revenue David Anderson apologizes to Little Sister’s. August 1994: Customs detains 10 titles on their way to Little Sister’s, including the children’s book Belinda’s Bouquet. September 1994: Just two weeks before the Little Sister’s Charter challenge is finally scheduled to be heard, the federal government amends Canada Customs’ Memorandum D9-1-1 to remove depictions of anal penetration from the list of obscene materials that are banned from importation into Canada. October 1994: More than four years after filing its statement of claim and after three postponements, the Little Sister’s case against Canada Customs finally opens in B.C.’s Supreme Court. The trial runs for 40 days and features testimony from authors Pierre Berton, Jane Rule, Nino Ricci, Pat Califia, and others in support of Little Sister’s. February 1995: Little Sister’s receives a bomb threat over the phone. Police investigate but find nothing. January 1996: In B.C.’s Supreme Court, Justice Kenneth Smith rules that Canada Customs has discriminated against Little Sister’s. However, the court upholds Customs’ power to seize and detain material. Little Sister’s and the BCCLA vow to appeal the decision. March 1996: Justice Kenneth Smith grants an injunction that requires Canada Customs to stop its seizures of Little Sister’s material until the Crown can prove to the court that Customs officers are applying “appropriate standards” in their examinations. In separate proceedings, Justice Smith awards Little Sister’s costs to a total of $168,740 plus disbursements. June 1998: The B.C. Court of Appeal, in a 2–1 decision, upholds Justice Smith’s decision and rules that Canada Customs’ powers to seize and detain “obscene” material are constitutional. Janine Fuller—Little Sister’s manager—announces that the store will appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. February 1999: The Supreme Court of Canada
agrees to hear Little Sister’s appeal. December 2000: The Supreme Court of Canada upholds Justice Smith’s decision in B.C.’s Supreme Court and orders Canada Customs to stop targeting the gay bookstore. But the Supreme Court of Canada does not strike down Customs’ authority to seize materials deemed obscene at the border. The court does, however, shift the burden of proof to Canada Customs, whose agents now have to prove that materials they seize are obscene. Previously, importers had to prove that their seized shipments were not obscene. July 2001: Customs seizes two issues of the gay comic book Meatmen. This act, followed by the seizure of two more books of gay erotica (Of Slaves and Ropes and Lovers and Of Men, Ropes and Remembrance, edited by Larry Townsend), prompts Little Sister’s and the BCCLA to launch new proceedings against Canada Customs. February 2003: In B.C.’s Supreme Court, pretrial hearings begin in the Meatmen case. Justice Elizabeth Bennett rules that the onus is on Canada Customs to prove that its officers have addressed the systemic problems in their treatment of Little Sister’s cited by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2000. June 2004: Justice Bennett awards Little Sister’s advance costs to pursue its latest legal case against Canada Customs (now the Canada Border Services Agency or CBSA). Justices have the discretion to award advance costs in rare and exceptional cases of public significance when the appellants lack the money to proceed. “The issues raised are too important to forfeit this litigation because of lack of funds,” Justice Bennett rules. February 2005: The B.C. Court of Appeal reverses Justice Bennett’s June 2004 ruling to grant the advance funding. Justice Allan Thackray rules that the case is not of major public importance. Little Sister’s and the BCCLA appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada. November 2005: The Supreme Court of Canada agrees to hear Little Sister’s petition for advance funds in the Meatmen case. January 2007: The Supreme Court of Canada rules that the Little Sister’s case against the CBSA is not special enough to warrant the taxpayers’ support and denies the store’s request for advance funding. January 2008: While making preparations for the store’s twenty-fifth anniversary, coowners Jim Deva and Bruce Smyth announce that they are selling Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium. • Reprinted with permission. A longer version of this timeline appeared in the on-line edition of Xtra West on April 23, 2008.
LITTLE SISTER’S BIG SISTER An Interview With Janine Fuller
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By Benita Aalto
T.J. Ngan
ince starting work at Little Sister’s in 1990, Janine Fuller has become a champion of free expression in Canada because of the legal battles that the store fought against Canada Customs to import gay and lesbian books and magazines. Her years of trial preparation, fundraising, and advocacy led to the publication of two books about the dispute—Restricted Entry and Forbidden Passages—and the conferral of an honorary doctorate of laws in 2004 from Simon Fraser University. The university praised her for “braving daunting obstacles to the intellectual freedoms so important in the pursuit of truth and knowledge” and for “the valiant efforts made by one Canadian to uphold the rights of all.” B.A. When you started working at Little Sister’s in 1990, were you aware of the larger importance of what you all were doing, or did it feel “local”? J.F. In 1990, when the first court documents were filed, I understood the importance of the case, particularly of gathering the witnesses and seeing the incredible people who came to support us. Nancy Fleming of the Book and Periodical Council was an unbelievable, stellar advocate on those issues of free
JANINE FULLER AND JIM DEVA
speech. And I thank God for Freedom to Read Week because it’s such an important educational tool. People are constantly shocked by what’s been seized or censored in this country. B.A. Are Canadians complacent when it comes to defending freedom of expression? J.F. Our society needs to have a committed sensibility to what our Charter rights are. Any change that’s occurred with queer rights hasn’t happened
• jane rule on censorship
Jane Rule’s novels were seized by Canada Customs as pornography. Here is an excerpt from her testimony during the Little Sister’s trial in Vancouver in 1994. Some cynics have said, “Isn’t it nice to get all that attention.” But in fact it’s the kind of attention that would, if it attracted readers, find readers who would be very disappointed in the books, since they aren’t pornographic. It is a kind of attention that would very possibly cut me off from the general audience for whom I write. It is the kind of statement or implication that does not simply last for that week or that month, but labels me for the rest of my professional life as someone who is probably a pornographer because, you know, if they held the books, there must be something in them that they don’t like.
through the good will of the government; it’s happened in the courts. Today, we are one step away from feeling all of the discrimination and despair we felt in the ’80s and ’90s in the gay and lesbian community. All people who care about free speech [could despair again]. I remember being in a big press conference in the store after we had won a court case and thinking, “This is it. I’ll never have to worry about this again.” A few weeks later, there were new seizures and new rules written into the Customs code. B.A. What message or advice would you give to people who are reading this interview and who want to raise awareness of threats to freedom of expression? J.F. You have to be really committed to the discussion of censorship. It isn’t a broken discussion about one idea; it’s many ideas. You have to believe it’s worth trying. Lots of things have been lost, but you can’t give up on the notion of the integrity of what it’s about. Librarians who fight to make books available raise the bar for all of us. When I feel like I can’t go on, I think about the librarians and know that I have to. • FREEDOM TO READ 2009
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2008 Awards for Freedom of Expression/Freedom to Read Nancy Branscombe and Gina Barber
Joel-Denis Bellavance and Gilles Toupin In May 2008, Canadian journalists Joel-Denis Bellavance and Gilles Toupin of La Presse won the Tenth Annual Press Freedom Award of the Canadian Committee for World Press Freedom. The award is given each year to a Canadian media worker who has stood 28
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Guy Badeaux
On May 2, 2008, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) announced that two London city councillors were the recipients of the Award for the Advancement of Intellectual Freedom in Canada. Councillors since 2006 and members of the Board of Trustees of the London Public Library, Nancy Branscombe and Gina Barber were recognized for their leadership in defending the integrity of intellectual freedom. In 2007, the London Public Library presented the Board of Trustees with an aggressive Internet filtering plan. At a board meeting in September 2007, Trustee Branscombe put forward a motion to abolish the filtering action, and Trustee Barber seconded the motion. Both councillors strongly advocated the importance of intellectual freedom and argued for less intrusive alternatives. In November 2007, a final motion to adopt filtering as a permanent policy passed despite growing opposition. In presenting the award, the CLA recognized that “the intensity and passion with which the award winners spoke out in defence of a library core value was done at risk to their political fortunes.” Branscombe and Barber succeeded in bringing the issue into public view. “The CLA commends their courageous example, which serves as a positive influence in London and in other communities grappling with this complex issue.”
FROM LEFT: GUY TOUPIN, PHILIPPE CANTIN, AND JOEL-DENIS BELLAVANCE OF LA PRESSE
up to threats to freedom of expression in Canada; the winner is picked by a prestigious jury of current and former journalists. Bellavance and Toupin were nominated by the Canadian Newspaper Association (CNA) for taking “a courageous stand in refusing to reveal the confidential source of a secret document, in a case involving a suspected alQaeda terrorist.” With this nomination, the CNA reminded people that “it is vital that the judicial system understands that reporters must not be turned into an investigating arm of the police and security establishment and that rights of free expression are not inconvenient trifles to be dismissed at whim.”
cast doubt on the murder conviction of Robert Baltovich, Finkle successfully challenged a subpoena for all of the research, interviews, and notes that he had collected for his book.
Bellavance and Toupin have put their welfare and reputations at risk in defence of press freedom.
Every year, the Writers’ Union of Canada presents its Freedom to Read Award to someone who has publicly defended freedom to read in Canada.
Derek Finkle In 2008, the Writers’ Union of Canada awarded Toronto author Derek Finkle its Freedom to Read Award. Author of the book No Claim to Mercy, which
“Derek Finkle showed considerable courage and determination in standing up to the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General and all its resources,” said Susan Swan, chair of the writers’ union. “Had the Crown succeeded in obtaining that material, it would have cast a chill on writers who are determined to unearth wrongful convictions in the justice system.” Ron Brown, chair of the union’s Rights and Freedoms Committee, added: “Mr. Finkle’s determination is an example to us all.”
Bernard Katz In 2008, the Ontario Library Association (OLA) awarded its Les Fowlie Intellectual Freedom Award to Bernard
Katz. A member of the OLA for more than 20 years, Katz is the former senior director of the University of Guelph’s McLaughlin Library and a long-time supporter of the OLA’s work on intellectual freedom and copyright. Katz was awarded this honour for his ethics, integrity, and passion in the defence of intellectual freedom. He led the development of the OLA’s Statement on the Intellectual Rights of the Individual, a document of lasting value. Katz also worked throughout 2006 with the OLA Silver Birch Award program to defend the right of schoolchildren to read Three Wishes by Deborah Ellis. In 2006, the Ontario branch of the Canadian Jewish Congress provoked a controversy when it asked the OLA to remove Three Wishes from its Silver Birch Award shortlist.
Janet Keeping During the 2008 Freedom to Read Week celebrations in Calgary, Janet Keeping was presented with the 2008 Calgary Freedom of Expression Award. President and CEO of the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership, Keeping received this honour for her work as a lawyer who has supported civil liberties throughout her career.
Sami al-Haj and Shakeman Mugari
Courtesy of Bernard Katz
The winners of the International Press Freedom Awards in 2008 are Sami alHaj and Shakeman Mugari. Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE) sponsors the awards.
BERNARD KATZ
JIM POLING Hamilton Spectator
A journalist for Al-Jazeera, al-Haj was imprisoned in 2001 by U.S. authorities at Guantanamo Bay. He was suspected of having links to al-Qaeda after he attempted to cross the border into Afghanistan while covering the aftermath of the Taliban’s flight from Kandahar. Though offered freedom if he became an informant against Al-Jazeera, al-Haj refused, and in 2007 he began a hunger strike that would last for more than a year. Finally released in May 2008, al-Haj was flown to Sudan. He was never formally charged with any crime. He is now Al-Jazeera’s news producer for liberties and human rights affairs. Shakeman Mugari is a Zimbabwean journalist who works for The Zimbabwe Independent and as a stringer for The Globe and Mail. Through his journalism, Mugari has worked to expose corrupt government actions and the human rights abuses plaguing his country. He has confronted and openly criticized officials for their abuses of power. He sees journalism as a way to help solve Zimbabwe’s problems and as his contribution to the fight to free the country. The International Press Freedom Awards recognize the courage of foreign journalists who face massive obstacles to the free dissemination of news. The awards reward the determination of foreign journalists who spread important information in the face of judicial and physical threats and who ensure the continued freedom of the news media.
SHAKEMAN MUGARI The Zimbabwe Independent
Jim Poling CJFE also awarded the 2008 Vox Libera Award to Jim Poling. As the managing editor for news at The Hamilton Spectator, Poling created two-year-long internships open to foreign-trained journalists living in Canada. He founded the Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers program at Sheridan College. Both programs help foreign journalists get training to work within the Canadian media.
Zargana In 2008, PEN Canada gave its One Humanity Award to the Burmese poet Zargana for his work, which has “transcended the boundaries of national divides and inspired connections across cultures.” The award was given in absentia. Zargana has been an honorary member of PEN Canada for more than 15 years and has been declared this year’s holder of the Empty Chair at the International Festival of Authors. Zargana is in prison for his criticism of the ruling junta’s handling of the relief effort after Cyclone Nargis hit Myanmar. He has served many prison terms since his first arrest in 1988 (for mocking the government). The $5,000 award recognizes his “courageous belief in the peaceful expression of ideas through any medium” and is made possible by PEN Canada supporter Florence Minz. • FREEDOM TO READ 2009
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PEN Canada
Back to My Passion
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By Jalal Barzanji
n the fall of 2006, the famous Canadian writer John Ralston Saul came to Edmonton to speak at LitFest. He challenged writers to help oppressed writers who live in exile. In 2007, Edmonton, with the support of PEN, decided to be the first city in Canada to appoint its own writer in exile. When the writer-in-exile committee informed me that I had been selected as Edmonton’s first writer in exile, I felt honoured. It was the greatest moment for me since I came to Canada in 1998. It took me back to my passion. The passion gave me great joy and made me proud of Canada. I started writing when I was 17. So far I have published five books with great difficulty. The important part of writing for me has been the freedom to go beyond rules and regulations. It was hard to do so in a country [Iraq] that doesn’t take freedom into consideration. The price of freedom of expression was a life in prison or no life at all. The former dictator, Saddam Hussein, put me in prison for three years because of my writing. In Edmonton, I have been appointed for the same writing. Writers here are not sent to prison because of their writing.
But I was still constrained because I had no time to write. I never had freedom or time and space to put all my rage into writing. I also had to learn English. Now, as a free citizen, I am writing my prison memoir away from censorship. Since I restarted my passion, I have made many presentations at different places in Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. I have also contacted many immigrant writers. I help them to not feel discouraged, to share their talents, to know that there are writing opportunities, and to feel at home. Jalal Barzanji is a Kurdish poet and journalist who had a long literary career before he was forced to leave Iraq in 1998. He was imprisoned from 1986 to 1989 because of his writing. In Iraq, Barzanji edited several magazines and published hundreds of articles and poems about human, cultural, and women’s rights. Since coming to Canada, Barzanji has published several volumes of poetry in Kurdish. PEN Canada’s Writers in Exile program offers persecuted writers who have taken refuge in Canada opportunities to restart their literary careers. The program places exiled writers in shortterm positions in Canada’s literary and academic communities. Writers in exile meet Canadian writers and readers, participate in special events, and improve their writing skills through workshops and classes. For more details about this innovative program, please see PEN Canada’s Web site at www.pencanada.ca. •
Information Is Power
Government Censors an Essential Database
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By Julie Payne
rticle 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights gives us the right to freedom of opinion and expression, but it also gives us the right to seek, receive, and impart information. At Canadian Journalists for Free Expression (CJFE), we spend a lot of time fighting for and defending the first part of this right, but it’s becoming clearer that we must work harder to protect the second part as well. After all, the two go hand in hand. Without access to information, journalists don’t have the tools they need to research, write, and speak critically on issues of public interest. In Canada, we are seeing a slow whittling away of access to information on several fronts. Big news in the free expression world was the Canadian 30
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government’s decision in May 2008 to discontinue the Coordination of Access to Information Requests System (CAIRS) database. The CAIRS database gave the public access to every information request filed with the government. Although originally designed as an internal tracking tool, the database was vital in making government information more accessible to the public. Its loss represents a step backward toward less transparency and less openness. As stated on the UNESCO Web site, “Information is power. Freedom of Information and Freedom of Expression work against the concentration of information within the hands of a few.” One major case that concerns Professor Amir Attaran at the University of Ottawa signals a warning about the
ill health of access to information in Canada. His work revealed that the transfer of detainees by Canadian Forces to the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Directorate of Security took place with full knowledge that Afghans were carrying out torture. In the course of Professor Attaran’s inquiry, he requested annual human rights reports on Afghanistan from the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT). His first request, filed in January 2007, was initially ignored. Three months later, DFAIT wrote to acknowledge that by not responding within the prescribed 30-day period the department had breached the Access to Information Act. DFAIT also enclosed severely censored copies of the reports. CONTINUED ON PAGE 31
The Writers’ Union of Canada and Freedom of Expression: A Retrospective
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By Ron Brown
n a cold sunny day in November 1990, Penny Dickens—then executive director of the Writers’ Union of Canada (TWUC)—and I led a silent demonstration. We said nothing and our placards were blank. Protesting against Ontario’s libel laws and libel chill, we marched in front of the offices of the Reichmann family, Conrad Black, and Allan Gotlieb. They had launched libel actions against writers who had written critically of them. Chaired by Heather Robertson, a group called Writers to Reform Libel Law also called upon the Ontario government to reform the libel laws. To sue a writer, a plaintiff needed only to argue that the mention of his name had somehow damaged his reputation. It was then up to the writer to prove that it did not. Results were a long time coming. Finally, in 2007, the Ontario Court of Appeal decided that a person’s reputation cannot override the public’s right to know. As Susan Swan, then chair of TWUC, said: “This decision will now allow writers to more freely explore issues which are in the public interest.” In 1997, a federal bill (known as the “Son of Sam” bill) would have stripped
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Professor Attaran then filed a request for investigation with the Office of the Information Commissioner. Ten months after he had filed his original request, Professor Attaran received the same reports, but this time they were slightly less censored. Ironically, most of the censored information had already been made public. Frustrated by the delays in response, the lack of information provided to his
an author of his royalties if he were a convicted criminal and wrote about his life. TWUC argued before government committees that the measure not only would cost Canada valuable insights into a criminal’s mind and our legal system, but also would infringe freedom of speech. The Senate voted the bill down. Although “child porn” laws exist which could make Romeo and Juliet illegal (as would any depiction, fictitious or real, of sexuality involving individuals under age 18), there have been additional attempts to remove legal defences of literary or scientific merit for such works. Thanks in large part to TWUC’s street theatre (Susan Swan was “arrested” for reading one of her teen novels), the proposed changes were amended to allow those defences. In 2003, writer Stephen Williams faced 97 criminal charges after he briefly identified on a Web site women who were involved in the Homolka and Bernardo trials whose names were protected by a publication ban. Ontario police seized not only Williams’s computer and writing, but also his wife Marsha Boulton’s writing. TWUC argued long and hard for the return of Boulton’s material, while all charges against Williams but one were dropped. In 2006, when the Canadian Jewish
Congress protested against the use of Three Wishes—a book of interviews with Israeli and Palestinian children —in Ontario’s public schools, the union helped lead the charge to retain the book. Most public school boards— except Toronto’s and a few others —kept the book on library shelves. In 1999, to help celebrate Freedom to Read Week, TWUC launched its Freedom to Read Award. The first recipient was Senator Lorna Milne who urged the Senate to defeat the “Son of Sam” bill. A recent winner was 10-year-old Evie Freedman (who defended Three Wishes before a packed press conference in Toronto), and journalist Derek Finkle. Recently, Canadians have debated whether human rights tribunals should hear complaints about anti-Muslim articles in Maclean’s magazine. Pierre Berton summed up the union’s philosophy best when he wrote in 1992 in The Toronto Star, “Either we have a free country in which nuts, wackos, eccentric professors, and offbeat historians can say what they want to, or we don’t. That is the price of democracy.” The Writers’ Union of Canada feels that is a price worth paying. •
legitimate requests, and the overall lack of transparency, Professor Attaran took the case to the Federal Court to have the reports released. He also asked for a “Declaration that the Respondent may not invoke the international affairs exemption in s. 15(1) [of the Access to Information Act] to exempt from disclosure generalized evidence of torture.” CJFE is joining Professor Attaran as an intervenor on this case because Canadians deserve a government that does not do its business behind closed
doors. We have the right to know what our government is doing in our name. National embarrassment should never trump our responsibility to ensure that our actions, as a country, fully comply with human rights laws. The need for transparency and accountability is essential in a true democracy, with access to information being a major tenet of that principle. • Julie Payne is the manager of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression in Toronto.
Ron Brown chairs the Rights and Freedoms Committee of the Writers’ Union of Canada.
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The Library Push for Workplace Speech
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By Toni Samek
n June 26, 2005, the American Library Association (ALA) adopted a precedentsetting Resolution on Workplace Speech. It concludes: “Libraries should encourage discussion among library workers, including library administrators, of nonconfidential professional and policy matters about the operation of the library and matters of public concern within the framework of applicable laws.” The Canadian Library Association (CLA) has no such policy. However, the CLA’s Code of Ethics begins with the directive to uphold the CLA’s Statement on Intellectual Freedom. Since at least the 1970s, our librarians have embraced a core value of intellectual freedom, which includes the freedom to read. But while our librarians have been longstanding advocates of their patrons’ freedoms, they have been historically less clear about intellectual freedom as it applies to their own institutional or “inside” culture. The librarian’s practice is arguably limited if she or he cannot exercise fully the freedoms of thought, conscience, opinion, and expression in the workplace—all of which are human rights that underlie intellectual freedom. These limitations detract from the librarian’s ability to provide the best collections and services possible. Canadian librarians are now scrutinizing their situation
in light of the ALA’s 2005 resolution. At the CLA’s annual conference in Vancouver in 2008, participants discussed the following questions: Whose voices are coming through the library channels (workshops on policy development, conference sessions, library journal articles)? To what extent is self-censorship or “inside” censorship common? What is and is not acceptable when librarians participate in citizen journalism that criticizes employers in the blogosphere? And in a profession that holds intellectual freedom so dearly, why did the ALA see the need to adopt its Resolution on Workplace Speech? Should the CLA adopt a sister resolution? At the CLA session, panellists debated the pros and cons of resolutions on workplace speech for libraries. They discussed what such resolutions might look like and mean for the CLA and library administrations. Panellists also discussed the implications for the daily life, recruitment, and retention of Canadian library and information workers in the twenty-first century. About 70 people attended the session; perspectives from the United States and Canada were heard. We considered whether the CLA may someday opt to censure libraries that do not uphold its core values, as the Canadian Association of University Teachers can do when it deems that academic freedom is not upheld. We acknowledged that the ALA’s resolution
www.freedomtoread.ca For more information and resources: CANADA’S EVENT CALENDAR FOR FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • A LIST OF BOOKS RECENTLY CHALLENGED IN CANADA • TIPS ON HOW TO OBSERVE FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • A CHRONOLOGY OF BOOK BANNINGS AND BURNINGS IN WORLD HISTORY • POSTER ART FOR 25 YEARS OF FREEDOM TO READ WEEK • LINKS TO OTHER ON-LINE RESOURCES • AND MUCH MORE . . .
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is a persuasion and consensus-building tool, but it does not reflect enforcement authority in libraries. We also discussed a model clause in the Saskatoon Public Library agreement that directs the institution to uphold the CLA’s Statement on Intellectual Freedom—for both the library’s outside publics and inside workers—and the newly amended Code of Conduct for Vancouver’s libraries, which mentions criticisms of policy and city officials. The location and timing of the CLA’s conference was significant because Vancouver’s public library had had its first strike in 2007 (which was followed by a lockout at Victoria Public Library). The strike in part prompted the CLA to pass a related resolution on pay equity; the executive council approved the Canadian Library Association Position Statement on Equitable Compensation for Library Workers on October 5, 2007. The question for the future is, Without freedom of speech in the library workplace, can our librarians be effective advocates for everyone else’s intellectual freedom? • Toni Samek is a member of the Canadian Library Association. From 2005 to 2008, she was the convenor of the CLA’s Advisory Committee on Intellectual Freedom. A longer version of this article first appeared as “Cultivating a Culture of Freedom of Expression in the Library Workplace” in Progressive Librarian #31 in the summer of 2008.
Challenged Books and Magazines The list below features titles that have been banned or challenged in Canada. For more information on these titles and our complete challenged publications list, please visit www.freedomtoread.ca.
Challenged Fiction The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler Clins d’œil à Romain Gary by Gabrielle Gourdeau A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess Dance Me Outside by W.P. Kinsella Different Seasons by Stephen King The Diviners by Margaret Laurence Le grand cahier by Agota Kristof In the Heat of the Night by John Ball Lives of Girls and Women by Alice Munro Man Sitting in a Corridor by Marguerite Duras Metallic Memories by Moebius (Jean Giraud) Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson Takes One to Know One: An Alison Kaine Mystery by Kate Allen The Turner Diaries by William Pierce The Wars by Timothy Findley The Young in One Another’s Arms by Jane Rule
Challenged Non-Fiction Banksters and Prairie Boys by Monier M. Rahall Black Looks: Race and Representation by bell hooks By Way of Deception: A Devastating Insider’s Portrait of the Mossad by Claire Hoy and Victor Ostrovsky Color Psychology and Color Therapy: A Factual Study of the Influence of Color on Human Life by Faber Birren Final Exit: The Practicalities of Self-Deliverance and Assisted Suicide for the Dying by Derek Humphry Greasy, Grimy, Gopher Guts: The Subversive Folklore of Children by Josepha Sherman and T.K.F. Weisskopf The Homoerotic Photograph: Male Images From Durieu/Delacroix to Mapplethorpe by Allen Ellenzweig Lethal Marriage by Nick Pron Outlaw Representation: Censorship and Homosexuality in Twentieth Century Art by Richard Meyer Pornography: Men Possessing Women (and) Woman Hating by Andrea Dworkin Scrambled Brains: A Cooking Guide for the Reality Impaired by Pierre LeBlanc and Robin Konstabaris Suffer Little Children by Dereck O’Brien Under the Gun: Inside the Mohawk Civil War by Rick Hornung Waging War From Canada by Mike Pearson
Challenged Young Adult and Children’s Books The Adventures of Tintin: The Blue Lotus by Hergé L’affaire du cachalot noir by Gervais Pomerleau Ani Croche by Bertrand Gauthier Asha’s Mums by Rosamund Elwin and Michele Paulse CONTINUED ON PAGE 34
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz BY MORDECAI RICHLER In June 1990, a group of parents asked the Essex County Board of Education in Ontario to remove The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz from high school reading lists. The parents, led by Larry Bastien, objected to the novel’s “vulgarity, sexual expressions, and sexual innuendoes.” The parents also sought to ban J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, and James Dickey’s Deliverance. In September 1990, the school board kept the novels available for use. But the board advised principals and teachers to avoid using books that “might provoke undue controversy.” The board also gave students the option of choosing another novel if they objected to a required reading for reasons of “morality or religion.” The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler. Copyright Mordecai Richler, 1959. Cover reprinted with permission of Penguin Group (Canada); this edition printed 1995
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The Goosebumps and Fear Street Series BY R.L. STINE In 1995, parents in Nova Scotia asked principals and trustees in the Halifax County–Bedford District School Board to remove R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps and Fear Street series from schools. The parents said that the horror novels might “develop unhealthy, harmful thoughts and behaviour in children” and that confused youngsters might “no longer be able to choose right from wrong.” The parents collected 229 signatures on a petition to ban the books. The school board created a committee to consider the complaints. The committee found that most petitioners had not read the books; they had only read excerpts on the petition that were taken out of context. In the end, the school board accepted the committee’s recommendations. Goosebumps stayed in the elementary grades, but Fear Street was removed from the elementary grades because it was judged inappropriate for the youngest readers. Cover illustration by Tim Jacobus from Goosebumps: The Cuckoo Clock of Doom by R.L. Stine. Cover illustration copyright 1993 by Scholastic Inc. Used by permission. Goosebumps is a trademark of Parachute Press, LLC
Baby Be-Bop by Francesca Lia Block Black Like Kyra, White Like Me by Judith Vigna Bumface by Morris Gleitzman Carcajou le glouton fripon by Basile Awashish et al. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger Le choix d’Ève by Reynald Cantin Les colères de l’océan by Gervais Pomerleau La complainte des huarts by Gervais Pomerleau La course à l’amour by Bertrand Gauthier Les envoûtements by Daniel Sernine L’été des baleines by Michèle Marineau The First Time by Charles Montpetit (ed.) Foxfire by Joyce Carol Oates The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman Goosebumps and Fear Street series by R.L. Stine Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by J.K. Rowling Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling Hey, Dad! by Brian Doyle Hold Fast by Kevin Major How Did I Begin? by Mick Manning and
Brita Granstrom I Saw Esau by Iona and Peter Opie I’ll Always Love You by Hans Wilhelm The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks J’ai besoin de personne by Reynald Cantin The Little Black Book for Girlz: A Book on Healthy Sexuality Moonkid and Liberty by Paul Kropp Noah’s Cats and the Devil’s Fire by Arielle North Olson Not the Only One: Gay and Lesbian Fiction for Teens by Tony Grime Ouch by Natalie Babbitt Outrageously Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor La première fois by Charles Montpetit (ed.) Qu’est-ce que vous faites là? by Dominique Jolin Le secret d’Ève by Reynald Cantin Three Wishes: Palestinian and Israeli Children Speak by Deborah Ellis Tison-Ardent by Gervais Pomerleau To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee Underground to Canada by Barbara Smucker The Waiting Dog by Carolyn and Andrea Beck We All Fall Down by Robert Cormier
The Diviners BY MARGARET LAURENCE In 1976, school authorities in Peterborough County, Ont., ordered the temporary removal of all copies of The Diviners from high school classrooms. The school board then established a Textbook Review Committee to determine whether the novel, which had won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction in 1974, was suitable for senior high school students. A Pentecostal church collected about 4,300 signatures on a petition to permanently ban The Diviners from schools. Supporters of the ban objected to sexually explicit and profane language in the book. The episode greatly distressed Laurence, who lived in the county. But the review committee and the school board voted to keep the novel in classes. New Canadian Library Edition, 2007, of The Diviners by Margaret Laurence, copyright 1974. Published by McClelland & Stewart Ltd. Reproduced with permission of publisher.
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Get Involved The Get Involved section is based on the articles that appear in the preceding pages of Freedom to Read. The objectives of this section are to • highlight freedom of thought and freedom of expression as universal human rights; • examine the educational value of controversial texts; • emphasize tolerance of other people’s viewpoints as a vital principle of democratic education. The target group for this section includes high school, college, and university students who discuss language and literature, politics, society, history, law, and other courses about
IDEAS FOR EDUCATORS
intellectual freedom. The Get Involved activities are designed for classroom instruction and discussion. Get Involved is also intended for citizens outside the classroom who wish to plan community events. This section includes ideas for publicizing challenged books and magazines in Canada, organizing events that draw attention to freedom of expression, and generating publicity for local events. We encourage you to use these ideas to Get Involved during Freedom to Read Week and all year round. We sincerely hope your efforts have an impact in your classroom and your community!
Organize an Essay Contest During Freedom to Read Week Winning Student Essays From the Calgary Public Library Better Prepared for the Future By Henry (Grade 7) Reading plays a huge role in the lives of many people, regardless of their age or profession. Therefore, the freedom to read is crucially important. Reading can help us gain more knowledge about a variety of topics. From reading, we can understand different perspectives concerning particular situations, thus broadening our
Freedom to read is the fuel for a thriving and advancing society “horizon” and the way we look at a certain situation. By reading from different sources, we can see a particular situation in many viewpoints. This can add to our understanding of the situation. Through reading, we can make inferences and implications about certain topics. By reading sources such as historical accounts, we will be better prepared for the future. For example, if somebody read about a mistake made in the past, he/she could prevent something like that from happening
in the future again. Or, if somebody was informed about a great person through reading, he/she could learn from that person. Through reading, we can get a better understanding of many world situations, which will help us create positive action plans to benefit others. Reading also helps us generate questions and helps us think innovatively. If the freedom to read was taken away from us, we would encounter many difficulties. A lack of reading would create a lack of knowledge. A lack of knowledge would make us less prepared for the future because of many misunderstandings that would arise. Without the freedom to read from certain sources, many people would have a biased opinion. We would not understand the “whole picture” because we would not know any better. We would only look at a situation through one perspective. This would create a society with only one viewpoint, which would be troublesome. If we were to make action plans based on only one perspective, they would be unbeneficial because of the naïve thought put into the action. Without the freedom to read there would be less questioning, resulting CONTINUED ON PAGE 36
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in a less innovative society. Without reading there would not be any thought or depth put into our poor understanding of different situations. In conclusion, the freedom to read is very important, as it is basically the fuel for a thriving and advancing society.
Reading and Respect By Sherene (Grade 9) We Canadians have the freedom to read just about anything we choose, whether it is science fiction, mystery, romance, or horror. Most of our knowledge is from reading books, and from reading we get to undergo many things we would not have experienced otherwise. Reading opens up the whole world to us and enriches our mind. This freedom enables us to expand our knowledge, think for ourselves, and form our own opinions. It is an important aspect in our lives, whether we realize it or not. This freedom, however, is continually being challenged and if it were to be taken away, the grief would be unimaginable. An important issue in our world today is discrimination and biases. People in our world are discriminated against because of their colour, ethnicity, or personal attributes, and racism is
IF FREEDOM TO READ WERE TAKEN AWAY, THE GRIEF WOULD BE UNIMAGINABLE not uncommon. If we read about how each culture is special and unique, then we could eliminate biases altogether and learn about different cultures and people. Some people have grown up being taught that being gay is intolerable, which causes people to discriminate against gays and treat them differently. However, if those people would read and see how every person is different, we could overcome this problem. Reading enables us to respect each other’s differences and treat everyone equally. We get to see the world through someone else’s eyes and see the other side of the story for a change. Overall, the freedom to read is essential because it allows us to read what we choose and decide what is acceptable and what is not. It is the most important weapon we have when it comes to speaking our mind or making a choice. We learn about the people in our world and their way of thinking, which affects our own opinions. Freedom to read 36
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allows us to avoid things like discrimination and ignorance, and it gives birth to acceptance, knowledge, and open-mindedness. If everyone had the freedom to read, the world would be a much better place to live in.
Choice, Knowledge, and Inspiration By Larry (Grade 7) Freedom to read gives me choice. It gives me choice to pick what I want to read. Without it, I could not have read Harry Potter, Alex Rider, and Cirque du Freak. I am not forced to read anything.
I CAN DREAM ABOUT INVENTING A HOVERCRAFT, OR A TIME MACHINE ... ALL BECAUSE A BOOK SPARKED THESE IDEAS Freedom to read gives me knowledge. I can learn about other cultures and religions. I can learn about animals; I can learn about the world, space, and beyond. I can travel the world while staying in my own room, not restrained by the government on what I can read. Freedom to read gives me emotions. I can learn to hate, love, laugh, and be cheerful while reading a book that is written well. Freedom to read gives me ideas. I can dream about inventing a hovercraft, or a time machine, or a teleporter, all because a book sparked these ideas, while I would not have the ideas if I did not have the choice to read what I wanted. Freedom to read gives me power. I can be a magical wizard and defeat the evil sorcerer. I can be a plane pilot who saves hundreds of people with his flying skills. I can be an MVP soccer player, scoring the winning goal, all because I read a book. Freedom to read gives me inspiration. I can get an education from books about how to become a firefighter, a pilot, a lawyer, but without freedom to read, none of this could happen. Without freedom to read we would never know about other cultures and their technology. We wouldn’t be able to read stuff about jobs, so we wouldn’t even know that artists or pianists actually existed. Without freedom to read we would only know what government wrote, because we couldn’t read anything else. Without freedom to read, civilization would never advance.
Activity
Create an On-line Media Release
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HEN YOU WANT TO get the word out, it’s always good to write a media release. Perhaps, this year, you’d like more community groups and local officials to attend your Freedom to Read Week event. Of course, these days, communicating news allows us to reach out through the myriad channels offered by the Internet. Should we be creating the same sort of release, formatted in the old conventional manner, when we’re using the new media? Definitely not, say many experts in marketing and promotion. Here are seven rules to think about. Rule One. Think about how and when your information will be seen. Will you send your release via e-mail and assume people at the other end will read it onscreen? Or will you post it on a Web site or Facebook page, where others you’ve never met might see it today or weeks from now? Rule Two. The mainstream media still dominate the setting of news agendas. In the old days, we might have been shy about promoting a small event to the media. But in our current universe, journalists and producers no longer control the entire show. Thus, we don’t
always need to follow the media’s criteria of “news.” Small, specific events or announcements are okay too. Rule Three. Make the subject line of your e-mail specific and factual. Spam filters will reject generic or clichéd phrases such as “great event” or “don’t miss out.” Rule Four. The title you create for your news release is more important than ever in on-line promotion. Readers and surfers tend to skim on-line text even faster than they read paper releases. Be lively and direct and forget the coy or mysterious titles. Just put your event or announcement in the form of a newspaper headline; then add a subtitle to fill in a few details. Rule Five. Include keywords in the title and subsequent text that will jump out for people searching on-line. Rule Six. All your essential information should appear on the first screen. Don’t make people scroll down to find the pearls. Remember, when you post something on-line, your text will be read by a wide range of people and groups, so avoid using specialized jargon. Rule Seven. From reading to action: that’s the goal. Before e-mail, when we sent a media release, we hoped that a reporter or broadcaster would pick up
the phone and call us. The Internet gives us many extra opportunities. A release sent to the media and others can provide hotlinks to more information about your organization, the importance of your issue and guest speaker, etc. Facebook especially offers good possibilities for interactive communication. Readers can comment and discuss issues, sign up, follow links to more in-depth material, take a quiz or an on-line poll, forward your information, make links, and even donate. To find more ideas on creating online releases, see The Publicity Hound at www.publicityhound.com by Joan Stewart.
TEACHERS AND LIBRARIANS know that many young people rely on Facebook (and other social media) to stay connected and learn about events. So it makes sense to involve students in this activity. Ask them how they learn about events through Facebook and get the students to share what they consider to be good examples. Here’s an opportunity for students to teach the teacher or their librarian, something that many students will eagerly do.
FIND OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING OR LET US KNOW WHAT YOUR COMMUNITY IS DOING BY VISITING THE EVENTS PAGE OF OUR WEB SITE AT
www.freedomtoread.ca/events
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Connect With Street Writers in the Libraries
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very year, the Writers’ Union of Canada and the Canada Council support programs to send artists and writers into schools and libraries. One such writer is Toronto’s Emily Pohl-Weary, who has organized workshops and courses to encourage free expression among young people, particularly those “at risk.” She does it through the Parkdale Library and calls her group the Parkdale Street Writers. “Growing up in Parkdale,” says PohlWeary, “I never felt my opinions were important.” Many of the young people she works with share those experiences of feeling stuck, having no creative outlet, and being intimidated by authority. They believe that the big media have no interest in young people and no stomach for dealing with the complicated lives of youth in trouble, says Pohl-Weary. A recent workshop that aimed to attract budding writers to the group brought out 92 young people. Many were “at-risk, tough-time kids from very diverse backgrounds,” she explains. About 50 per cent had abandoned high school. These folks are
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Make Use of University Student Media
ne avenue to spread the word about freedom to read events often gets overlooked: media produced by university and college students. It’s contrary to standard thinking, but today’s students don’t spend all their time on-line. They also produce newspapers and radio programs, often of outstanding quality. And in many cases, their work circulates far beyond the campus to a broader audience. Students still spend most of their time with books, and they’re thirsty 38
drawn to all sorts of expression, but many gravitate to the creation of zines, comics, and short film scripts. Many of the young writers also eagerly get involved in the publishing and distribution of their collective work. One group has created a Web magazine called The Scrawl. Freedom to Read Week organizers might see the possibilities of forming such a group in their city. It seems like a perfect place, for instance, to introduce Barbara Coloroso’s Extraordinary Evil, which links genocide and bullying, a key concern of Pohl-Weary’s groups. Some young people might also be open to creating a zine or comic book version of a banned book. Or how about a hiphop version of Deborah Ellis’s Three Wishes? “Communication with others is a central goal for The Scrawl’s writers,” says Pohl-Weary. “But it starts at a more basic level than that because through expression we invent ourselves.” It’s a motto she brings to her groups. You can learn more about the Parkdale Street Writers and The Scrawl at www.parkdalewriters.ca. To learn more about Emily Pohl-Weary, visit www.emilypohlweary.com.
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for the broadest range of subjects and opinions. And students like to push the boundaries of expression in their newspapers and radio shows. In other words, freedom to read and free expression matter a lot. If your local college or university hosts student radio or includes a journalism or broadcasting program, there will be dozens of able and active students who can write and produce for radio with flare. They have thriving networks and will value the work you are doing. Radio seems perfect for promoting an event with Jalal Barzanji, Edmonton’s writer
in exile, or for putting essay contest winners in touch with older students. Or perhaps you’re organizing a day-long reading of banned books. What better place to promote and broadcast live than through your local student radio station? Another reason to create links with student media: the best editors, writers, and hosts usually move on to the big media. Why not connect with them now when fewer people are trying to get their ear? The Canadian University Press Web site www.cup.ca provides links to most of the student papers in the country.
Freedom to Read Week Activities and Events Across Canada 2008 Below is a list of the events that took place before, during, and after Freedom to Read Week 2008. You’ll find great ideas among the speakers, marathons, art exhibits, and displays for your own Freedom to Read Week event in 2009.
Book Warehouse, Davie Street Location Vancouver, British Columbia The bookstore displayed challenged Canadian literature.
The Calgary Freedom to Read Committee Calgary, Alberta The committee presented the 2008 Calgary Freedom of Expression Award at an evening event.
Calgary Public Library Calgary, Alberta The library held an essay contest for junior high school students on topics of intellectual freedom and banned books.
City of Calgary Calgary, Alberta The Calgary Freedom to Read Committee presented the official book of Calgary Freedom to Read Week—Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade by Kurt Vonnegut—to City Council.
Editors’ Association of Canada Toronto, Ontario Prominent advocates of free expression Noa Mendelsohn Aviv of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Franklin Carter of the BPC’s Freedom of Expression Committee discussed cases before federal and provincial human rights tribunals.
Edmonton Public Library, Stanley A. Milner Branch Edmonton, Alberta The library hosted events at its Centre for Reading and the Arts where people heard readings from challenged books and participated in discussions about censorship and the freedom to read.
library patrons of their right to read such materials.
Kahanoff Centre Calgary, Alberta The community was invited to stop by the centre to read, browse, or listen to banned books.
Lambton County Library Petrolia, Ontario People were encouraged to read a banned or challenged book in the collection. Patrons were shown books wrapped in brown paper and given clues and brief summaries of why each book was challenged. A display showed challenged books and information about freedom to read.
Lumby United Church Lumby, British Columbia The church hosted its Third Annual Freedom to Read Used Book Sale. Books found on the banned book list were offered free to the finder.
McNally Robinson Booksellers Calgary, Alberta People took part in a 24-hour reading marathon of banned and challenged books. Everyone was encouraged to bring a favourite banned book to the marathon and read a passage aloud.
McNally Robinson Booksellers Saskatoon, Saskatchewan The bookstore held a reading from author Michael Byers’s book Intent for a Nation: What Is Canada For? A discussion followed.
Forest Heights Community Library
Millennium Library
Kitchener, Ontario The library hosted Altered Books, an exhibition of original sculptures created by Grade 12 visual arts students. The sculptures were crafted from discarded books donated by the Kitchener Public Library and created in recognition of Freedom to Read Week.
Winnipeg, Manitoba At the second annual Spell Check Celebrity Spelling Bee, authors, politicians, and radio personalities challenged defending champion Morley Walker from the Winnipeg Free Press for the title of master spell-checker. The library also held its Sixth Annual 24-Hour Freedom to Read Marathon. People were encouraged to sign up to read a banned or challenged book during the marathon.
Greater Sudbury Public Library Sudbury, Ontario The library displayed challenged library materials to remind
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Old Favorites Bookstore Pickering, Ontario The store displayed banned and challenged books, many of which were offered at a reduced price.
Pelham Public Library Fonthill, Ontario The Pelham Public Library issued a challenge to patrons to read as many banned and challenged books as they could. Readers were invited to record their progress and recommend banned books on the library’s on-line blog, Fahrenheit 451: Banned Books. The library invited Pearce J. Carefoote, author of Forbidden Fruit: Banned, Censored, and Challenged Books From Dante to Harry Potter, to speak and to kick off Freedom to Read Week and the Banned Book Challenge.
PEN Canada Toronto, Ontario PEN Canada and the Toronto Public Library organized an evening of readings and performances based on PEN U.K.’s new anthology, Writers Under Siege: Voices of Freedom From Around the World. Jill Carter, Shirley Douglas, Jackleen Hanna, Benedicta Madawo, and Clayton Ruby read works. Musicians Waleed Abdulhamid Kush and Laurence Stevenson performed.
Pugwash Library Pugwash, Nova Scotia The library invited local celebrities to read from books that have been challenged or banned in Canada. The event, called Words Unleashed!, included an essay contest for high school students to voice their opinions about the importance of reading and their views on censorship.
R.D. Parker Collegiate Thompson, Manitoba This high school displayed covers of banned or challenged books and freedom to read posters.
Saskatoon Public Library Saskatoon, Saskatchewan Say It Out Loud: A Freedom to Read Celebration featured guest speakers Peter Garden, social activist and bookseller; Candace Savage, award-winning author; and John Gormley, radio personality. Henry Woolf—actor, director, and professor— hosted the event. The Saskatoon Public Library, the Humanities Research Unit of the University of Saskatchewan, and the Saskatchewan Writers’ Guild co-sponsored the event.
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South Shore Regional Library Bridgewater, Nova Scotia The library launched its public discussion series during Freedom to Read Week with “Privacy and Community: How Do Technological Advances Such as Facebook Affect Your Privacy?” David Fraser, a Canadian privacy lawyer, presented.
Spring Garden Road Memorial Public Library Halifax, Nova Scotia The library invited Craig Smith, the author of You Had Better Be White by Six A.M.: The African-Canadian Experience in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, to discuss the experience of having his book challenged and the repercussions.
This Ain’t the Rosedale Library Toronto, Ontario The bookstore created a Freedom to Read Week window display featuring banned or challenged books.
University of British Columbia Vancouver, British Columbia The School of Library and Information Studies and the British Columbia Library Association’s Intellectual Freedom Committee presented a talk entitled “Battle for the Books.” Janine Fuller of Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium talked about the battle between the bookstore and the Canada Border Services Agency. Issues of censorship, freedom of expression, and intellectual freedom were discussed.
University of British Columbia Robson Square Bookstore and Library Vancouver, British Columbia Authors Karen Connelly and Deborah Campbell were invited to read from their books. Connelly is the author of The Border Surrounds Us and The Lizard Cage. Campbell’s book is This Heated Place.
University of Saskatchewan Saskatoon, Saskatchewan The university invited Michael Byers of the University of British Columbia to host a talk entitled “On Thinning Ice: Sovereignty, Climate Change, and the Northwest Passage.” Toni Samek of the University of Alberta also delivered a lecture called “Activist Librarianship and Its Points of Resistance in Pay-per Society.”
Westminster Books Fredericton, New Brunswick The store invited photography students from the New Brunswick College of Craft and Design to participate in a photography exhibit depicting their interpretations of freedom of expression.
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Book and Periodical Council Suite 107, 192 Spadina Avenue, Toronto, Ontario M5T 2C2