Byker
2018-07-09 22:17:09 UTC
"Bradley C. Eisenhower" wrote in message news:ace89768-f307-43e4-b985-***@googlegroups.com...
It depends on how you define “Canada.”
country", posted in 2000. Have things changed any? I doubt it:
"We don't have the hang-up you Americans have with free speech." And
Canadians don't have the Bill of Rights, either. All these whiney liberals
point to the Great White North as an example for the U.S. to follow, but in
reality, they conveniently stay on the Yank side of the border...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Canada, Free Speech Has Its Restrictions
Government Limits Discourse That Some May Find Offensive
By Steven Pearlstein Washington Post Foreign Service
TORONTO: New Yorker Harold Mollin thought it was a pretty clever way to
market his new "weather insurance" to Canadians planning weddings or
vacations: a 30-second TV spot featuring a huckster dressed in an Indian
headdress leading a bunch of senior citizens in a rain dance.
But to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), the ad was an affront to
Native Americans and the elderly. The government-owned broadcaster refused
to run it.
"This is political correctness run amok," said an incredulous Mollin, noting
that the seniors in the spot included his 89-year-old father, his aunt and
his best friend's parents.
Or take the case of Stephani the cow. This fall, after a visitor to the
government's experimental farm complained that she didn't like sharing the
same name with the animal, the farm's director declared that, henceforth,
government cows would get only names like Rhubarb and Dynamite.
Whether you call it over-sensitive political correctness or an abiding sense
of fairness and decency, Canada has embraced it like a ... well, never mind.
Through its human rights laws and hate speech codes, broadcast standards and
myriad "voluntary" industry guidelines, Canada makes no bones about its
determination to impose liberal-minded limits on public discourse.
Although the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms put free speech and a free
press into the bedrock of Canadian law, neither the public nor Canada's
courts views these rights as absolutely as Americans have come to view the
First Amendment. The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled in a series of cases
that the government may limit free speech in the name of other worthwhile
goals, such as ending discrimination, ensuring social harmony or promoting
equality of the sexes.
"In Canada," said Ron Cohen, chairman of the Canadian Broadcast Standards
Council, "we respect free speech but we don't worship it. It is one thing we
value, but not the only thing."
Cohen said that Canada seems to have survived reasonably well without Don
Imus or Rush Limbaugh on any of its radio stations. (Howard Stern is heard
only in Montreal--and then only censored on tape delay.)
Last month, the Global Television network pulled the "Jerry Springer" show
from its lineup after the standards council found that it had violated the
restrictions on sex and violence.
Canada's most powerful tool against politically incorrect speech is its hate
speech code, which prohibits any statement that is "likely to expose a
person or group of persons to hatred or contempt" because of "race, color,
ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical
or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation or age."
Prosecutors are not required to show proof of malicious intent or actual
harm to win convictions in hate speech cases, and courts in some
jurisdictions have ruled that it does not matter whether the statements are
truthful.
One person who has run afoul of the code is Hugh Owens, a Christian
fundamentalist who took out a small display ad in the Saskatoon newspaper
featuring a stick figure drawing of two men holding hands inside a circle
with a slash through it--a statement of his disapproval of homosexuality.
What made it worse, said the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, was that
the graphic was accompanied by citations from the Biblical books of
Leviticus, Romans and First Corinthians that, in some translations, call for
sodomy to be punished by death by stoning.
If a hearing officer agrees that this display violates the code, Owens could
become the first modern-day Canadian punished by the government for citing
the Bible.
"Our position is that you can't rely simply on the free exchange of ideas to
cleanse the environment of hate and intolerance," said John Hucker,
secretary general of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
For the Canadian press, however, a more serious challenge to free speech is
posed by a case brought by the Human Rights Commission of British Columbia
against Douglas Collins, a former columnist for the North Shore News in
Vancouver.
In 1994, Collins wrote four columns that questioned whether as many as 6
million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and criticized Hollywood for
contributing to the "Holocaust propaganda" with movies such as "Swindler's
List," as he called Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." Acting on a
complaint by the Canadian Jewish Congress, a commission tribunal ruled that
the columns had expressed his "hatred and contempt...subtly and indirectly"
by "reinforcing negative stereotypes" about Jews.
CAFE Demonstration - "Tribunals are a Travesty"
The tribunal imposed $2,000 fines each on Collins and the newspaper and
ordered the paper to publish a summary of its decision--the first time that
any Canadian government agency or court had dictated editorial content to a
newspaper and ordered that it be published. The case has been appealed to
the British Columbia Supreme Court.
The electronic media operate under even tighter content restrictions. Last
month, in the midst of violent protests in New Brunswick over Indian fishing
rights, CBC reporters on orders from network officials, began referring to
participants as "native fishers" and "non-native fishers."
The Fishing Dispute in Eastern Canada
"Why can't we call them what they call themselves?" complained CBC producer
Dan Leger in an internal e-mail leaked to the National Post. "Mik'maqs call
each other Indians. Fishermen call themselves, well, fishermen." Leger
called the new designations "urban, technocratic, precious, racist and,
above all, imprecise."
Failing to follow such guidelines, however, can have consequences. In
Winnipeg last year, radio talk show host John Collison lost his job after
the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) complained to station
owners about his repeated and sometimes salty diatribes against Glen Murray,
who eventually became the first openly gay mayor in Canada. Collison also
used his show to stir up opposition to a program proposed by some school
board members to eliminate homophobia in the city's schools.
Collison concedes he was playing the role of "shock jock." In response to
threats from the CRTC, Collison said, the station not only fired him, but
also gave up its all-talk format in favor of easy-listening music.
"This is the way things run in Canada," Collison said. "There is no way of
escaping the mandarins of political correctness."
Andrea Wylie, a member of the CRTC, disagrees. "We are not the thought
police," she said. "We use our power lightly."
Wylie cited figures showing that the commission and its broadcast standards
council took action in only about a dozen of the 14,000 viewer complaints
lodged last year. While acknowledging that the very existence of the codes
might have a chilling effect on public discourse, she called it "a
reasonable chill," reflecting what Canadians are willing to hear.
"We don't have the hang-up you Americans have with free speech," Wylie said.
Advertisers in Canada also must adhere to a strict set of guidelines adopted
voluntarily by the industry, but no less effective than the government
regulations. Under their dicta, a national restaurant chain was recently
forced to pull a television spot showing a helpless dad trying to prepare
dinner for the kids (he eventually gives up and takes them out for burgers
and fries). A hearing officer ruled that the commercial "reinforced negative
stereotypes" about men that "cannot be excused by an attempt to engage in
humor."
There are a few Canadians who worry about these limits, but, as Alan
Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has
discovered, it's a very few. Despite 30 years of crisscrossing the country
warning of the dangers of speech codes and laws, Borovoy's organization has
a mere 6,000 members and a budget of less than $300,000. Typically, he can
take on fewer than 10 cases a year.
Sitting in his cramped office in a rundown office building in downtown
Toronto, Borovoy is philosophical in describing American and Canadian
attitudes toward civil liberties. While Americans are suspicious of
government and rally to the cry of "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness," Canadians, he said, tend to respect authority and set their
sights on the more modest goals of "peace, order and good government."
"In this country, we give the government too much power and trust them not
to abuse it," said Borovoy, noting that, for the most part, voters have not
been disappointed. "I tell people that Canada is a pleasantly authoritarian
country."
http://www.freedomsite.org/cafe/updates/canadian_censorship_from_ny_times.html
It depends on how you define “Canada.”
Canada was initially declared a country of its own 150 years ago, but
before that, it was a settlement for European people, and even further
back, it was the native land of many indigenous tribes. Canada, as a
recognized country, is only 150 years old, and already it has a long and
bloody history of colonialism, cultural genocide, and systemic racism.
And that’s not to say that I’m not proud to be a Canadian. I am—especially
lately. In a world where Donald Trump can be president of the United
States and people continue to lose basic human rights every day, I’m so
relieved to be living in a country that actually seems to be taking steps
in the right direction.
This is from a thread entitled "Canada is a pleasantly authoritarianbefore that, it was a settlement for European people, and even further
back, it was the native land of many indigenous tribes. Canada, as a
recognized country, is only 150 years old, and already it has a long and
bloody history of colonialism, cultural genocide, and systemic racism.
And that’s not to say that I’m not proud to be a Canadian. I am—especially
lately. In a world where Donald Trump can be president of the United
States and people continue to lose basic human rights every day, I’m so
relieved to be living in a country that actually seems to be taking steps
in the right direction.
country", posted in 2000. Have things changed any? I doubt it:
"We don't have the hang-up you Americans have with free speech." And
Canadians don't have the Bill of Rights, either. All these whiney liberals
point to the Great White North as an example for the U.S. to follow, but in
reality, they conveniently stay on the Yank side of the border...
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In Canada, Free Speech Has Its Restrictions
Government Limits Discourse That Some May Find Offensive
By Steven Pearlstein Washington Post Foreign Service
TORONTO: New Yorker Harold Mollin thought it was a pretty clever way to
market his new "weather insurance" to Canadians planning weddings or
vacations: a 30-second TV spot featuring a huckster dressed in an Indian
headdress leading a bunch of senior citizens in a rain dance.
But to the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (CBC), the ad was an affront to
Native Americans and the elderly. The government-owned broadcaster refused
to run it.
"This is political correctness run amok," said an incredulous Mollin, noting
that the seniors in the spot included his 89-year-old father, his aunt and
his best friend's parents.
Or take the case of Stephani the cow. This fall, after a visitor to the
government's experimental farm complained that she didn't like sharing the
same name with the animal, the farm's director declared that, henceforth,
government cows would get only names like Rhubarb and Dynamite.
Whether you call it over-sensitive political correctness or an abiding sense
of fairness and decency, Canada has embraced it like a ... well, never mind.
Through its human rights laws and hate speech codes, broadcast standards and
myriad "voluntary" industry guidelines, Canada makes no bones about its
determination to impose liberal-minded limits on public discourse.
Although the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms put free speech and a free
press into the bedrock of Canadian law, neither the public nor Canada's
courts views these rights as absolutely as Americans have come to view the
First Amendment. The Canadian Supreme Court has ruled in a series of cases
that the government may limit free speech in the name of other worthwhile
goals, such as ending discrimination, ensuring social harmony or promoting
equality of the sexes.
"In Canada," said Ron Cohen, chairman of the Canadian Broadcast Standards
Council, "we respect free speech but we don't worship it. It is one thing we
value, but not the only thing."
Cohen said that Canada seems to have survived reasonably well without Don
Imus or Rush Limbaugh on any of its radio stations. (Howard Stern is heard
only in Montreal--and then only censored on tape delay.)
Last month, the Global Television network pulled the "Jerry Springer" show
from its lineup after the standards council found that it had violated the
restrictions on sex and violence.
Canada's most powerful tool against politically incorrect speech is its hate
speech code, which prohibits any statement that is "likely to expose a
person or group of persons to hatred or contempt" because of "race, color,
ancestry, place of origin, religion, marital status, family status, physical
or mental disability, sex, sexual orientation or age."
Prosecutors are not required to show proof of malicious intent or actual
harm to win convictions in hate speech cases, and courts in some
jurisdictions have ruled that it does not matter whether the statements are
truthful.
One person who has run afoul of the code is Hugh Owens, a Christian
fundamentalist who took out a small display ad in the Saskatoon newspaper
featuring a stick figure drawing of two men holding hands inside a circle
with a slash through it--a statement of his disapproval of homosexuality.
What made it worse, said the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, was that
the graphic was accompanied by citations from the Biblical books of
Leviticus, Romans and First Corinthians that, in some translations, call for
sodomy to be punished by death by stoning.
If a hearing officer agrees that this display violates the code, Owens could
become the first modern-day Canadian punished by the government for citing
the Bible.
"Our position is that you can't rely simply on the free exchange of ideas to
cleanse the environment of hate and intolerance," said John Hucker,
secretary general of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
For the Canadian press, however, a more serious challenge to free speech is
posed by a case brought by the Human Rights Commission of British Columbia
against Douglas Collins, a former columnist for the North Shore News in
Vancouver.
In 1994, Collins wrote four columns that questioned whether as many as 6
million Jews were killed in the Holocaust and criticized Hollywood for
contributing to the "Holocaust propaganda" with movies such as "Swindler's
List," as he called Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List." Acting on a
complaint by the Canadian Jewish Congress, a commission tribunal ruled that
the columns had expressed his "hatred and contempt...subtly and indirectly"
by "reinforcing negative stereotypes" about Jews.
CAFE Demonstration - "Tribunals are a Travesty"
The tribunal imposed $2,000 fines each on Collins and the newspaper and
ordered the paper to publish a summary of its decision--the first time that
any Canadian government agency or court had dictated editorial content to a
newspaper and ordered that it be published. The case has been appealed to
the British Columbia Supreme Court.
The electronic media operate under even tighter content restrictions. Last
month, in the midst of violent protests in New Brunswick over Indian fishing
rights, CBC reporters on orders from network officials, began referring to
participants as "native fishers" and "non-native fishers."
The Fishing Dispute in Eastern Canada
"Why can't we call them what they call themselves?" complained CBC producer
Dan Leger in an internal e-mail leaked to the National Post. "Mik'maqs call
each other Indians. Fishermen call themselves, well, fishermen." Leger
called the new designations "urban, technocratic, precious, racist and,
above all, imprecise."
Failing to follow such guidelines, however, can have consequences. In
Winnipeg last year, radio talk show host John Collison lost his job after
the Canadian Radio and Television Commission (CRTC) complained to station
owners about his repeated and sometimes salty diatribes against Glen Murray,
who eventually became the first openly gay mayor in Canada. Collison also
used his show to stir up opposition to a program proposed by some school
board members to eliminate homophobia in the city's schools.
Collison concedes he was playing the role of "shock jock." In response to
threats from the CRTC, Collison said, the station not only fired him, but
also gave up its all-talk format in favor of easy-listening music.
"This is the way things run in Canada," Collison said. "There is no way of
escaping the mandarins of political correctness."
Andrea Wylie, a member of the CRTC, disagrees. "We are not the thought
police," she said. "We use our power lightly."
Wylie cited figures showing that the commission and its broadcast standards
council took action in only about a dozen of the 14,000 viewer complaints
lodged last year. While acknowledging that the very existence of the codes
might have a chilling effect on public discourse, she called it "a
reasonable chill," reflecting what Canadians are willing to hear.
"We don't have the hang-up you Americans have with free speech," Wylie said.
Advertisers in Canada also must adhere to a strict set of guidelines adopted
voluntarily by the industry, but no less effective than the government
regulations. Under their dicta, a national restaurant chain was recently
forced to pull a television spot showing a helpless dad trying to prepare
dinner for the kids (he eventually gives up and takes them out for burgers
and fries). A hearing officer ruled that the commercial "reinforced negative
stereotypes" about men that "cannot be excused by an attempt to engage in
humor."
There are a few Canadians who worry about these limits, but, as Alan
Borovoy, general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association has
discovered, it's a very few. Despite 30 years of crisscrossing the country
warning of the dangers of speech codes and laws, Borovoy's organization has
a mere 6,000 members and a budget of less than $300,000. Typically, he can
take on fewer than 10 cases a year.
Sitting in his cramped office in a rundown office building in downtown
Toronto, Borovoy is philosophical in describing American and Canadian
attitudes toward civil liberties. While Americans are suspicious of
government and rally to the cry of "life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness," Canadians, he said, tend to respect authority and set their
sights on the more modest goals of "peace, order and good government."
"In this country, we give the government too much power and trust them not
to abuse it," said Borovoy, noting that, for the most part, voters have not
been disappointed. "I tell people that Canada is a pleasantly authoritarian
country."
http://www.freedomsite.org/cafe/updates/canadian_censorship_from_ny_times.html