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In early March of 2017, the Opinion editor at Maclean’s contacted me by email, inviting me to write a piece regarding the resignation of Dr. Andrew Potter as Director of the McGill Centre for the Study of Canada.

As a Brown woman, I have experienced some harassment over the years.  On the mild side, acquaintances have inquired whether I am a Muslim fundamentalist, it has been suggested that I landed a faculty position because I am racialized, and the epithet “Paki” has been hurled at me on occasion.  On the extreme side, a Molotov cocktail was placed under my mother’s car after we had an altercation with former White neighbors (they objected to our use of the front lawn, where extended family would sometimes gather for BBQ parties, Bhangra music and card-playing).

Should we expect our public institutions to protect our freedom of expression?  The Toronto Public Library made a controversial decision in July 2017 to permit a memorial to the late Barbara Kulaszka to be held in a rental space in one of the library’s branches. Ms Kulaszka, a former librarian, was a lawyer best known for her legal defence of Holocaust deniers and white supremacists. Many people registered their objection to the event, both before and after it took place.

By James L. Turk, Director, Centre for Free Expression and Penni Stewart, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, York University

As part of its mission to foster greater public discussion of issues related to free expression, the Centre for Free Expression has launched its Occasional Paper Series. The first publication in the series is: James L. Turk and Penni Stewart, “Safe for What? Universities and the controversy over safe spaces. ”  Click here for a pdf of the paper.

On March 8th and June 6th, 2017, the Minister of Justice introduced bills to amend the Criminal Code. The purpose of Bills C-39 and C-51 is to repeal a number of criminal offences. Blasphemous libel is on the list, but seditious libel and defamatory libel are not.