The Latest

When I lived in London as a young man, I spent a great deal of time at Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park, listening to all of the many and varied voices with their many and varied opinions. I agreed with little of what I heard, but I was awfully glad for the public space to go and hear all that disagreeable, often hilarious stuff. I also thought it quite amusing that so many of the speakers brought their own little ladders, stepstools or podiums on which to stand – an extra bit of height lending their opinions a bit more authority, or so they thought.

The Centre for Free Expression has joined 34 national and international organizations in calling on the Canadian government to put human rights, especially free expression and press freedom, at the heart of the “renewed” Canada-China relationship.

Prime Minister Trudeau received plaudits when, on a recent state visit to China, he boasted of Canada’s commitment to free expression, which he presented as a “true Canadian value”. The prime minister exalted “a diversity of ideas, and the free ability to express them” because freedom, he said, is what drives positive change. Perhaps he and others had forgotten that as leader of the Opposition he prohibited anyone opposed to abortion from running for federal office for the Liberal Party. If that was 2014 and this is 2016, there is more.

The decades following the Second World War saw gradually increasing democratization of governments and other organizational structures, including greater protections for freedom of expression in general and academic freedom in particular. The pace of change varied from country to country, with Canada often benefiting from progress in the US and UK in developing its own approaches.

Bruce Campbell has joined the Centre for Free Expression as a Senior Fellow. Bruce is currently a visiting fellow at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law.  From 1994-2015, he was Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). Bruce is co-author or editor of five books and numerous reports on a variety of public policy issues.  His commentaries have appeared in major newspapers and online news sites across Canada.  He has frequently appeared before parliamentary committees, and media commentator in Canada and abroad.