The Latest

On June 23, 2020, B’Nai Brith issued a press release and posted an online petition calling on York University President and Vice-Chancellor Rhonda Lenton to bar Professor Faisal Bhabha from teaching any “human rights” course at Osgoode Hall Law School. More than six weeks later, the President has not provided an open or transparent response to B’Nai Brith’s widely publicized condemnation of Bhabha and petition to remove him from the classroom.  The professor

By Ken Rubin There's no real desire to remedy shortcomings. It is no longer good enough to continue holding Canadians hostage to incomplete data

The Centre for Free Expression is launching a “smart cities” advisory panel to provide expert advice and to assist civic engagement in communities considering “smart cities” initiatives. “Communities across Canada are turning to data-driven and technology-based solutions that they hope will increase the quality of both public services and the lives of their residents,” said James L. Turk, director of the Centre. “But, as we saw with the ill-fated Quayside-Sidewalk Labs project in Toronto, the allure tech of fixes can be misleading.”

I don’t want to read one more piece that begins, “In these difficult (unprecedented, challenging, etc.)  times,” and neither do you. However, since the world changed, I have serious and long-term concerns about teaching and free expression. Now that the greater part of the K-12 experience has moved online or to other internet based instruction, and at the same time society has become less tolerant of unpopular opinions, I fear that we may be developing a generation of students who do not know how to disagree without becoming disagreeable.

By Ken Rubin Shocking revelations and events can stir the public. But that does not mean officials want to give up systemic secrecy practices and bring in wholesale corrective changes. So it was refreshing then for a change to see the Canadian military's medical team under Operation Laser acting as whistle blowers raising public attention about the dismal conditions and the on-going plight they found in long-term care homes. The data they provided about these homes would normally have been withheld.  

The Centre for Free Expression is pleased to announce that Latoya Farrell, Staff Counsel for policy for the BC Civil Liberties Association, has joined the CFE Advisory Board.