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News Reports and Commentary Selected by Franklin Carter of the Book and Periodical Council’s Freedom of Expression Committee   A new history of censorship has appeared: Pierrette Lafond’s Promenade en Enfer: Les livres à l'index de la bibliothèque historique du Séminaire de Québec.

By Jon Thompson Professor Emeritus in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at the University of New Brunswick

Toronto: July 11,2019 - The Centre for Free Expression is pleased to announce the newest addition to its Occasional Paper Series, “Populism and Free Speech” by Jon Thompson. The paper explores the contradictory history of populism -- at times a force for social justice and at other times  to undermine democratic rights of marginalized groups. Thompson  argues that progressive populist action is required to successfully deal with the existential challenges of nuclear war, climate change and chemical pollution.   

News Reports and Commentary Selected by Franklin Carter of the Book and Periodical Council’s Freedom of Expression Committee   In June 2019, the House Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights in Ottawa published a report about hateful expression on the Internet.

You will likely have seen quite a few opinion pieces lately about what’s being called variously the “Canadian” media bailout, the “government” media bailout and the “Liberal” media bailout.  So, yes, there’s a media bailout afoot. 

George Orwell’s 1946 essay “Politics and the English language” is my suggested summer reading for Toronto city councillors and anyone interested in the ‘smart city’ plan that Sidewalk Labs/Google has proposed for Toronto’s waterfront. This is where you can peruse the multi-volume work, but if plowing through googlespeak for 1500 pages doesn’t appeal, you can instead read the informative ‘