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Recent news of challenges to books in school and public libraries remind us that book challenges are not uncommon in Canada and, in most cases, are dealt with by the library staff. When the public does hear about a book challenge in a school library learning commons, it is usually where the school policies were not followed and the decision to remove the challenged item was carried out by school officials working outside the bounds of the book-challenge procedures.

In Ottawa, the federal Liberal government is drafting a bill that would suppress “harmful online content,” including hateful expression, on the internet. The bill is intended to replace Bill C-36, which Justice Minister David Lametti introduced in the House of Commons in June 2021. Bill C-36 died when the government called the election of 2021. On March 30, 2022, Justice Minister Lametti and Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez announced that an advisory panel would help draft the new bill.

We are representatives of major civil society organizations and social movements from across Canada. Individually and collectively, we represent the interests of many Canadians with diverse identities and interests. 

A recent bombshell of a book about the corporate capture of Alberta’s energy regulator sheds light on how private organizations and public institutions sometimes converge into powerful networks that disseminate misinformation. The peer-reviewed book elucidates the inner workings of this phenomenon by developing an approach to analyzing institutional influence and dysfunction that can be used by investigative journalists, scholars, and anyone else opposed to abuses of state and corporate power.