CFE Blog

On August 30, 2018, your government, Premier Ford, proclaimed it was going to champion free expression. You were quite clear: “Ontario's Government for the People is delivering on its promise to uphold free speech on every Ontario publicly funded university and college campus, Premier Doug Ford announced today.” You added, "Our government made a commitment to the people of Ontario to protect free speech on campuses. Promise made, promise kept." 

What does affirmative action have to do with freedom of expression? More than one might expect. Diversity is the silent partner of teaching young people to articulate thought. Without being exposed to difference, learners will have great difficulty knowing what they believe – and what they do not believe.

Since Doug Ford and the Ontario Progressive Conservatives were elected with a majority government in 2018, concerns about the potential politicization of the judicial appointment process have swirled. 

In a recently released decision, the Supreme Court of Canada reaffirmed the important role of anti-SLAPP legislation in protecting those who speak out on matters of public interest and against whom legal action is taken. In particular, the Court made clear that so called “counter-speech” seeking to defend a vulnerable group weighs in favour of protection.

After the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the 2020 murder of George Floyd, many journalists argued that the press needed to abandon its traditional commitment to objectivity. Electrifying a decades-old skepticism of objectivity with a sense of political crisis, these journalists charged that while objectivity purports to be about neutrality, it really only serves power.