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CFE Blog

Blog May 4, 2022

When a Book by an Eminent Indigenous Author Is Pulled from a School Library, Something is Wrong

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.
Blog April 8, 2022

How private organizations and public institutions converge to create misinformation

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.  
Blog March 28, 2022

Free Expression Walks into a Bar: The Case of Mike Ward and the Future of Canadian Comedy: Part 1

If you want to truly understand free expression and why it’s so vital for a democratic society, you need to immerse yourself in the margins of public discourse. An important subculture that often finds itself at these margins is stand-up comedy, where a variety of controversies are pushing the boundaries of free expression and attracting no shortage of public attention. 
Blog March 2, 2022

Delete Your Account, Internet Archive — No-one is Burning Digital Books

Engaged as I am in the endless fight to protect the rights of creative professionals, I spend way too much of my time reading ridiculous claims by folks who just want free stuff. Ask any writer, musician, artist of any kind; approximately four out of every five interactions around our work involves us explaining that we can’t work for free or give away the product of our work without compensation. The pressure for free cultural product is relentless and exhausting to those who are trying to make a living in culture.