Censorship

An unprecedented number of public disputes have erupted across Canada in recent years about meeting room bookings and speaker’s events in the country’s public libraries. Most disturbingly, critics have ignored, disparaged, and frequently rebuffed the time-honoured commitments of Canadian public libraries to freedom of expression and unfettered access to library services.

Recent events at the University of British Columbia show again the powerful allure of censorship as the way to deal with deeply concerning social issues. In this case, the issue is sexual identity and gender identity. Jenn Smith, who identifies as a bisexual transgender male but is against “transgender ideology”, was scheduled to give a talk at UBC on June 23rd. Smith had rented space at UBC as part of a speaking tour across the province on “The Erosion of Freedom: How Transgender Politics in School and Society Are Undermining Our Freedom and Harming Women and Children!”

Your Ward News (YWN) is a publication of unremitting offensiveness – in truth it is little more than a senseless and grotesque cartoon. Yet that is largely beside the point under the Charter. Though it took time and a concerted campaign by those offended by YWN’s existence, the law’s force was eventually brought to bear on its publishers.

What is and what isn’t censorship? It’s hard for me to believe this discussion is even necessary at this particular moment in history. 

Co-authored by Maggie FitzGerald. Unpopular opinion: We love to be catcalled. It can be friendly or flirtatious. Affirming or exciting. For some, afleeting moment of eroticism. 

The last time I actually marched in a protest was a Toronto Day of Action organized in resistance to Ontario’s “Common Sense Revolution” back in the 90s. I still have Super 8 film footage of that day, showing happy, angry, determined, crowds at the march’s gathering point near the lake. I recall huge puppet masks depicting government figures of the day. I remember a sign saying “Mike Harris Eats British Beef” – it was the days of the Mad Cow scare, you know.