Democracy

In the last few months several groups in Canada have called on the federal government to enlarge the scope of the Criminal Code ban on speech that counsels others to engage in acts of terrorism to include an explicit prohibition on the “glorification of terrorism”. A ban on the glorification of terrorism might extend to speech that celebrates the murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7 or the 9-11 attacks in the United States.

CFE Intervener Motion Record - Supreme Court of Canada The issue in this appeal is whether Ontario Bill 307’s amendments to the Election Finances Act violate the informational element of a citizen’s right to vote under s. 3 of the Charter. Bill 307 re-enacted third-party spending limits that were declared invalid under s. 2(b) of the Charter, and invoked s. 33 to protect those spending limits from Charter review. The question in this appeal is whether limits on third party spending that are unconstitutional under s. 2(b) are also an unjustifiable violation of s. 3 which cannot be overriden by s. 33.

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." 

Much criticism has been aimed at Toronto mayor John Tory and Ontario premier Doug Ford over the unprecedented powers given to Tory and to all future mayors of Toronto by the provincial legislature. Since Toronto has in recent years had such mayoral luminaries as ‘don’t want to be boiled in a pot by cannibals’ Mel Lastman as well as crack-using Rob Ford, one can only wonder what ‘evidence’ was gathered to support giving Toronto mayors additional powers.

I don’t know about you, but I am not fond of humour that is aimed at humiliating or degrading individuals, even if those individuals are public figures. It is one thing to point out the foibles of people’s actions and another to make fun of someone’s appearance or other characteristics that are immutable. I am truly over racist, sexist, and body-shaming humour.

On July 30, 2018, the newly elected Ford government introduced legislation reducing the size of Toronto City Council from 47 to 25 councillors. Bill 5 was enacted in haste on August 14, 2018, about two weeks later.