Freedom of Expression & Its Limits

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 Factum – British Columbia Supreme Court. The issue is whether Vancouver Island University’s request for an injunction should be granted against the encampment on campus. After a review of the legislative context and of Canadian jurisprudence on the applicability of the Charter to specific actions of universities, the factum suggests that the University’s rights as a “property owner” and its statutory powers in the “management of its privately owned land” are not unlimited or absolute; that the University’s statutory power does not necessarily pre-empt or extinguish the Charter freedoms of those using its property for expressive purposes. Finally, the factum submits that, in acting as a singular arbiter for expressive rights on campus, VIU must inform its decisions with a view to the values that underlie Charter rights.

Earlier this month the University of Windsor reached an agreement with the occupants of a pro-Palestinian encampment on the university’s grounds. The agreement brought a peaceful end to the protest. Several of the leading Jewish organizations in Canada have been harshly critical of the agreement. Their principal complaints (listed 1 to 5) are that: 

Some 50 days after protestors set up a camp known as Occupy U of T, Ontario Superior Court granted the University of Toronto an injunction that ordered occupants to dismantle the site and discontinue their demonstration.