In Quesnel, B.C., after Pat Morton, the wife of Mayor Ron Paull, circulated a controversial book about Indian residential schools, members of the Indigenous population said that the book offended, disrespected, and traumatized them.
Noteworthy authors named in the following articles include Timothy Findley, Amanda Gorman, Margaret Laurence, Harper Lee, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, John Steinbeck and many other older, classic authors.
Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, a member of the Bloc Québécois, recently introduced a bill in the House of Commons.
Bill C-373 proposes to eliminate religious arguments expressed in good faith as a defence in court against charges of wilfully promoting hatred or anti-Semitism.
In February 2024, during Canada’s annual Freedom to Read Week, Canadian journalists resumed writing about attempted book bans in public libraries and public school libraries. A few Canadian journalists continued writing about attempted bans in March. Noteworthy reportage and commentary appear below.
In Prince Edward Island, the legal dispute between a real estate developer and an environmental organization continues to fuel calls for the provincial legislature to enact an anti-SLAPP law.*
In Parliament, the Liberal government of Canada has introduced the Online Harms Act (Bill C-63).
Arif Virani, the minister of justice, introduced the bill in the House of Commons on February 26, 2024.
