Tag Archives: Free Speech

‘LAWS RESTRICTING FREE SPEECH’ ARE OUR STRENGTH

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Canada’s Liberal Party is currently spearheading Motion 103 (M-103) through Parliament. Set for debate in April, the motion calls on the government to “recognize the need to quell the increasing public climate of hate and fear” and “condemn Islamophobia and all forms of systemic racism and religious discrimination.” The motion also calls for the establishment of a governmental committee to  “undertake a study on how the government could reduce or eliminate systemic racism and religious discrimination including Islamophobia.”

As opposed to a bill (or law), M-103 is a motion. Its purpose is to “raise awareness,” drawing attention to an issue (extolling their own virtue is the Liberal Party’s raison d’être, after all). Although M-103’s passage wouldn’t change Canada’s legal system, the motion is intended to become a progenitor or future legislation.

Why do we need new motions or laws to combat “Islamophobia”? The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (CCRF) and the Criminal Code of Canada already protect Muslims and other religious groups. The motion ostensibly seeks to combat “systemic racism against Muslims”, despite zero evidence that Canadian laws systemically target Muslims. And if there was evidence, why doesn’t Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just change the law? He runs the government.

Moreover, “Islamophobia” is an elusively defined term. The proposed motion fails to explain what Islamophobia actually is. “Islam,” after all, is a religion. Would criticizing its tenets be considered a “phobia”?

Late last year, Liberals amended Canada’s Human Rights Act, again adding vaguely-defined terms to the CCRF: “gender expression” and “gender identity.” In effect, it became a human rights violation to refer to a biological male as a “he,” insofar as he self-identified as a woman. Motion-103 is drafted along the same lines.

Anti-Semitism – which is far more prevalent in Canada than Islamophobia – is omitted in toto. According to 2015 police data, Jews were the identified group most targeted by hate crimes in Canada, with the LGBTQ community coming in second.

The CBC – which recently published an editorial entitled, “Anti-Islamophobia motion offers a chance to take a stand against hatred. Why quibble over semantics?” –  is yet to print one (just one!) article on the Muslim Imam in Quebec delivering a sermon in which he prayed for the annihilationof the “accursed” Jews.

And if Quebecois Imams don’t make the CBC’s cut for required reporting, a Toronto Mosque, Masjid Toronto, has a story ripe for the picking. An Imam was caught on video calling for the extermination of the Jews, saying, “O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews!”

Recently at Toronto’s Ryerson University, the Muslim Students’ Association and Students for Justice in Palestine Jewish Persecution organized a joint protest, blocking a motion commemorating Holocaust Education Week.

But not to worry, Trudeau has a foolproof plan to combat anti-Semitism via a rapid increase of Muslim refugee admissions to Canada.

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Rebuttal to UToronto Student Newspaper’s Defense of Suppressing Free Speech

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Less than a month after anarchists, communists, and a bevy of other perpetually useless members of society shut down a speech at the University of Toronto, the school’s student newspaper, The Varsity, published a column titled “Bigotry bears no right to a platform”.

The author, Adina Heisler, a second-year gender studies major, writes,

Speakers at the event included [Jordan] Peterson, Psychology Professor who has been called transphobic by some students on campus following his Professor against political correctness YouTube lecture series…

Remember. The first rule of writing an editorial that justifies – better yet encourages – forcefully shutting down public speakers with whom you disagree politically, is to avoid fairly characterizing your opponent at all costs. Don’t bother watching Jordan Peterson’s videos, providing their links, and highlighting the exact quotes which suggest he’s a bigot, unworthy of speaking at the university that employs him. Just go ahead and write it. Be sure to back up this already-robust accusation with “has been called”.

Heisler continues:

According to protester and community activist Qaiser Ali, the protesters objected to “the fact that the university has both allowed and sanctioned an alt-right, neo-fascist hate conference starring Ezra Levant.”

Qaiser Ali – as reported by The Varsity – was one of the protesters who helped shut the event down, screaming “F-Trump, and F-white supremacy”. The only person Heisler’s interviewed in her entire editorial on why it’s ok to forcefully shut down a speech at a public university is one of the people who actually shut down a speech at a public university.

Heisler claims that she contacted Ezra Levant for comment on the article to no avail. However, I spoke to Ezra myself. He told me that nobody by the name Adina Heisler from The Varsity reached out to him.

Going forward, the author paints a truly Orwellian portrait, writing,

The protesters are correct in saying that the speakers should not have been permitted to have this platform in the first place…

…whether or not a speaker should be allowed to have space on campus cannot necessarily be boiled down to a left-versus-right issue. There are a number of reasons why we might object to having certain types of events on campus.

For example, it was completely unacceptable when Ken O’Keefe, a conspiracy theorist and Holocaust denier, was given a space to speak on campus in June 2016, because he was propagating blatantly false anti-Semitic views.

That last part is actually correct. Ken O’Keefe is a Marxist Holocaust denier who was invited to speak at the university. His speech, however, was somehow not interrupted by the same people who felt Ezra Levant was about to pull out a sword and sacrifice a transgender Syrian refugee he had locked up in a cage somewhere.

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