Free Speech in Canada?

What mistake did these students make? They forgot to identify themselves as bombastic foreign Members of Parliament whom have provided material support to Hamas. Silly students… freedom of speech on the campus of a school at which you attend and live? Preposterous!

Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, Human Rights Commissions, the public works protection act, pro-life voices shut down on campus…

Is it time we had a serious review of how flexible our rights to speech and assembly have become in this country?

CRTC drops references to egregious abuses by HRCs from final report on broadcasting in new media

The CRTC released a report on June 4th, 2009 titled “Review of broadcasting in new media, Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-329.”

However, on the CRTC website the following notice appears,

Broadcasting regulatory policy:

The Commission replaces the concurring opinion appended to Review of broadcasting in new media, Broadcasting Regulatory Policy CRTC 2009-329.

What was the amended document that with which the CRTC replaced the original? Here’s is the new version of the report:

What changes were made?

I’ve run a software-based PDF comparison tool on both documents and I’ve found that the documents are almost identical except for the following omission from the final version:

“The history of the regulation of speech in this country does not engender confidence that such powers will be used wisely. Canada has experienced several instances in recent times where regulatory commissions of another type and armed with a different mission have challenged the right to say controversial things. The struggles of Ezra Levant,14 Mark Steyn15 and others have served as important warnings that regulatory authorities charged with combating racism, hatred, and other evils have consistently expanded their mandates, have abused their powers and eroded fundamental liberties. Wherever there is official orthodoxy, disagreement is heresy, and where there is heresy, there is usually an inquisition to root it out. After centuries ridding ourselves of thought control agencies, 20th century Canada re-invented them.”

Now that’s interesting. Why did the CRTC feel that it was necessary to omit references to Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn’s battles with “regulatory authorities”?

Levant vs. Folco, sorta

Today, Ezra Levant’s lawyers sent the following notice to Liberal MP Raymonde Folco

Read this doc on Scribd: SCAN6808 000

There’s some quality Liberal research, non? Ezra Levant was never an MP in Stephen Harper’s riding. It seems that the Liberals unloading it all against the Conservatives to see what sticks. Parliamentary immunity comes in handy.

Here are two other scandals uncovered by Liberal research in the past week:
Scandal I
Scandal II