“This is what democracy looks like!”
That was the slogan of the 1,000 protesters who congregated outside the University of Ottawa a few weeks ago. They were there to silence a speech by American firebrand, Ann Coulter.
They won. The unruly mob posed too much of a threat to Coulter’s safety, event organizers decided, and her speech was cancelled.
Upon hearing the announcement the protestors’ chant changed. “Na-na-na-na-hey hey-hey-goodbye Ann, goodbye!”
But they should have been saying goodbye to something else – a little thing called freedom of speech, a pillar of any democratic society.
A week after the protestors, Sen. Doug Finley called the commotion “the most un-Canadian display I have seen in years . . . Canadians have replaced the real human right of freedom of speech with a counterfeit human right not to be offended.”
Back in the 1600s a man named John Milton wrote about the “marketplace of ideas.” He argued that all ideas should be freely exchanged, explaining that the only way the public could recognize a good idea, was by comparing it to all the bad ones.
If the “marketplace of ideas” was an actual market in Canada, it would have a “closed” sign on it. Maybe it would say, “be back in five,” but that’s doubtful given a slew of cases where the unofficial right not to be offended has won out over the right to freedom of speech, enshrined in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Take a recent case involving the Canadian border agents and American journalist, Amy Goodham, who tried to cross the border south of Vancouver to give two scheduled speeches promoting her new book. Her crossing turned into a 90-minute detainment by border agents who grilled her on whether she planned on speaking out against the Vancouver Olympics.
Why? Who knows.
This isn’t the first time that a controversial public figure was denied entry into Canada. Last year, British MP George Galloway, known for his pro-Hamas, anti-American stance was barred from speaking in Toronto.
Officials argued his past financial donations to so-called terrorist organizations made him too much of a security risk.
The funny part? Our American cousins freely let Galloway in despite his terrorist sympathies. They even let him speak at Columbia University in New York City.
That is what democracy looks like, my protesting friends. But how would you know? Most of the screaming people there the night freedom of speech was silenced at the University of Ottawa were university students. And Canadian universities aren’t the politically free places they once were.
“Universities are supposed to be a hot bed of ideas,” says Paul Fromm, director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression. “Now, they’re indoctrination centres.”
Fromm is right. In 2008, for example, the Canadian Federation of Students passed a motion that supported university student unions that refused to provide club status to pro-life groups.
“You wouldn’t fund the KKK,” said Shelley Melanson, executive member of the CFS at the time.
Ummm . . . Since when was being pro-life the same as being a violent white supremacist?
Even our very own Canadian Forces are banned from recruiting at several universities across the country, including the University of Victoria, whose student union released a statement saying that “the Society is opposed to the militarization of Canadian Society.”
Or maybe it’s just opposed to anything that violates its own politics.
These students need to brush up on their Milton.
Democracy isn’t about blocking unpopular opinions from being heard. It’s about hearing them and then deciding. It’s about silencing them with knowledge, not screams and political correctness.
Maybe saying that there would be a “closed” sign on Canada’s free marketplace of ideas is too generous. Maybe it’s more accurate for it to say “bankrupt.”