Does censorship matter?
In Canada, the right to speak, write,
create and express ourselves is a fundamental freedom. However, the relative
safety and tolerance here in Canada makes it easy to become complacent when these
rights are affected, sometimes in subtle ways. These threats may seem innocuous
at first, but without action they can slowly chips away at the foundation of
Canadian democracy.
How does censorship happen
in Canada?
We
can define the act of censorship quite broadly, to be any incident in which
expressive freedoms are limited. This idea of censorship is informed by the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights, and other international instruments protecting free
expression.
In Canada, censorship and expressive chill manifest
in many different ways:
Censorship of media: This past
March, copies of Tintin in America
were pulled
from stores shelves after a citizen complaint that content was offensive.
Legal action or intimidation: The town
of Taber, Alberta recently passed
a bylaw which banned public swearing and imposed a curfew on teenagers.
Limit on public speech: Students at St
George Catholic School in Ottawa were
banned from giving a presentation on gay rights, because it was deemed
“inappropriate” by administrators.
Intimidation of journalists or media: In
2014 journalist Mohsin Abbas faced
death threats from Mississauga mayoral candidate Riazuddin Choudhry for an
article criticizing his campaign.
Limits on the public’s right to information: Earlier this year, an aide to MP Jason Kenney has been found to have
regularly deleted
his emails every two weeks, leaving no record of his government
communications.
Limits on public performance: Recently the Toronto Symphony Orchestra has cancelled
the performances of Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa in light controversial
statements made on Twitter opposing the regime in Ukraine.
Limits on access to communications technologies: From August 22 to September 9, 2014, government employees were
blocked from accessing the political news site Blacklock’s Reporter. An access
to information request revealed that the block was put in place by Shared
Services Canada due to a “cyber threat” and was lifted the same day that
Blacklock's filed a request for records.
Limits on support for public/alternative media: In 2011, a grant offered to artist Franke James for a European
exhibition was
pulled due to her work's anti-climate change message. After years of
information requests, James has found records indicating that the government
had monitored her work and decided that it went against their position on
climate change and the oil industry.
These examples are some of the ways that
free expression is being infringed. Together they depict a climate of in which
freedom of expression is being threatened over time.
What
can I do?
The first step in protecting our freedom of
expression is to identify where and how it is being limited. There has not been
a central place to collect and examine the broad spectrum of incidents of censorship-until
now.
