Time Immortal

I wrote about PEN Canada previously, noting that:

PENCanada — a Canadian non-profit organization that lobbies on behalf of writers, internationally, who have been forcibly silenced or imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression — defines freedom of expression thusly:

What do we mean by “freedom of expression?” Many definitions are out there. However, although the wording varies, the substance is the same. In its essence, freedom of expression is the right to say freely what you please, as well as the related right to hear what others have stated. This includes the freedom to create and distribute written works, movies, pictures, songs, dances and all other forms of expressive communication.

And on their list of obstacles to freedom of expression, the fourth item (after assault, threats, and murder) is:

Censorship (State or otherwise imposed)

Canadians lobby — and in many cases risk their freedom or their lives — on behalf of writers world-wide who have been denied what even the UN recognizes as a basic human right. Will these same Canadians now lobby on behalf of their fellow countrymen, who are being subjected to what amounts to state censorship?

It turns out that they will. It seems that PEN Canada has put forth a statement calling for both the removal of Section 13 from the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA), and for the dismissal of the complaint against Mark Steyn and Maclean’s. They also decry the complaints filed against Ezra Levant.

PEN Canada calls for changes to human rights commission legislation February 4, 2008 — PEN Canada calls on the federal and provincial governments to change human rights commission legislation to ensure commissions can no longer be used to attempt to restrict freedom of expression in Canada.

Recent complaints in Alberta against journalist Ezra Levant and in Ontario against Maclean’s magazine and its writer Mark Steyn raise disturbing questions about the degree to which human rights commissions have taken it upon themselves to become arbiters of what constitutes free speech.

PEN Canada believes this is not the role of human rights commissions and that governments across the country need to make that clear both to their commissions and to Canadians.

Neither Mr. Levant nor Maclean’s magazine and Mr Steyn published anything that incited violence against the Muslim community although both have been subject of complaints to commissions. Nor did their comments violate anyone’s human rights.

…

Neither complaints should ever have been accepted by a human rights commission and both should be immediately dismissed.

To ensure there is no repetition of such attempts to constrain freedom of expression through the guise of human rights legislation, PEN supports calls for removal of subsection 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act which states that it is discriminatory when individual or groups say or write anything that is “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.”

Similar wording in provincial human rights statutes should likewise be removed.

When I wrote the previous article, it was my hope that this group of Canadian intellectuals and lobbyists would not do the “typical” thing and demand freedoms for people in foreign nations whilst simultaneously ignoring affronts to those same freedoms within Canada.

And fortunately, they have proven consistent in their beliefs. PEN Canada is to be applauded for issuing this statement and for adding their voices to the increasingly lengthy list of people speaking out against state-sponsored censorship as enacted by human rights commissions.

What’s truly impressive, though, is the list of names attached to the statement: John Ralston Saul, Edmontonian Todd Babiak, David Cronenberg, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, and more besides. Big names all — it’s a powerful thing that all of these people (many of them hard leftists, to be sure!) have spoken out in defense of freedom of speech in Canada.

It kind of makes the other side look pitiful by comparison — the best supporters they can muster are a group of anti-Semites, a misogynistic imam and a terrorism supporter. Oh, and Warren Kinsella.