The Human Rights Commissions which come under the Canadian Human Rights Act (instituted in 1977), and the Hate Speech Provisions (sec. 318-320) which were amended into the Criminal Code of Canada in 1970, were a reaction to the multicultural, multi-racial and multi-ethnic Canada that started to form after Lester Pearson removed restrictions on non-white and non-European immigrants entering Canada after the revised Immigration Act of 1967. Some of these institutions have been used against individuals, although sparingly and with minimal public awareness, prior to the Alberta Human Rights Commissions case filed against Ezra Levant for publishing the Mohammed Cartoons, and the cases filed in the B.C. Human Rights Commissions and the Federal Human Rights Commissions against Mark Steyn and MacLeans magazine for a reprint of an excerpt from Steyn's book America Alone: The End of the World as We Know It titled "The Future Belongs to Islam."
Prior to these two cases, most of the HRC complainants were homosexuals, or those protesting what appeared to be white nationalist (possibly anti-Semite) individuals. But, the public was abruptly introduced to these institutions with the vocal and aggressive Muslims, who had no qualms against taking on media giants in the name of defending their culture and religion.
My point here is that free speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press in our current debate are strongly intertwined with this multicultural landscape, and more specifically with the Muslim population. In fact, Muslims' incessant curtailment on speech is becoming common practice all over Europe, which has a longer history of Muslim immigration. In Canada, and in the United States, we are only beginning to see the tip of the iceberg.
I was curious to see if anyone in the Symposium mentioned the clearly strong influence Muslims have in the domain of "free speech and liberty." Blogger Rebekah, who hosts the blog The Miss Marprelate Tracts, did a great job of transcribing what she heard at the Symposium onto her blog. According to her account, only one person focused, his speech on the Muslim angle. That was Bjorn Larsen, now the President of the International Free Speech Society - Canada.
It is well and good to talk about the Muslim influence in restricting speech and liberty, but the final, and constant, question should be: "What do speakers who bring this up in their discussions suggest the solutions should be?"
I emailed Rebekah this question. I hope she answers, and will post her response when I get it:
Dear Rebekah,
Thanks for your great transcript of the symposium "Free Speech and Liberty." It was really helpful to get the viewpoints of the various speakers, and how they approach free speech and liberty.
One of the things I blog about here at Our Changing Landscape is how Muslims are now the prime influence in restraining, even restricting, free speech, freedom of expression, and consequently liberty in Canada. I discuss in various posts that one way to put a stop to this is to reduce, and even to stop, the number of Muslim immigrants into Canada as part of a multi-faceted solution.
I notice that Bjorn Larsen, now the President of the International Free Press Society – Canada, was the only one who explicitly brought up the Muslim influence in the restrictions on free speech. In your summary of his speech, you didn’t mention if he offered any solutions to this problem. Do you remember if he did say what to do about the presence of Muslims and their recurring and aggressive attempts to curtail free speech, freedom of expression and freedom of the press?
Thanks for you time and effort.
All the best,
Kidist Paulos Asrat
