Canada and the World
Current Events with a Canadian Perspective
Last update
19 November 2010
In reference to the article in Maclean’s Magazine by Mark Steyn on Islam, a 2008 editorial in The Asia Pacific Post (Vancouver-based) said: “The Steyn article – love it or hate it – is a legitimate opinion…We may not agree with everything that is said or published in Maclean’s. But we must defend its right to say and publish it.”
HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONS HAVE EVOLVED BEYOND ORIGINAL INTENT
Alan Borovoy of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association says his organization is concerned about the human rights complaints process. In a CBC News report in December 2007, Mr. Borovoy said commission rules make it too easy to claim an article may subject a group to hate or contempt.
“Even truthful articles describing some of the awful situations in this world could run afoul of this law, it is so broad and such a potential threat to freedom of speech,” he says.
Mr. Borovoy, who was behind the creation of Canada’s first human rights commission in Ontario, says complaints over such things as publishing the Danish cartoons were not in the minds of those who worked long and hard to set up the commissions.
“It’s one thing to invoke the law against discriminatory deeds; it’s another thing entirely to employ it against discriminatory words,” he wrote in The Calgary Herald in March 2006. “We never imagined that (commissions) might ultimately be used against freedom of speech…There should be no question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons. Religious prophets no less than political leaders or even deities must be legally permissible targets of satire or even scorn. This is the essence of free speech in a democracy.”
But, he adds that having the legal right to publish, does not make everything published morally acceptable. “There is no contradiction between legally defending and morally denouncing any particular material.
“A free culture cannot protect people against material that hurts. It can’t even morally condemn the material simply because it hurts. But, if it gratuitously hurts, such condemnation becomes appropriate.”
“Even truthful articles describing some of the awful situations in this world could run afoul of this law, it is so broad and such a potential threat to freedom of speech,” he says.
Mr. Borovoy, who was behind the creation of Canada’s first human rights commission in Ontario, says complaints over such things as publishing the Danish cartoons were not in the minds of those who worked long and hard to set up the commissions.
“It’s one thing to invoke the law against discriminatory deeds; it’s another thing entirely to employ it against discriminatory words,” he wrote in The Calgary Herald in March 2006. “We never imagined that (commissions) might ultimately be used against freedom of speech…There should be no question of the right to publish the impugned cartoons. Religious prophets no less than political leaders or even deities must be legally permissible targets of satire or even scorn. This is the essence of free speech in a democracy.”
But, he adds that having the legal right to publish, does not make everything published morally acceptable. “There is no contradiction between legally defending and morally denouncing any particular material.
“A free culture cannot protect people against material that hurts. It can’t even morally condemn the material simply because it hurts. But, if it gratuitously hurts, such condemnation becomes appropriate.”