Free Speech the Latest Casualty in Kim Jong Kenney’s Alberta
Alberta bans anti-vaccination protests, all other demonstrations outside health-care facilities
CBC News · Posted: Sep 28, 2021 11:16 AM MT | Last Updated: 4 hours ago
Premier Jason Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, were joined by the province’s health and justice ministers at the Tuesday afternoon COVID-19 update. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press, Art Raham/CBC)
Anti-vaccination protests and all other demonstrations outside hospitals will be banned in a move to make Alberta health-care facilities safer for staff, patients and families, Premier Jason Kenney said Tuesday.
But no new restrictions to prevent the spread of COVID-19 were announced, despite recent calls from medical professionals to enact “fire-breaker” measures to protect the struggling health-care system.
Kenney told a news conference the province is still monitoring the impact of public health measures that went into effect on Sept. 20. He said unvaccinated Albertans who are currently filling up hospitals beds would be unlikely to comply with any new measures.
“It is a paradox and there’s no easy solution to it,” he said.
Instead, the regulations of the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act have been amended to ensure that health-care facilities are subject to the same legal protection as railways, highways and pipelines, carrying punishments for trespassing, interfering with operations and construction or causing damage.
WATCH | Kenney says unvaccinated unlikely to comply with new measures:
Kenney says unvaccinated unlikely to comply with widespread restrictions
7 hours ago1:37Asked whether Alberta would introduce stricter COVID-19 rules, Premier Jason Kenney says now is not the time. 1:37
The measure is in response to protests two weeks ago across the country by anti-vaccination groups, Kenney said.
“Recently, Albertans watched anti-vaccine protesters stand in front of our hospitals, hurling mistruths and misinformation about our health-care system, our doctors and our nurses,” he said.
“People were rightly shocked to see this totally inappropriate behaviour from a vocal minority.”
Kenney and Justice Minister Kaycee Madu reiterated that the intention was not to interfere with any individual’s constitutional right to lawful protest.
“Albertans must have the ability to access health care when they need it and health-care professionals must have the ability to do their work free from interference,” Madu said.
Arjun Singh: Left wing values have invaded Canada’s legal system and diminished our charter rights
Arjun Singh: Left wing values have invaded Canada’s legal system and diminished our charter rights
[Social justice warriors now dominate our judiciary and are making the always limited guarantees of individual rights in Pierre Trudeau’s Charter a joke. Far from protecting free speech or freedom of movement, the Courts have endorsed massive state repression as long as it advances “equity” and other leftist goals. — Paul Fromm]
Why Canada should abolish Section 1 Author of the article: Arjun Singh, Special to National Post Publishing date: Sep 23, 2021 • 1 day ago • 4 minute read • 368 Comments
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms Photo by The Canadian Press
By all accounts, vaccine passports are here. Quebec, with the most provincial chutzpah, first introduced them, and B.C. followed suit. As have Ontario and Alberta, after Doug Ford’s U-turn from his “Hard no” earlier this year and Jason Kenney’s similar opposition. Outside government, scores of businesses are mandating vaccinations for employees, with proof being required — else, they be terminated.
One would think, in governments’ cases, that the law would safeguard citizens’ freedoms. Indeed, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that Canadians have the “freedom of conscience and religion” (Section 2a), freedom of movement within Canada (Section 6) and “equal protection … before the law” (Section 15). At the very least, this would prevent the imposition of vaccine passport requirements on citizens — vaccinated or otherwise — for travelling, let alone while accessing basic services: for most charter rights are fundamental. Quebec’s programme and the Trudeau Liberals’ recent federal vaccine mandate for flights and trains, thus, ought to be dismissed.
Arjun Singh: Left wing values have invaded Canada’s legal system and diminished our charter rights
But this is Canada: where, for years, left-wing Liberal values have slowly invaded our legal system. This was true for Trudeau’s father, Pierre Elliot, as it is now. Hence, in 1982, when the charter was introduced, its first section included the following proviso: “The Canadian Charter … guarantees the rights and freedoms set out subject only to reasonable limits … as can be justified in a free and democratic society.” In essence, the charter rights of anyone may be limited for what the state considers “reasonable.”
By itself, this clause is only partly dangerous. Absolute freedom, in any context — especially if causing physical harm — is undesirable; as the ever-pithy Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. said, “the right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose.” But, as most would agree, allowing the government to judge whether its own acts are “reasonable” is, itself, an invitation for power to abuse such privilege. From Quebec’s strict curfews to Ontario’s police crackdowns, the pandemic and its oppressive responses in the name of “science” have laid that truth bare.
In response, one would expect the courts, upon petition, to step in and stop government overreach, being the constitution’s supposedly “non-partisan” referees. Until 1986, in Canada, that was true — until left-wing jurists, after rewriting the law, captured the judiciary that interpreted them. That year the Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision by Trudeau appointees, established the Oakes Test in R. v. Oakes to determine what restrictions on charter rights were “reasonable.” Among others, it allowed the curbing of charter freedoms in the name of “a commitment to social justice and equality” and “respect for cultural and group identity.”
With this decision, a faction of activist judges — seeing the constitution as a ‘living tree’ to be pruned without the people’s consent — reset the foundations of freedom overnight, bending them towards progressive politics. Instead of having minimal restraints for public order, all charter freedoms could now be legally impeded in the name of contested left-wing concepts like “social justice” and protecting “group identity.”
Worse, neither did the court define what these terms meant, enabling the left — via its dominance of social science academia — to influence their meanings, suiting the moment’s political objectives. As its late Chief Justice, Antonio Lamer, himself said, Section 1 empowered judges to “make essentially … a political call.” In effect, the constitutional “referees” changed the rules mid-game, to ensure their side would always win.
Thus, with Oakes, the dangers of Section 1 were fully unleashed, and have since beat a toll on Canadians’ civil liberties — capturing our constitution for the supremacy of “woke” social mores. “Whoever would overthrow a nation must begin by subduing the freedom of speech,” said Benjamin Franklin; and, true to form, it was one of the first casualties. In the Keegstra and Andrews decisions, the Supreme Court used Section 1 to allow the criminalization of speech “inciting hatred” — an ambiguous offence, at best, which effectively curbs free speech for the sake of hurt feelings. Once more, in the Little Sisters case, Section 1 rubber-stamped the Chretien Liberals’ banning of LGBTQ books’ import for their “obscenity.” This spate has continued, with governments and courts in concert over the years using Section 1 to curb the presumption of innocence until proven guilty (R. v. Stone), conservatives’ participation in elections (Harper v. Canada) and, most recently, to ban travel by citizens during COVID-19 (Taylor v. The Queen).
In defending such overreach on the charter, the progressive establishment has often asserted the notion of “collective rights” as the reason for restraining individuals, e.g., “safe spaces” precluding free speech to avoid public offence. There are few greater absurdities than this; “rights” exist to protect individuals and minorities from tyranny of the majority, which — with strength in numbers — needs no further safety in a democracy. By claiming a “collective right” of any kind, the Canadian left turns the very notion of rights on its head. It is legal fiction at best, and a neo-Marxist praxis at worst — a desperate attempt to stir up “class conflict” between the majority and minority where none ought to exist.
In the future, it’s highly likely that Section 1 will be used again to uphold encroachments upon citizens’ rights — from vaccine passports to online censorship (e.g., Bill C-10) and others. Canadians must, hence, stand on guard for thee and expunge this threat — regardless of the high bar for constitutional change. If Section 1 is the end of charter rights, we must end it, first.
Arjun Singh is a recent graduate of political science from the University of Toronto.
‘I’m not sentencing you on the basis that you are anti-Semitic, I’m not sentencing you on the basis that you are a Holocaust denier,” said Westminster District judge Michael Snow, after doing exactly that.
This was Snow’s confusing message to 56-year-old Alison Chabloz, a political commentator who was dragged to court for stating that the Holocaust is an “eternal cash cow” on a podcast. She will be serving four and a half months in jail.
While Judge Snow has no legal basis for jailing a person specifically for comments critical of the Holocaust, he was able to exploit an open-ended and subjective “gross offense” law to punish Chabloz for comments questioning the Auschwitz gas chamber narrative and how the Jewish community uses the Holocaust story for political and financial gain.
The vaguely defined “gross offense” law is often exploited by political actors to suppress critics of privileged groups and powerful interests. A police officer is currently being tried in British court for the “gross offense” of sending a George Floyd joke in a private WhatsApp chat. Free speech in the United Kingdom is not a guaranteed right.
Snow’s treatment of Chabloz fits a pattern. Many believe the district judge is primarily concerned with being a thuggish proxy for the powerful rather than enforcing the law and protecting people’s rights.
One high profile example is judge Snow’s behavior while overseeing the Julian Assange case in 2019. In order to please the US Department of Justice, Snow ruled that the Australian journalist be held in custody to be tortured in solitary confinement at a high security prison.
During the trial — ostensibly over Assange jumping bail in 2012 — Snow taunted and berated the prisoner of conscience, referring to him as “laughable” and a “narcissist.” During one hearing, he demanded Assange “get over to the US” and “get on with your life.” Former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray has referred to judge Snow as a corrupt, politically motivated “disgrace.”
The climate for open discussion and social criticism in Britain is virtually indistinguishable from third world totalitarian nations. Judge Snow and other high ranking figures in the UK know the public stigma of running kangaroo courts that imprison people based on what wealthy Jews say offends them, but in 2021, these “liberals” no longer care what the people think.
Fromm Gate: Quebecois de Souche/Old Stock Quebecker’s Publication Le Harfang Comes to Derek Sloan’s Defence After Erin O’Toole Seeks to Purge Him from Party After Paul Fromm Donation
Le FrommGate La culture woke – nous en parlons souvent– est la version « à la mode » de la rectitude politique à la sauce stalinienne. Comme il est considéré comme passéiste de réclamer le goulag pour les opposants, on impose plutôt la « cancel culture », terme « globish » à la mode cachant une réalité nettement plus sombre. Que cette vision séduise la gauche au sens large, on le comprend. Rare sont ceux qui veulent réellement protéger la liberté d’expression de leurs ennemis; alors on approuve plus ou moins tacitement, on dénonce ici et là les excès quand ils frappent un des nôtres sans raison, mais au final, la gauche aime bien ce pouvoir débordé qui lui permet en jetant une fatwah d’effacer ni plus ni moins l’ennemi potentiel.
Ce qui est plus difficile à comprendre, c’est pourquoi la droite commence à adhérer à la culture woke.
Le 18 janvier, le Canada apprenait avec stupeur que l’un des candidats à la chefferie conservatrice, Derek Sloan, avait reçu un chèque de 131$ du « suprématiste blanc » Paul Fromm. Dans les heures qui suivaient, Sloan était éjecté manu militari de Parti conservateur, sans pouvoir répondre de ces accusations (mais au fait de quoi l’accuse-t-on vraiment?).
Pour comprendre l’affaire, il faut d’abord savoir qui est Derek Sloan, qui est Paul Fromm, et en quoi 131$ représente un enjeu.
D’abord, Derek Sloan fut le candidat le plus à droite de la campagne conservatrice, le seul à être ouvertement opposé à l’avortement, le seul à être pour une droite morale et le seul à être en faveur de la liberté d’expression. Et justement, Paul Fromm est le directeur du Canadian Association for Free Expression, une organisation basée sur la défense de la liberté d’expression. On peut aisément comprendre pourquoi ce dernier a jugé bon de faire un don à la campagne de Sloan.
Seulement, on reproche à Fromm, qui est aussi un farouche opposant à l’immigration de masse, de défendre la liberté d’expression de tous, ce qui n’est pas convenable dans notre société très « Charlie », pas ni « Soral », ni « Ryssen ».
Bref, on assiste à une double association douteuse : Fromm défend la liberté de ceux qui sont bafoués; il donne de l’argent à Sloan, donc Sloan est un nazi. Bingo! Il a fallu quelques heures, voire quelques minutes au Conservateur Erin O’Toole pour conclure sur cette affaire. Mais la somme aussi représente un certain intérêt. En acceptant une somme d’un homme, on estime que le politicien est lié à ce dernier. Peut-être même qu’il lui doit quelque chose. C’est ce que les journalistes et O’Toole semble croire du moins. Et, conscients de ce que valent les politiciens à l’heure actuelle, ils semblent enclins à croire que la somme de 131$ est suffisante pour acheter un député à Ottawa! Il faut croire que la famille Rizzuto qui a « investi » des milliers de dollars dans le Parti libéral du Québec depuis des années aurait dû investir à Ottawa et profiter des aubaines ontariennes.
Au-delà de ces réflexions sur l’éthique et la corruption que soulèvent inévitablement cette histoire de 131$, il reste que cela nous prouve une énième fois le manque de clairvoyance et d’épine dorsale du clan conservateur. Les stratèges conservateurs semblent passer trop de temps à écouter la CBC : ils ne réalisent pas que les délires woke sont minoritaires et qu’il n’y a rien à gagner à jouer contre son propre camp. Que CBC fasse du 131$ l’affaire du siècle, c’est normal, et c’est même une preuve qu’on dérange un peu. Un candidat conservateur, un parti conservateur, un homme de droite, ne doit pas chercher à obtenir l’assentiment du principal organe de gauche au pays. En cela, les conservateurs devraient regarder ce qui se passe à gauche. Personne à l’UQAM ne recherche le sceau d’approbation de l’Institut économique de Montréal et Manon Massé n’a jamais expulsé personne de son parti pour plaire à Richard Martineau ou Joseph Facal. Ça, tout le monde le comprend et l’accepte. Alors pourquoi l’opposé n’est-il pas vrai?
Ceux qui connaissent l’expression « cuckservatives » ou « cocuservateurs » pour les besoins de la francisation, savent pertinemment pourquoi O’Toole agit ainsi. Pourquoi avant sa démission « choc » Andrew Scheer refusait de parler de ses idées. Pourquoi l’ancien homme fort de la droite Stockwell Day décida de dévouer sa vie à la lutte contre le racisme, démissionnant de toutes ses fonctions pour avoir « nié » le racisme systémique. Pourquoi le Parti conservateur a éjecté Richard Descarie de la dernière course à la chefferie.
La véritable question n’est pas pourquoi cette fausse droite agit ainsi – elle n’a pas le courage de ses convictions et la vision nécessaire pour les défendre efficacement. La véritable question est : pourquoi y a-t-il encore des gens pour voter pour elle?
Quebecois de Souche/Old Stock Quebecker's Publication Le Harfang Comes to Derek Sloan's Defence After Erin O'Toole Seeks to Purge Him from Party After Paul Fromm Donation
FrommGate
Woke culture - we often talk about it - is the “trendy” version
political correctness with Stalinist sauce. As it is considered
as backward-looking to demand the gulag for the opponents, we impose
rather “cancel culture”, a fashionable “globish” term hiding a
much darker reality. May this vision seduce the left to
broad sense, we understand. Rare are those who really want
protect the freedom of expression of their enemies; so we approve
more or less tacitly, we denounce here and there excesses when they
hit one of ours for no reason, but in the end, the left likes
this overwhelmed power which allows him by throwing a fatwah to erase nothing more
no less the potential enemy.
What is more difficult to understand is why the right
begins to adhere to the woke culture.
On January 18, Canada was shocked to learn that one of the candidates for
Conservative chiefdom Derek Sloan received a check for $ 131 from
"White supremacist" Paul Fromm. In the hours that followed, Sloan
was ejected manu militari from the Conservative Party, without being able to answer
of these accusations (but what are we really accusing him of?).
To understand the case, you first need to know who Derek Sloan is,
Who is Paul Fromm, and how $ 131 is at stake.
people to vote for her? First, Derek Sloan was the campaign's most right-wing candidate
conservative, the only one to be openly opposed to abortion, the only
to be for a moral right and the only one to be in favor of freedom
expression. And precisely, Paul Fromm is the director of the Canadian
Association for Free Expression, a defense-based organization
freedom of expression. We can easily understand why this
last saw fit to donate to Sloan's campaign.
Only, we reproach Fromm, who is also a fierce opponent of
mass immigration, to defend the freedom of expression of all, this
which is not suitable in our society very "Charlie", not nor "
Soral ”nor“ Ryssen ”.
In short, we are witnessing a dubious double association: Fromm defends the
freedom of those who are scorned; he gives Sloan money, so
Sloan is a Nazi. Bingo! It took a few hours or even a few
minutes to Curator Erin O’Toole to conclude on this matter.
But the sum also represents a certain interest. By accepting a sum of a man, the politician is considered to be related to him. Maybe he even owes her something. This is what reporters and O’Toole seems to believe at least. And, aware of what are worth the politicians nowadays, they seem inclined to believe that the sum of $ 131 is enough to buy an MP in Ottawa! We have to believe that the Rizzuto family who "invested" thousands of dollars in the Liberal Party of Quebec for years should have invest in Ottawa and take advantage of Ontario deals. Beyond these reflections on ethics and corruption raised by inevitably this story of $ 131, it remains that it proves a umpteenth time the lack of clairvoyance and backbone of the clan conservative. Conservative strategists seem to spend too much time listening to the CBC: they don't realize that woke delusions are minority and there is nothing to be gained by playing against one's own camp. That CBC is making $ 131 the deal of the century is okay, and it is even a bit of a disturbing proof. A conservative candidate, a party conservative, a man of the right, should not seek to obtain the approval of the main left body in the country. In this, the conservatives should watch what is happening on the left. Nobody at UQAM does not seek the seal of approval of the Economic Institute of Montreal and Manon Massé never expelled anyone from her party for please Richard Martineau or Joseph Facal. That, everyone understands and accepts it. So why is the opposite not true? Those who know the expression "cuckservatives" or "cocuservateurs »For the purposes of francization, know very well why O’Toole does this. Why before his resignation "shock" Andrew Scheer refused to talk about his ideas. Why the former strongman of Right Stockwell Day decided to devote his life to fighting the racism, resigning from all his functions for having "denied" the systemic racism. Why the Conservative Party kicked out Richard Descarie of the last leadership race. The real question is not why this false right is acting like this - she does not have the courage of her convictions and the necessary vision to defend them effectively. The real question is: why is there do there still people vote for her?
For most Americans, there hasn’t really been time to stop and process what happened at the Capitol last Wednesday. Instead, we’re just trying to survive, fighting off daily waves of crackdown and retribution — punishment for a crime the vast majority of conservatives didn’t commit or condone. The people in power, the same ones who called the summer riots “the American Way,” are coming for our rights, our speech, even our livelihoods. Who will be left standing? If history is any indication — we will.
Right now, it’s a little hard to see beyond the present crisis, but our country has been at similar crisis points before. A generation who’s been robbed of the privilege of learning history can’t look backward — but if they could, they’d see that when our voice is threatened, the church always finds a way to respond. That doesn’t mean the next two years will be easy. What we’re witnessing in this moment may be the most dangerous corporate-political alignment this nation has ever seen. “Silencing, blacklists, social credit scores, threats…” We’ve woken up to an American where you support the wrong political ideology and suddenly, Tucker Carlson shakes his head, “you can’t communicate, and you have no legal representation, and you can’t fly in an airplane, and you can’t put your money in a bank.”
But the beauty of the American system is that we have the ability to correct this. In fact, that’s our nation’s story: the great obstacles and the greater comebacks. Our movement is a vital part of that. We can shrink back and wait for our powerlines to be cut or we can use the weapons we have: the airwaves, our broadcast booths, and any other means for getting our message out. Religious broadcasters still have reason to be concerned, attorney Craig Parshall agreed on “Washington Watch.” But this isn’t the first time an army of the Left has tried to cut off our microphones.
It wasn’t that long ago, Craig reminded everyone, that Bill Clinton tried to get a federal agency to create a definition of “hate speech” that they could use to shut down certain radio and television broadcasters. Of course, that fell flat when the agency, after about a year of work and public money, couldn’t come up with an accurate definition of the term. Then, Barack Obama took a crack at it with the FCC, floating the idea of local commissions that could enforce “community standards” and decide if content was appropriate. “That failed to gain traction,” Craig explains, “but it was threatened.”
For decades, liberals have tried to crack down on religious and conservative talk. We’re seeing it right now with Mark Levin. Cumulus Media is demanding that its host stop talking about a “stolen election.” “If you transgress this policy,” its memo warned, “you can expect to separate from the company immediately.” This same thing happened back in the communist era of the 1950s. People who wanted to preach the good news banded together, and look at the result! There’s more Christian programming out there today than there was 40 or 50 years ago when it was attacked. Obviously, there are bullies out there who think they can stop the truth or the gospel from going out. But I’ve got news for them: they never win.
Look at what happened with the Fairness Doctrine. It was entirely dismantled under the Reagan administration — and conservative talk flourished. Why? Because it goes to the heart of the American people who share these traditional values. “You just [have to] wonder,” Craig said, “what is the motivation for not having an open marketplace of lawful ideas?” And the answer is, the far-Left can’t compete with those ideas. So they want their opponents cowed, humiliated, and muted. “We’ve been marked as the enemy, because we oppose the idea that the state is superior to God… But there are those who believe that they have a better plan — and they [think] that we are better off under their soft totalitarian hand than we are with liberty.”
At the end of the day, we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing, regardless of how they mischaracterize us and our intentions. The battles are going to come — they always do — but we have to be just as resolute and unyielding. We’re going to continue to speak the truth in love, seek the face of God and His power, and rely on his strength to sustain us in what is going to be a very challenging chapter in the history of our country.
“The Great Commission is called ‘great’ for a reason,” Craig insisted. “When the apostle Peter got arrested, unlawfully dragged in before the council in Jerusalem, he said, ‘Look, you can do whatever you want to with me, but I can’t stop talking about what I have seen and heard in terms of the Savior, because I walk with him. We have the same commission today.” And that’s the determination the church needs right now. No matter what the other side does to us, no matter what they call us, we’re not going to be quiet.
FANTASTIC: A WHITE PROFESSOR STANDS UP: A VICTORY: UChicago refuses
to punish professor protested for criticizing diversity, equity and
inclusion efforts
[Finally
a White man stands up, a scientist. We need this BADLY. BADLY. The
universities are dominated by Jews, and their evils know no bounds. The
insanity is beyond imagination. Here is a professor who went on to
social media and did his thing. This is what many white doctors and
experts have done in the insane covid year of 2020. I hope this is the
first of many. It’s about time Western intellectuals, scientists and
academics stood up to this Jewish insanity. This gives me hope and this
is why I say: WORSE IS BETTER, just keep your head down and keep on
fighting forward. DON’T STOP. Educate other Whites and get stuck into
the fight folks. Jan]
‘To anyone who is reading this, I would say: don’t be afraid. If you see something wrong, speak out about it,’ embattled professor tells The College Fix
The University of Chicago has refused demands to punish a science
professor for speaking out against diversity, equity and inclusion
efforts.
Associate Professor Dorian Abbot recently took on the push to hire
women and underrepresented minorities rather than select the best
candidate for the job, bias against Chinese and Christian students, and
other hot-button topics, drawing the ire of protesting students who said
the scholar made them feel unsafe.
But their efforts to get him sanctioned failed at the University of
Chicago, considered the best university in the country for free speech.
“I’m just a simple physical scientist. The way I’ve always approached
my life is to tell the truth and try to do what is morally right,”
Abbot wrote in an email to The College Fix. Abbot is (and it looks like he will continue to be) a professor of geophysical science at the university.
After Abbot cut a series of videos in which he listed his specific
grievances with diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, “58 students
and postdocs of the Department of Geophysical Sciences, and 71 other
graduate students and postdocs from other University of Chicago
departments,” published a letter calling for Abbot to be sanctioned, according to a petition in support of the professor.
“The contents of Professor Dorian Abbot’s videos threaten the safety
and belonging of all underrepresented groups within the department and
serve to undermine Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiatives,” the
letter stated.
University President Robert Zimmer would not bow to their demands, however.
“We believe universities have an important role as places where novel
and even controversial ideas can be proposed, tested and debated. For
this reason, the University does not limit the comments of faculty
members, mandate apologies, or impose other disciplinary consequences
for such comments,” he wrote in a Nov. 29 statement to the community.
Abbot praised the decision in his email to The Fix.
“President Zimmer has a long-standing commitment to academic freedom
and this is a central part of the UChicago brand. Critically, our
commitment to academic freedom has been codified many times, most
recently in the ‘Chicago Principles,’” he wrote.
The “Chicago Principles”
he references were also mentioned by Zimmer in his statement. Defined
in 2014, they constitute the university’s “fundamental commitment … to
the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because
the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the
University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrong-headed.”
“The current ‘cancel culture,’” Abbot told The College Fix,
“has a powerful chilling effect on faculty, who fear for their jobs if
they speak their minds on critically important issues affecting the
future of our universities and our society.”
As such, “I feel that it is my duty to express my opinion on important matters,” he said.
“What concerns me is that recently we have been trying to fix bias
problems by building new biases into selection processes,” Abbot writes
in his first video.
According to a personal account
from Abbot, the university’s Title IX office wanted to investigate some
of his claims, and the comment sections of the videos became a
battleground where “a productive conversation was not occurring.” As a
result, he took them down.
While the videos have since been deleted from YouTube, the petition in support of Abbot managed tosavethe slides from them.
He recounts experiences he had on selection committees for
applicants. In many cases, although fewer women applied to the programs
than men, the committee would select more women, implying preferential
treatment, according to Abbot.
At one point, he claims that a dean once told members of a hiring
committee on which he served that the only applicant that would be
considered for the position would be “a woman or underrepresented
minority.”
The second video sees Abbot claim that there have been instances of
discrimination against Chinese students in his department. Other top
universities, such as Harvard and Yale, have been accused of doing the same in their admissions processes.
Abbot also mentions a conservative Christian student of his.
“He is always being excluded,” Abbot says, “and his opinions and cherished beliefs are mocked and dismissed regularly.”
In the third video, Abbot discusses the Shills Report. Produced by a
committee of UChicago scholars (including a Nobel Prize winner), the
report catalogs the three main functions of modern universities:
discovering new knowledge, teaching students that knowledge, and
training students for future careers.
Abbot adds his own corollary to the Shills report, detailing what universities are not supposed to be doing:
(1) advocating particular political ideologies,
(2) religious instruction of the population,
(3) attempting to adjudicate and effect social justice, and
(4) providing for the national defense.
In the fourth and final video, Abbot paints the big-picture
implications of the current “cancel culture” debate, naming
“consequences of treating human beings primarily as members of
groups rather than as individuals worthy of dignity and respect.”
He specifically references
the Holodomor, a famine in modern-day Ukraine. In its rush toward
collectivization, the USSR forced peasant farmers they called “Kulaks”
onto farming collectives. When the inefficiencies of the collectives
brought about the famine, the government increased the peasants’ grain
quotas, leading millions to starve to death.
Many scholars, along with the Ukrainian government, have classified the Holodomor as an act of genocide.
“The only way ‘cancel culture’ ends is for all of us to stand strong and when an attack comes, hold the line,” Abbot told The Fix.
“That said, try to understand the other side’s perspective and speak
in a way that is as generous and loving as possible,” he advised.
“Sometimes they will be unwilling to reason, and you will just have to
say your piece and move on. If we all try our best to do that, then I am
optimistic that we will get through this unfortunate phase in our
society.”
“To anyone who is reading this, I would say: don’t be afraid. If you see something wrong, speak out about it.”
Abbot said he hopes that his good reputation on campus will be maintained. If not, he is prepared for what’s to come.
“To quote the old Kris Kristofferson song: ‘Don’t let the bastards get you down.’”
A Federal Court judge last week set a chilling and far-reaching
precedent for the further overturning of basic democratic rights and
academic freedom, especially to express political or other dissenting
views.
The ruling backed the University of Sydney’s February 2019 dismissal of Dr. Tim Anderson,
an economics department senior lecturer, primarily on the basis of
allegations that his criticisms of US militarism and Israel’s oppression
of the Palestinian people were “offensive.”
The court decision is another warning of the poisonous and repressive
atmosphere being whipped up to silence opposition to the preparations
for Australian involvement in potentially catastrophic US-led wars
against China or other perceived threats to the global hegemony asserted
by Washington since World War II.
Significantly, the University of Sydney hosts the US Studies Centre,
which was established in 2006, with US and Australian government
funding, for the express purpose of overcoming popular hostility to US
militarism after the massive protests against the invasion and
occupation of Iraq.
The court’s judgment also exposed the fraud of claims by the National
Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) that its enterprise bargaining
agreements (EBAs) with universities protect the essential principle of
academic freedom.
Justice Thomas Thawley ruled that the university’s EBA with the
union, which is similar to those at most universities, “does not
recognise the existence of, or give rise to, a legally enforceable right
to intellectual freedom.”
In particular, Thawley declared that EBA “academic freedom” clauses
do not protect university workers from being sacked for making
comments—even on their private social media accounts—that managements
deem in breach of their employee codes of conduct. Instead, EBA
commitments to academic freedom were “purely aspirational.”
University of Sydney Institute Building, where United States Studies Centre is located (Photo source: Wikipedia)
This thoroughly anti-democratic decision comes on the back of a
similar result in another case taken to the courts by the NTEU. In July,
the Full Federal Court upheld the dismissal of James Cook University
academic Dr. Peter Ridd, for expressing his views, as a climate-change
sceptic, that cut across the university’s reputation.
Anderson’s case demonstrates how far university managements, working
in league with governments and the corporate media, can victimise
academics, especially those who oppose the wars of US imperialism and
its allies, including the Zionist regime in Israel.
Among the charges the University of Sydney made against Anderson was
that he tweeted, on his own Twitter account, criticism of the university
hosting an address by US Senator John McCain. Anderson described
McCain, a backer of every US military intervention for the past three
decades, including the brutal neo-colonial wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,
as “a key US war criminal.”
Other allegations included Anderson posting on his personal Facebook
account a photograph of a group of friends eating lunch, one of whom
wore an anti-Israel badge. Anderson was accused of “promoting racial
hatred and/or racism” and charged with violating the university’s Code
of Conduct even though he was on leave from the university at the time.
Anderson was further charged with posting to his Facebook and Twitter
accounts a denunciation of a video news report by Channel 7 reporter
Bryan Seymour that insinuated that Anderson supported racism and the
North Korean regime. Anderson’s comment that “Colonial media promotes
ignorance, apartheid and war” was declared “derogatory” toward Seymour.
Anderson was also cited for giving a lecture that allegedly featured
an Israeli flag with the Nazi swastika superimposed on it, examined
media coverage of Israel’s attack on Gaza in 2014, and encouraged
students to seek independent evidence of claims of “moral equivalence”
between Israel’s deadly aerial bombardments and primitive Palestinian
rocket attacks.
This was judged to be “derogatory and/or offensive” and as
“reasonably seen as racist towards or seeking to target and/or offend
Israelis and/or Jewish people and/or Jewish victims of the Nazi regime.”
Yet, critics of the Israeli government, including anti-Zionist Jews,
have often compared its persecution of the Palestinian people to the
actions of the fascist German regime.
Finally, Anderson was accused of breaching confidentiality orders
barring him from even telling anyone that he was facing dismissal, and
of failing to comply with “a lawful and reasonable direction” to delete
his social media posts.
The judge agreed with the university management’s determination that
Anderson’s posts and efforts to fight his dismissal amounted to “serious
misconduct” under both the NTEU’s EBA and the university’s Code of
Conduct, thus justifying his sacking.
Anderson’s dismissal followed a protracted campaign by senior figures
in the federal Liberal-National Coalition government, the corporate
media and university management, to demonise Anderson because of his
denunciations of wars and military interventions by the US, Israel and
other major powers.
In April 2018, Education Minister Simon Birmingham, who was in charge
of university funding, demanded an investigation into Anderson for
comments he made questioning US claims that the Syrian government was
responsible for a sarin gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun.
The Murdoch-owned Sydney Daily Telegraph hysterically denounced Anderson as a “sarin gasbag” and the Sydney Morning Herald
later reported that the university was taking disciplinary action
against Anderson—a media disclosure that violated its own
confidentiality regime.
Justice Thawley found Anderson’s dismissal as justified by the
university’s Code of Conduct, which imposes requirements such as “the
exercise of the best professional and ethical judgment,” “integrity and
objectivity,” being “fair and reasonable” and treating “members of the
public with respect, impartiality, courtesy and sensitivity.” The
university’s employees must also “uphold the outstanding reputation of
the University in the community.”
These formulations are so vague and value-laden that they could
provide a pretext for sacking academics or other university workers for
condemning government policies, denouncing corporate greed or accusing
the US and Australian governments of military aggression or war crimes.
Employees could be dismissed for criticising university policies, such
as hosting pro-military think tanks.
Virtually every university campus across the country now participates
in government-funded programs to tie academic research to the
development of new military technologies. Australian universities are
being integrated into a vast US-led military build-up, aimed at
preparing for war with China and other powers.
The NTEU’s response to the court ruling, as it was to Anderson’s
sacking itself, and the massive job cuts ravaging universities, is to
oppose any mobilisation of university workers and instead appeal to the
employers for a deal.
In a union media statement, NTEU New South Wales division secretary
Michael Thomson said: “We call on all Vice Chancellors to come to the
table to talk about how we can formulate a legally enforceable right, to
provide the appropriate protections for university staff and to avoid
these circumstances occurring in the future.”
The Federal Court’s support for Anderson’s victimisation is part of a
deeper attack on fundamental democratic rights. It widens the impact of
a High Court 2019 ruling that essentially abolished freedom of speech
for workers, whether in government or corporate employment. With no
dissent, the judges endorsed the sacking of a federal public servant for criticising—even anonymously—the country’s brutal refugee detention regime.
A warning must be sounded. The ruling class and its agencies,
including university managements, are seeking to suppress dissent amid
mounting social inequality, war preparations and deepening political
discontent.
Hence the federal police raids on journalists for publishing leaks
exposing government and military crimes, the prosecution of the
whistleblowers involved and the bipartisan backing for the persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
*
Note to readers: please click the share
buttons above or below. Forward this article to your email lists.
Crosspost on your blog site, internet forums. etc.
Featured image: Dr. Tim Anderson (Photo source: Facebook)
Trudeau defends the right to protest in India as Canadians are arrested and fined for doing the same
He’s sucking up to another privileged minority — the Sikhs. In his first Cabinet, there were 4 Sikhs or 16%, but the constitute less than one per cent of Canada’s population. These farmers are mostly Sikhs.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau released a statement Tuesday morning expressing support for striking farmers in India.
Hundreds
of thousands of farmers in India have taken to the streets to protest
proposed agricultural laws which they argue will destroy their
livelihoods. The laws seek to deregulate crop pricing, which the
government says will break up monopolies, but opponents suggest will
leave farmers at the mercy of large corporations.
“Canada will
always be there to defend the right of peaceful protest,” Trudeau said
in his statement. He described the situation as “very concerning,”
further noting that he has “reached out to Indian authorities to
highlight” Canada’s concerns.
Meanwhile, Canadians who protest
against the government have frequently been subject to fines for
breaking coronavirus-related lockdown restrictions. An Independent MPP
in Ontario was recently handed a fine
for organizing a protest at Queen’s Park, the province’s legislature,
while the organizer of an anti-lockdown protest in Chatham-Kent, Ontario
was fined for organizing to oppose government lockdown restrictions.
A man in Etobicoke, Ontario who attempted to open his barbeque business was handed criminal charges for refusing to comply with lockdown orders, an event which gained significant media traction.
Measures
have been taken outside of Ontario to restrict freedom of assembly as
well. A man was fined in Saskatoon earlier this month for protesting against mask mandates, while the Manitoba government has promised to do the same to protesters in their province.
Also
in Manitoba, RCMP were sent to physically block the highway entrance to
a church which was attempting to host a Sunday prayer service.
Churchgoers were even prevented
from listening to the service from their own cars in the parking lot
due to the possibility of spreading coronavirus. According to Manitoba’s
Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Brent Roussin, gatherings of cars are
dangerous for the spread of coronavirus because some people might need
to use the bathroom, and more than one household may be present in a
single vehicle.
The
lockdown measures restricting the freedom of assembly guaranteed in the
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are meant to prevent the spread
of coronavirus. Yet despite having more than 9.4 million confirmed
cases of the virus, Trudeau has encouraged protests in India while
remaining silent as protesters are fined and arrested in Canada.
A spokesman from the Indian Ministry of External Affairs condemned Trudeau’s comments, describing them as “ill-informed” and “unwarranted.”
Yesterday, a group of public figures, including authors, signed a letter in Harpers, effectively denouncing cancel culture.
They suggest that we are living in a
society where individuals cannot speak out or voice dissenting opinions
because they will face backlash, including being fired from their job, for voicing or giving a platform to controversial views. This is similar to a question employees raise with respect to their employer: can I be fired for what I post on my social media or opinions I express in my workplace?
In Ontario, the short answer is yes.
This answer may be surprising to many because the response I often receive from clients is, “what about my right to free speech?”. While free expression (which is broader than speech) is a Charter protected right, it does not provide the type of protection most people expect it to and is generally misunderstood. This blog attempts to clear up a few of the frequent misconceptions I hear about free expression in Canada and explain why an employer can discipline you for offensive comments.
Free expression (and all Charter rights) only applies to government actions that limit those rights.
Misconceptions about free expression
Free expression (and all Charter rights) only applies to government actions that limit those rights. In other words, if you work for a private corporation the Charter does not
apply to your employer’s actions. If you work for the government, then
you may have a right to express yourself; however even that has limits. So, unless you work for the government, you are not being denied a Charter right if you are fired for voicing an opinion.
Similarly, and contrary to the views of the authors of the Harper’s piece, even if free expression applies,
dissent to your opinions or even telling you to stop voicing those
opinions is not contrary to the principle of free expression. The
concept of free expression comes from the idea of a marketplace of
ideas. The marketplace of ideas is a capitalist concept that in a free
society we allow all ideas to come to a market, where they can be
debated and discussed. The superior ideas thrive and become accepted by society, while the inferior or offensive ideas are rejected.
To use pharmaceuticals as an analogy: when drug companies come to market with new products that help people, those products become widely used. When companies come to market with products that do not
work or hurt people, the market rejects those products. If the drug
company keeps coming back to the market with the same product that hurt
people, or releases one product that seriously harms people, Shoppers
Drug Mart will stop carrying that brand.
Free expression is meant to operate in the
same way. To take Jordan Peterson as an example, he has had numerous
opportunities to express his opinions, including as an author and
university professor. Most people rightfully called out his comments as
offensive and hurtful, stopped reading him, and when he continued to
voice those same opinions, eventually insisted that institutions refuse
to provide him a platform. While numerous people said this was
inconsistent with free expression, it was in fact the point of free
expression: the marketplace has rejected his ideas.
Free expression is not whack-a-mole, where JK Rowling and Jordan Peterson get to keep voicing the same transphobic comments without consequence and society has to keep bashing them with a hammer, despite what the authors of the Harpers letter said. Society can reject, shame and cancel that person for continuing to come to the market to insist that their harmful views be expressed.
In summary, free expression does not apply
to your employer (unless you work for the government) and does not
provide you with a platform to repeatedly voice harmful opinions.
Back to the main question: can I be fired?
In Ontario, you can be fired for almost anything, so the better question that you should ask is: can I be fired for just cause for voicing my opinion. The answer to that is maybe. Just cause is where your employer
terminates you without notice or compensation. Courts apply a highly
contextual approach, particularly for off-duty comments, to determine
whether you can be fired without compensation for what you say. It will
depend on the comments themselves, how often you commented, who you said
it to, whether the employer previously condemned the comments, the
impact the comments had on your employer, and a variety of other
factors.
It is difficult for an employer to convince a judge that it had just cause to terminate someone, so most just fire people without cause, by providing them with notice of termination with no reasons (see our other blogs about the amount of severance you might be entitled to here). In
other words, if your employer is concerned about opinions you have
voiced, and doesn’t want to fight about just cause, it can fire you by
paying you out and you would have no way to fight it. While there are
some exceptions to this (for example if you were voicing concerns
related to health and safety, human rights, or Employment Standards),
you generally have no way of challenging this.
This is particularly true because
employers are beginning to recognize that they must do more to address
racism and discrimination in the workforce. One of the ways they must do this is by immediately addressing harmful expression made both in and outside the workplace that hurts other staff or customers.
As such, if your employer fires you for voicing an opinion, there is very little you can do the challenge that decision, unless they allege cause.
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/739/611/edm-kenney-nonewmeasures-web-sept28_7000kbps_1280x720_1953916995744.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
