A Knapsack of Conservative Literature Scooped by Customs Censors

Is a speech by former U.S. Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) about Martin Luther King “hate propaganda”? Some eager beaver censor wannabe at Canada Customs or Canada Border Service Agency, as it is now called, seems to think so. Activist Douglas Pearson was one of several Canadians returning from the July 6-7 annual conference of the Council of Conservative Citizens in Nashville, TN on July 8. He flew into Toronto’s Island Airport. His knapsack was ransacked and searched. What did the agent find? A pound of cocaine? A bag of smelly khat leaves, so beloved by Toronto’s drug addled Somali youth? No, nothing so dramatic. The agent found “literature.” When all was said and done, the snoops haul included: the Frankfurt School, a dvd produced by the Conservative Citizens Foundation; Communism With the Mask Off, a speech delivered in Nurnberg on September 13, 1935 by Dr. Joseph Goebbels; Pre-Emptive Ideology, Occasional Papers of the Citizens’ Foundation, Issue #7; The King Holiday and its Meaning, speech by Senator Jesse Helms, introduction by Samuel Francis; The Citizens Informer, Vol. 45, No. 1 (newspaper published thrice yearly by the Council of Conservative Citizens); The First Freedom, June, 2012, a newspaper; The Alabamian, May-June, 2012, a newsletter published by the Alabama Council of Conservative Citizens and CofCC Board member Leonard Wilson; and the Northwest Observer, Volumes #115 (February, 2012), #116 (March, 2012), and #117 (April, 2012), published by long-time U.S. writer Harold Covington.
This seizure #2012-4952-K27-0013 was made, presumably because the literature was considered “hate.” The suspect material then sent off to the “Prohibited Importations Unit” at 150 Isabella St. in Ottawa. If the material is deemed to fall under Classification D9-1-15 of the Custom Act – that is, “hate propaganda” – it will be seized. The victim can appeal through the bureaucracy. If the appeal is unsuccessful, the victim can take the matter to court. CAFÉ has considered this latter course on several occasions, but the cost might be $40,000 to salvage a $5 book. Should there be no appeal, “the material will be destroyed 90 days after the date of determination.” How are books destroyed? A good supporter of CAFÉ who had a copy of David Duke’s Jewish Supremacism seized some years ago, was told by a Customs officials that they were “burned.” So, our thought police practise book burning in Canada.

CAFÉ has fought the censorship provisions of the Canada Customs Act for 30 years. Persecutions and Customs censor vigilance wax and wane. In one orgy of censorship madness in the late ‘90s, Paul Fromm had a book bag with some 90 items, including Irish Fairy Tales, seized. He got almost all of the books back in the end. However, the thought policing powers of the Customs Act are an affront to free speech and the seizure of one’s property for “determination” is a violation of our rights to property, rights Trudeau’s Charter did not confer on us. Many Canadians have been deceived by this Napoleonic piece of sophistry. Anglo-Saxon law says the citizen has the right to do anything, except what is expressly forbidden by laws. The Napoleonic system says the citizen has only the rights conferred upon him by the State, The Charter’s rights are bogus, all subject to such “restrictions as are demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” The continual gutting of our free speech rights under the Charter shows how weak it is.