4% ~ Wednesday, August 20, 1997 — North Shore News

Yes, TH

By Paul St. Pierre
Contributing Columnist

FIRST we have Mad Dog Collins,
the columnist who could never resist
running out on the street and biting
the tires of every car that goes by.

Next, the Thought Police
spend a couple of years
thinking abour this habir of
his and then a month, or is ir
two months, talking to each
other somberlv about it.

Now'the North Shore
Mews, which has been foot-
ing the considerable legal
bill, is running freedom of

: speech p: ages.
- “It seems just about any-
“body can get-in on this fight
and there’s no reason. .
. .. Should not. After all, I wes
.. the only man who stood up
in the 29th parliament fo say
~ | disapproved, in principle, of
the Hate Literature Bill alr
- which was then passed. ©
: * Pierre Trudeau, its origi-
= nator in the.previous
Paes ‘nt where he served
: Minister, looked at.me with what I
oe fancied to be amused approval. No doubr he
Mo didn’t tHe his bill being. ‘opposed by one of his.
MPs but he wes a truc intellectu-
: ally welcomed the free flow of
“opinions in any place at any time.
7 “anybody tries to find.a House of...
.Commons oration by me on this subject, teri it
‘be said. thiere wasn’t one... Ss,

-ST. Pierre ... “the law--

. makers have turned to
George Orwell's 1984 for
their inspiration.”

As with so much legislation, the Hate
Literature Bill went crabwise through the
House. None of the parties wanted a regis-
tered vote so it was agreed, as such things are
so often agreed, that one minor amendment
should be defeated by a standing vore, after
which the whole bill would be passed by voice
vote without nays being spoken.
Being more irritated than
usual about such deals, which
are designed to hide the posi-
tion of parties and of MPs
individually, [ spake ta
Speaker Lucien Lamoureux,
before the House met, saying
I would be rising to explain
why I had not risen to regis-
ter a vote on the amendment.
He looked at me with a cold
eye, and he had the coldest
eyes in Ottawa and said, “You
may rise ...” leaving unsaid
the rest of the sentence,
which was, “... but I may not
sec you.”
When the time came, he did
see me and I was brief. “Mr.
Speaker, I did not vote upon

- this amendment because I am
opposed to this bill in princi-

le.

The sound of one hand clapping. Oh well,
Parliament is often that way.

It’s all far away and of scant significance
now, I opposed the Fizte Literature Bill for
two reasons: one, it was yet another loss of
the freedom I once volunteered to risk my
foolish young neck to fight for; two, because I

felt it attempted to do the impossible, to leg-

islate not how men should behave but how

Columnists —

SE ideas have their p

they should think.

Making windows in men’s souls, as Sir
Walter Raleigh complained about so many
years ago in the English Commons. Many
other MPs agreed with me privately, but we
all had more important things to think about
most of the time, or so it seemed.

Since then, both in Ottawa and in Victoria,
the lawmakers have turned to George
Orwell’s 1984 for their inspiration.

In British Columbia we now have Thought
Policemen and a hate Jaw that was greeted in
the legislature by government MLAs boasting
that they had found a way to get around the
criminal law assumption of innocent until
proven guilty.

The Supreme Court of Canada, dealing
with a charter of rights case, has declared that
some Canadians are more equal than others.

We have just survived, although barely, a
federal justice minister w! ho wanted to send
police into our homes without warrant to
seize our hunting guns.

Nobody, least of all those close to him,
believes the justice minister created such a law
for public safety. He did it in what he consid-
ers to be a higher cause — social engincering.
He doesn’t like guns, therefore nobody else
should and those who deo should be repro-

ed by the state.

Canada has been party to the defeat of two
totalitarian systems, the Nazis in war and the
Communists in bluster about war, yet we have
ended by adopting many of their policies. -

As in Nazi Germany, as in Communist-:
Russia and Eastern Europe, the assault upon
citizens’ freedoms is led by the universities.

How many universities anywhere in
Canada today would permit a truly free flow
of opinion?

(Dn the now-; famous column about “Swindler’s List,” -
Collins may have implied that only a. few hundred thousand

Jews were killed in

¢ Holocaust, but he did not write that.

What he wrote was that he did not deny that hundreds of
. thousands. died. You can’t take a person to court over that, oe
Paula Brook, Vancouver Sun, May 21, 1997 :

boa.

To date the community newspaper's F Free Speech .
Defence Frind has raised more than $120,000 to.

iced thousands of inches of c copy on

p n
of Dap , the. North Shoze‘News and free

speech. Some have been scandalized, others sympathetic, 7 :

rd so plain confused.:
nd. i media a ys q' quick to exploit an

pant navel-gazing, the letters to the

for dippings symbolize the whole point of this legal

ect: the climate for open and public disserta- . . '

er of topics (yes, even the really nasty
ones). Th following excerpts bear testimony to the pas-

‘ | in some cases ignorance — this debate has “A
It to the fore i i .

them is... This ts an inherent right. The antidote to
say lies in other people’s right to respond, not

pruous B. . Iegislation should be struck
ene and the federal law that gives it succor
Lyould be repealed.
R Globe @ Mail editorial, May 13, 1997

Qo00

: Free yeech is more is poet than Collins. The B.C. leg-
+ islasion should be struck own immediately, if not sooner.

' Wealready have hate legislation in the Criminal Code,
and there are problems with that. We don’t need more
Orwellian legislation to curb the dissemination of controver-
Sial opinions.

“The quality of his (Calling) views is not at issucs bis right

: help pay the hefty legal fees incurred when the com--

mussion decided to hear a complaint filed by the.
Canadian Jewish Congress. . .
T hate to tell these free-speech fighters that. theyre’ _
. throwing their money away — especially as their”:
newspn, eis joing to need a lot more of it to con- .
tinue t all the way to the Supreme Court,

a ally defence. No one is trying to take free speech

away ay from Doug Collins. . a
Brook, Vancouver Sun, June 4, 1997
000 .

Canada wants it both ways — individual freedom
plus social responsibility. We can complain about

this, but it might be wiser to embrace this ambigui- . ;
ty because it goes to the beart of the Canadian con-

dition. That what makes Canada one of the
world’s more humane countries to live in, and why |
is goo ood for us to do battle on these very ary issues, daily and
passion. It forces us to recognize that there are rights

and wrongs on both sides and that compromise is the only

solution among friends.
Paula Brook, Vancouver Sun, June 11, 1997
Q00

1 believe that it’s a right protected yy Canada’s Charter
of Rights and Freedoms — or if it isn’s, it ought to be. Unless
our constitution safeguards nonsense, including insubordi-
nate nonsense like Collins’ piece, it safeguards nothing. Ir

asit bas j promised. But someone bas to say it. This is

Damn few, that’s how many.

Both universities in the Vancouver district
have seen Political Correctness used prenty
much the way the Storm-troopers used anu
Jewish legislation in Germany — no broke: 1s
heads yer, but broken careers. Higher educa:
tion is no guarantee of higher ethics, as John
Ralston Saul has said so eloquently...

One can quote almost endlessly fro
Ralcigh, Saul, Jefferson and the rest to
port the case ‘that in a truly free societ
idea is to be promulgated, the faith-bein 4 & thi
the general public will choose what. is B ;
and reject what is not.

“Yes, of course,” cries the citizen, |
{ agree. But not ideas like THAT!”

Yes, ideas like THAT have their. ia
however small, in the great public ate :

The Americans lost their courage. afte he a
Second World War and went on‘a shamefil
witch hunt for Bolsheviki under the be
Canadians are now losing courage’
freedom, year by year, law by law, as they:f
to invent punishments for political incorrect
ness: Not too © many People notice “Ne

. too confidendy, with the words

framer of the U.S. Constitution
Madison. The American Pei le
never. submit to 2 ‘rant. who ‘co

them sword in hand. B they. rx may giv
their freedoms ‘to well-

freedom away, a little bi

they perceive to be th

“and wewspaper c

he served as a Member ‘Parlia

: Chiteosi

NEWS lawyers David Sutherland (right) and Jonathan
of Killam, Whitelaw and Twining, with a portion of:

. Toronto Sun editorial, May 16, 1997
oo ; gou '30-fect’ “ot.
material generated by the News’ human rights battl ae

See Quates page 20