THE forces of righteousness are out to remove the public from your public library. Snicker if you like in the back row, but we are not far from removing the right of free assembly at one of our most trusted public piaces of free and open thought. The issute revelves, as it chronically seems to these day's, around a retired News columnist, the mention of whose name alone is enough to send some into blind rages that skew normal reason. For the purposes of this discussion he shall therefore be referred to simply as Columnist X because the issue here is about more than one Person. It’s about special interest groups and the growing power they wield over democ- racy and their threat to the good health thereof. As chronicled in a previous North Shore News story, Columnist X was involved iast year in a Canadian Free Speech League forum ar the Vancouver public library's main braach. Tr was organized to raise funds to help Cofumnist X launch a court challenge to sections of the province's anti-free-speech Human Right Code. Columnist X was the keynote speaker, His subject: “The NDP's attack on free speech.” Sounds like an issue the cultivators of open minds might find of interest. Unfortunately, Columnist X has expressed opinions that fall far outside of what some consider to be politically acceptable bounds. Columnist X also contin- ues to adhere to the same yarns old-fashioned principles he did when he was a full-time newspaper columnist: that opinions and ideas are the stuffand glue of intellectual intercourse and that the only way issues and ideas can be properly weighed and tested is for thern to be discussed freely in che open marketplace of ideas. Those were the days. These days in Canada that unfortunately is not the way of it at all. To cut to the chase: a mob of protesters showed up at the library event. They blocked access to the meeting for those that wanted to attend. They kicked and pounded on the door of the meeting room throughout Columnist X's speech. They pulled fire alarms. They in short broughe mob thuggery to bear ona peaceful assembly of citizens. But being on the side of “wht and good, they were largely beyond public criti- cism in the media and else- where. They were fighting the good fight against “racism, bigotry” and a host of other trigges words thar short-cir- cuit the thought processes of so many these days and send the mob baying at the moon. Whar Columnist X was talking about at the library event, though he could hardiy be heard above the mob’s ae $55 BOs A din, was the danger posed to his and every other British Columbian’s rights of free expression by the province's Human Rights Code. The upshot of the near riot was that heat has been brought to bear on the library and its room rental policy. A spokesman for some- thing called the Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of B.C. complained about the use of the hbrary by groups that “preach hate and intoler- ance.” The spokesman claimed that her group was not opposed to such groups being allowed to meet as long as they didn’t meet at the public library, as to who would decide which groups were too unpleasant to qualify for a library meeting venue, thar was not clarified by the spokesman. But it’s not too difficult to guess who it would be. A Vancouver Public Library “Public Meetings in Public Places” forum was sub- sequently scheduled to be held this past week to consid- er the question: “Is it ever appropriate for the library to censor free speech?” That proved, however, to be too candid for the alleged- ly aggrieved, who profess to be open- -minded but are really nothing of the sort. A subsequent Feb. 4 library press release announced that the forum question had since been “refined™ to the far less incen- diary and far less honest: “Is it ever appropriate for the brary to deny use of its pub- lic meeting space?” The forum has also been ies versus cle rescheduled for later in the spring -— the issue being a touch too hot for considera- tion now, A similar attempt to fiddle with the open-minded philosophies of area libraries vas spear-headed last year by North Vancouver City Coun. Darrell Mussatto. Two months after a May 14 fundraiser held on behalf of Columnist X in a North Vancouver City library room, Mussatto floated his Anti- Hate Activity Policy, which would have placed all focal public facilities off-linits to anyone city fathers deemed to have the wrong opinions. Media reports of the May 14 mecting initially peddled the fiction that 100 skinheads had attended. In reality, there were no skinheads at all at the meeting. But accuracy and objectivity count for naught in the fight against “racism.” The Canadian Free Speech League of course is not on the political A list. Bur it still has the right in this country to free assembly and the right te use public facilities. As League representative Doug Christie pointed out in a news report about the library rhubarb, Canada’s libraries are one of the few venues still beyond the reach of the “econoniic intimida- tion” +f special interest pres- sure groups — the so-called anti-hate brigade who use hate as their weapon of choice to bully private businesses into cancelling rental of their facilities by groups they don’t like. And, as Christie said, he’s not going to be forced to meet in secrec in this allegedly democratic land to talk about free speech. Nor should he, or anyone else. Libraries remain one of the fast public places in Canada dedicated to the open “Native JEWELLERY/ Wepoinca Rinas” 441 West 3rd Street, North Vancouver 988-9215 exchange and consideration of ideas — good, bad, outra- geous or indifferent. Their meeting rooms, like the ideas contained in the books they house, are public tesources that should remain beyond the control of special interest pressure groups. Once those rooms have been hijacked by the political- ly correct, the ideas that reside in those books will be nent. —renshaw@nsnews.com Join us for ... Friday to Monday 3 course specials (eciuding Sunday Roast Beat) There's always room for 2 more 2427 Marine Dr. W. Yan. 426-S83E AND DELIVER YOUR LAUNDRY 985-9503 Synthetic/Cotton comforter « $9. Sleeping bags - $9.50 ather/Down pillows - $7.00-~ "sy thetic/Cotton pillows - $5. 00 : Skits '- $5.00 ‘Suit Jackets - $5.50 2pe Sult/Dress - $8.7: Oress - $8.00 Winter Coat - $10.50 on, Lube & Fitter 21 pt. 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