At HotAir, Ed Morrissey writes:
APSA stands for free political debate, unfettered by government censorship and dire financial consequences. Unfortunately at the moment, Canada doesn’t protect those values, preferring a government-mandated speech code imposed by threat of force or financial ruin. The case against Ezra Levant, Mark Steyn, and MacLean’s showed this; even though they were eventually exonerated (with a remarkable dollop of ungraciousness by the Commission), it cost the defendants a fortune to clear themselves of a ridiculous charge.
Until Canada disbands its commissions that impose political correctness on citizens and visitors, APSA should find another venue for its mission.
Perhaps this will in some small way shame Canada into listening to its better instincts and stop government censorship of political discourse.
Here’s my original post on the subject from a few days ago:
“Toronto: the old Iroquois word for ‘shut up or you’re under arrest”
Meanwhile, a Toronto prof writes in the G&M:
I loathe human-rights commissions as much as anyone. They are an excrescence on our body politic, and they make Canada a less free society, not a freer one. Their procedures are grossly unfair, placing intolerable pressures, financial and otherwise, on defendants to settle their cases even where they are innocent. They represent a malign bureaucracy run wild. There are other legal avenues for pursuing issues of discrimination, and any federal government with guts would at the very least rein in these commissions.
But…
