He writes:
In the Canada of my parentage, crazy people were not humoured with a legislative agenda.
I’ve received a personal taste of the budding totalitarian order in the ministrations of the Ontario Press Council. Ottawa reader Carol Wainio, who already brought one complaint against me that was eventually dismissed by the OPC, has recently brought another. In both cases the complaint struck me as completely batty and bogus; but in each case, I and my senior editors are reduced to the time-consuming, and expensively chilling process of justifying my right to my opinions. In a country with a long history of press freedom, this is an obscenity.
(…)
By chance, the American Political Science Association has an annual convention scheduled for Toronto next year. This prestigious academic organization is, by its own constitution, committed to neutrality on every political issue except that of academic freedom. A petition is now circulating among its members, expressing anxiety about the possibility of “human rights” complaints against individual members, while on Canadian soil. Search out the members’ petition online, and you will find among its signatories many of the most prominent names in contemporary political science and philosophy.
By rumour, I’m aware that a similar anxiety has been expressed within the American Bar Association, which also sometimes holds conventions up here…
