Full Comment - The Overthrow of Free Speech, Merit, and Equality in Post-Liberal Canada

00:00:00.000 Hi everyone, thanks for joining us to discuss a very important and often heated issue, free

00:00:08.300 speech. The conversation has only become more pressing these days as we debate Bill C-10 in

00:00:13.780 the House of Commons, what can and can't be said during the pandemic, restrictions on the online

00:00:19.200 world, political and academic censorship, and how to tackle extremism of all sorts. But before we

00:00:25.680 get to our guest, I want to tell you a story. I never forget this incident that happened to me

00:00:30.420 over 15 years ago. I attended a public event at the University of Toronto, where I was a student at

00:00:36.180 the time, and it was on the issue of hate speech. The topic was, is hate speech free speech? The

00:00:42.160 speaker, a tenured professor at the school, was writing a book on the issue, and he ultimately

00:00:46.540 concluded that, yes, hate speech, however much you may hate it, is indeed free speech, generally

00:00:51.680 speaking. Yes, it's good that there are already laws governing things such as a defamation and

00:00:56.380 libel, and you certainly can't threaten to kill a person and get away with it, but everything else, 0.92

00:01:01.320 you know, being a jerk, saying really offensive things online, well, you know, it may not be 0.97

00:01:05.320 desirable, don't raise your kids to be that guy, but it's not against the law, and it shouldn't be. 0.99

00:01:10.740 So that was the general thrust of the event that I attended, which in advance was advertised in the

00:01:15.080 student papers, online, and on posters around the school. And oh boy, you won't believe what happened

00:01:20.300 at that event. Several dozen people showed up. The professor, who was rather bland and apolitical,

00:01:26.420 gave his presentation. Afterwards, people asked questions. Some agreed. Some disagreed. Unfortunately,

00:01:32.940 there was no free food there, which is one of the main reasons students attend such extracurricular

00:01:37.000 events, and so afterwards, everyone just went home, and that was it. That's my story. Kind of remarkable,

00:01:43.900 right? Because not long after that, similar events on free speech happened at campuses around the

00:01:48.920 country, and they did not go over so well. Fire alarms pulled, protests, violence even. And now

00:01:55.060 universities know better, and such events, well, they just don't really happen anymore. Such

00:01:59.480 conversations don't happen anymore, not just on campus, but anywhere. Was my little polite and

00:02:05.880 respectful free speech event the end of an era? What is happening on campuses today? In broader society,

00:02:13.060 online, in our legislatures? Do we have free speech in Canada anymore? Does the controversial

00:02:18.820 Bill C-10 infringe upon free speech, or are such concerns overblown, and yes, government must do

00:02:23.980 more to police our words and our online conduct? One of the best guests in Canada to tackle this issue

00:02:29.740 is Bruce Pardy, a professor of law at Queen's University and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute.

00:02:35.260 He joins us now. Hey, Bruce, how are you doing?

00:02:38.420 I'm very well, Anthony. Thanks for having me.

00:02:40.180 Yeah, great to have you. Thanks so much for joining us. Let's jump right into it. You wrote a recent column

00:02:44.920 in the National Post on Bill C-10, that legislation that, well, it was making its way through the

00:02:50.140 House of Commons, and now it kind of seems like a fait accompli. It's going to be enacted. And you

00:02:55.640 say pretty forward in that column, Bill C-10 is an autocratic piece of legislation. Describe

00:03:02.400 what the bill is to us and, well, why we are facing something as troubling as autocratic legislation

00:03:08.200 and what should be Free Canada. Right. So Bill C-10, when you first read the draft,

00:03:15.540 it doesn't sound autocratic. It doesn't sound like it's a real threat because all it claims to do is

00:03:20.960 to update the Broadcasting Act so as to give the CRTC the jurisdiction to regulate online companies as

00:03:31.880 well as the regular television and radio stations to bring the Broadcasting Act into the 21st century.

00:03:39.180 So it sounds pretty boring. I mean, already for regular listeners, they're glazing over and they're

00:03:42.920 like, yeah, CRTC stuff, you know, I don't care. What does this have to do with me?

00:03:46.880 Exactly. Exactly. And when the bill first came out, people thought exactly what you just said,

00:03:53.480 like, yeah, whatever. But the first iteration of the bill had an exception in it. And the exception

00:04:00.880 was that that it would not apply to the online content of individual users of social media

00:04:08.460 platforms. That means that the CRTC would have no jurisdiction to oversee what you put in your video

00:04:15.860 on YouTube. While in committee, that exception was removed. And so although it is still the case

00:04:24.840 that the CRTC will not regulate you directly if you put videos or pictures or the like, but it will have

00:04:34.600 the jurisdiction to police that content and to do so by policing and regulating the online platforms

00:04:43.680 themselves. And so in other words, what the CRTC now has the power to do is to make these online

00:04:51.200 platforms regulate their users. And so for example, if you put together a video and you post it on

00:04:58.440 YouTube, it might be that nobody watches it because YouTube has put it at the bottom of the list.

00:05:04.520 They've buried it at the behest of CRTC policies. And that means that your online speech is no longer

00:05:11.760 free, whether or not you are putting stuff up there or whether or not you're trying to watch it or

00:05:16.100 listen to it or read it. You just can't tell now whether you're getting the real goods because

00:05:21.640 it's CRTC will now be interfering in what you see. And you know, it's really interesting. One

00:05:28.420 thing I learned at Lauren Gunter writing about in a column recently in the post media paper saying

00:05:31.860 the liberals have actually budgeted nearly $4 million this year just for the CRTC to hire

00:05:37.420 consultants and start staff working on a proposal for how much more money and staff they're going to

00:05:42.320 need to sort of monitor all of these internet activities. And it's like, oh, they actually

00:05:46.900 are. This is not just about tweaking one word here or there for, you know, whatever technical reason,

00:05:52.640 but it looks like they are planning to start doing stuff.

00:05:56.340 Oh, yes. Now they're taking this very seriously. And what I mean by that is that we are now in the

00:06:01.520 era where it actually is not accepted as a given that speech shall be free, that what you say is your

00:06:10.440 business and what you want to listen to is your business. That's not true. Now, mind you, in this

00:06:15.660 country, we've been in a situation for a long time that that hasn't been the case on TV and radio,

00:06:21.540 because the CRTC for a long time has regulated Canadian content and so on. So this is a long

00:06:29.960 pedigree. But it is really becoming extreme now. If you were to put that proposition to somebody in

00:06:37.540 the government, I think, or at the CRTC, do you believe that speech, the default position for

00:06:45.100 speech is that speech is free and government should not be interfering? I don't think that idea would

00:06:50.680 be accepted. And everything else follows from that. Now, one of the things that's very odd is

00:06:55.320 the justifications that have come about for both Bill C-10 and kind of other ways that Heritage

00:06:59.660 Minister Stephen Guilbault and other figures in the Liberal government talk about all this. Because

00:07:03.640 in one breath, they talk about, look, this is really just about Canadian content. And we need

00:07:08.680 a mechanism to sort of ensure that, you know, Netflix and Amazon Prime and so forth are sort of

00:07:14.220 living up to their obligations and maybe new ways to get some tax dollars for them for CanCon and so

00:07:20.180 forth and all that. And you go, okay, I don't know if this is the mechanism for it. Fine. And then in

00:07:24.660 other breaths, we've seen Stephen Guilbault go before committee hearings and talk about the fact that,

00:07:30.240 oh, one should not, for instance, be allowed to, like, criticize public servants because it makes

00:07:36.080 their jobs difficult. Or, like, really bizarre comments like that where you're like, what on

00:07:40.420 earth is going on here? We have Michael Wernick, who was the former chief clerk of the Privy Council,

00:07:44.800 so, of course, the top public servant in all of the country on a federal level, saying, look,

00:07:49.860 this online environment's crazy. You know, we got to crack down on stuff that's going on. I mean,

00:07:54.320 they talk about the CanCon in one breath. And then, like I said, they're really talking about,

00:07:58.600 I don't know, you're not even allowed to say you don't agree with the public service.

00:08:02.960 Right. Yes. And the liberals, in addition to C-10, the liberals have been promising to bring forth

00:08:10.680 other legislation that will directly regulate so-called hate speech and misinformation

00:08:16.120 online. And you know you're in trouble when governments propose to do that, because, of course,

00:08:22.500 the definition of hate speech, the definition of misinformation is going to be in their hands.

00:08:26.880 That's just full-blown censorship. And that's the route that we're on. I don't know if it'll

00:08:31.680 happen in this session, because this session is running out of days. But if the liberals are to

00:08:36.620 be re-elected, this is one of the things that they have said that they will do. And that goes far

00:08:41.720 beyond what Bill C-10 threatens to do. This will be, at least they've suggested, it will be more of a

00:08:49.640 direct government control over what you can and cannot say online.

00:08:53.360 One of the things that I find very interesting about the misinformation conversation is the kind

00:09:00.060 of ever-changing definitions that are going on and the lack of specificity of, okay, what exactly

00:09:06.300 are we talking about here? I can give one really clear-cut example of misinformation that is very

00:09:12.180 problematic. So former Colonel Russell Williams, he has been convicted of murder, of course. He was a

00:09:18.240 former Colonel in the Canadian Armed Forces, and he is incarcerated right now. A few years ago,

00:09:23.600 there were Eastern European and, I guess, Russian allied media who were claiming that the Canadian

00:09:29.820 troops who were stationed over in that area, over in Eastern Europe, for the sort of NATO missions we

00:09:35.700 do to sort of check Russian aggression and so forth, there was media claiming that he was the

00:09:40.540 commanding officer on the ground. So, of course, the goal of that was to let the, for the people to not

00:09:46.780 support the presence of Canadian forces in their communities and say, look, they got a murderer.

00:09:50.560 They got this crazy guy running things over there. You do not trust Canadians. You go, that's flat-out 1.00

00:09:55.040 misinformation. And Bruce, I think it hits a really technical definition. There's a whole season of

00:09:59.360 the TV show Homeland where misinformation plays a role in what happens in national security. I go, okay,

00:10:04.180 fine. You know, makes sense. Other times, I've been really surprised when we talk about, say,

00:10:08.840 coronavirus, how we talk about the pandemic. Facebook set out all these rules for things that they are

00:10:14.660 going to ban and restrict you talking about online. And that involved basic things like,

00:10:19.960 well, you can't say it leaked from a lab in Wuhan. Well, why can't you? Oh, that's a,

00:10:24.140 that's a misinformation thing. That's a conspiracy. Oh, well, why is it? Well, because it is. We all

00:10:27.760 know that. And then, of course, we're now at the point where, oh, maybe, maybe it seems like it

00:10:32.020 actually, maybe likely did leak from a lab. Oh, okay. We'll let you post about that again. I mean,

00:10:36.700 I think, Bruce, those are pretty clear-cut examples of, do we really want to talk about, like,

00:10:41.440 regulating in the House of Commons, this very amorphous term?

00:10:46.980 No, no, we don't. We definitely do not, for the reasons that you're citing.

00:10:51.740 But part of the difficulty now is that some of us are assuming old things, and those things have

00:11:00.840 moved on in the minds of many. So when we talk about, when they talk about misinformation,

00:11:06.840 they, and they wouldn't, they wouldn't put it this way, but I would describe that as what they

00:11:12.960 really mean is information they don't like, or information that's not consistent with the way

00:11:19.220 they see the world. And we've seen during this pandemic, all kinds of misinformation and propaganda

00:11:28.960 being promoted by governments. And if those governments had control over online platforms,

00:11:36.320 then all of the other more accurate information that is available from all kinds of interesting

00:11:44.440 places, including people who are educated and intelligent about medical matters, like doctors

00:11:51.940 and other kinds of institutions, Great Barrington Declaration, and so on, those voices would be in

00:11:58.620 danger of being silenced. And so this is the era where political correctness has, it never really

00:12:07.400 left, but it has faded away for a while and has reemerged as a real thing. And people forget

00:12:13.360 what political correctness actually means. Some say political correctness originated in the Soviet

00:12:19.780 Union. And the meaning of political correctness is this. It is distinct from something that is

00:12:32.040 actually correct. Something is called politically correct because it's not actually correct. In other

00:12:39.160 words, you must go along with this, because if you don't, you'll get into trouble, even though it's not

00:12:44.080 true. That's what politically correct means. And so if you have governments that insist upon political

00:12:50.860 correctness, then the danger is you're not actually getting the real stuff. And, and so in the present era,

00:12:59.020 the last people to trust for the truth

00:13:03.940 is

00:13:04.920 One of the things that I found very interesting when I've been doing various reports and writing in columns

00:13:11.020 on what's happening during the pandemic, I was one of the first people to, to write about

00:13:14.880 comorbidity data here in Canada. And last fall, I guess, October, November, I wrote

00:13:19.120 several pieces out. The Alberta government has much more robust

00:13:22.240 reporting and public disclosure of comorbidity. And around the time, and the numbers pretty much held

00:13:27.060 constant, about 75% of people who have died of coronavirus in Alberta had three or more

00:13:33.540 underlying health conditions, three or more. And the percentage of people who had died of COVID who

00:13:37.960 had zero underlying health conditions was something like 2.5% at the time. And those people would have

00:13:42.820 included people, you know, over 80 in their 90s and so forth who had died of the virus. I wrote this

00:13:47.780 out in a column because I think Canadians, you know, deserve to know basic, you know, nuanced contextual

00:13:52.880 information, 101 facts about what's happening. And Health Minister Patty Hadju actually rose during 0.97

00:13:57.620 question period and labeled my writing fake and dangerous news. And it's like, I really just

00:14:03.640 directly quoted from the Alberta Health Services website. I mean, maybe you don't like some of the

00:14:08.340 way I wrote this sentence or that sentence, maybe another media outlet would have written it

00:14:11.460 differently, but there's nothing fake about it. It's just government statistics. And there she was,

00:14:16.520 the health minister, you know, denouncing me for all this. And then the prime minister also got in

00:14:21.020 on it a little bit as well later. And it's like, is this the new standard?

00:14:25.560 Yes, that's exactly what I mean. That is a new standard. The new standard is becoming

00:14:29.560 a government that insists that their version of things is correct. And that quite literally,

00:14:34.760 you should not be allowed to contradict them. And a lot of people understandably can't get that

00:14:41.520 through their heads because it is so alien to what we think is the case and what has been the case for

00:14:46.500 so long in this country. We are experiencing a cultural revolution in this country. We are in

00:14:54.300 a moment where you can see the ground shift. Now, it's been in the works for a long time.

00:14:59.800 It has a long pedigree, as I said earlier, but we have really have reached a kind of tipping point

00:15:06.280 where governments, federal government, for example, in the instance that you're speaking about,

00:15:11.160 are openly saying, no, no, you should not be allowed to say that, even though it's based upon

00:15:18.240 our stats. It's not the message we prefer. It's not the truth as we see it. And therefore,

00:15:25.740 it is misinformation that that that would be unbelievable at a different time. Today,

00:15:31.420 it's almost run of the mill. You're using the phrase cultural revolution. I mean, let me ask,

00:15:35.580 are you using that phrase lightly? Or do you mean maybe this portends even more dramatic things,

00:15:41.460 such as we saw in previous occurrences called the cultural revolution in China,

00:15:45.260 some five, six decades ago? Yes. Who knows where it will lead? I mean, I'm not drawing a direct

00:15:51.700 parallel, but there are lots of historical examples of things going badly at moments like this. And I

00:15:57.380 don't think that we can be assured that things won't go similarly or some other bad place in this

00:16:05.320 country. If you look at all kinds of things that we take for granted as self-evidently true,

00:16:11.660 the validity of individualism, the idea of sovereignty over your own decisions, health decisions,

00:16:23.140 decisions about what to say, what to believe, the idea of merit, the idea of equal application of the

00:16:31.180 law, equal treatment. So if you have a job posting, say for the government, the idea that everybody

00:16:38.080 could be allowed to apply for that job, regardless of who they are, what race they are, what sex they

00:16:44.160 are, what religion they are, that idea is out. Governments are now posting jobs for people of

00:16:51.340 particular groups, and other groups are not eligible. This is part of the revolution, and it is

00:16:57.300 happening before ours. Professor, let's talk about camp as something that you have a lot of experience

00:17:01.500 on, because I gave that anecdote about this public event that was, I guess, a controversial issue,

00:17:07.640 but it was such a polite experience. And I guess people maybe had some problems with a few of the

00:17:13.880 things being said, but they just raised their hands, they disagreed, and I don't remember any

00:17:17.900 drama going on. And I really do feel like that was the last time something like that happened. Am I

00:17:22.600 being dramatic, or am I saying that I did witness, you know, I was sort of on the last helicopter out

00:17:27.660 of Vietnam, or, you know, that was like something, that was like an event, that sort of experience that

00:17:32.960 I had over 15 years ago? Yeah, yeah, it might have been the last one, Anthony, I don't know when the

00:17:39.800 last one was, but it certainly is different than what might occur today. So for example, in 2018,

00:17:46.840 I think it was, I invited Jordan Peterson to give a talk at Queens. And in response to the announcement

00:17:53.860 of the event, a large number of my faculty colleagues put together an open letter to the

00:18:01.200 principal, saying that essentially that this should not be allowed, because of Jordan Peterson's odious

00:18:08.160 and ill-advised views. And that does an extraordinary thing, because all he was planning

00:18:15.680 to do, and all I was planning to do, was to have him on the stage, to have him state things as he saw

00:18:21.440 them. And to allow for critical questioning, I imagine, from the audience, if the audience wants

00:18:26.580 to object to what someone is saying, feel free to, you know, challenge the person or disagree with

00:18:31.100 them, and so forth. We had a long question and answer period in the event, and it was a long lineup of

00:18:37.380 of people at the microphone asking really good probing questions, and the event itself was

00:18:43.220 terrific. But it was an extraordinary lead up to the event, because at these academic institutions,

00:18:51.220 which by the way, for the most part, still insist that they are committed to academic freedom.

00:18:59.780 I mean, you'll be very hard pressed to find an institution that would say openly that, oh no,

00:19:05.780 we don't believe in academic freedom. But there's usually a but attached to it. Academic freedom,

00:19:10.920 yes, but. But, you know, you shouldn't, you shouldn't have hate speech, you shouldn't have

00:19:17.960 misinformation, you're not allowed to harass people, you're not allowed to cause them harm,

00:19:23.660 you're not allowed to deny their existence, and so on. So in other words, academic freedom, yes.

00:19:28.940 Well, at face value, I mean, I would agree with all of those assertions, but I guess to go back to what

00:19:34.020 you were saying earlier, it's that a lot of times those accusations, those phrases are used to

00:19:40.040 kind of pick and choose. Well, that's exactly right. That's exactly the point. The picking and

00:19:46.300 choosing is going on. So for example, let's take the issue of transgenderism and identity, which is one

00:19:51.480 of the most, the prettiest questions today. Right? So if you were a professor, and you stood up in

00:19:57.440 class, you know, in a class in which the topic is pertinent, and we, that you had a discussion about

00:20:05.280 identity and transgenderism and transition and so on, would you be safe in suggesting that a person

00:20:14.060 who was born a man is always a man? Say from what though? Because one would face consequences to 0.99

00:20:21.180 maybe, you know, wading into a controversial issue. Right. And this is a phrase that is often

00:20:26.860 used now. You're free to speak, but you're not free from the consequences of what you say. And in

00:20:33.040 some respects, that's correct. It's always been the case, right? People are allowed to react to what

00:20:38.300 you said in the way they see fit. And this gets to the core of our liberal society, right?

00:20:44.060 The idea of freedom is reciprocal. Everybody has it. So if you are a man, and you want to call

00:20:51.240 yourself a woman, then you are free to do so, because that's the nature of freedom. Right. But 1.00

00:20:56.600 everybody else is free too. And so they should be free to, to hear your claim, and then to respond

00:21:05.240 to it as they see fit, because they're free like you are. So if you say you're a woman, and they say,

00:21:10.060 no, you're not. Well, now you're both engaging in your free exchange of ideas. And the idea that

00:21:16.080 the first person's selection of their identity is the one that governs everybody is, it's contrary 1.00

00:21:23.820 to that idea. So if, if you are not safe in a classroom saying, no, I don't agree. I think if

00:21:30.140 you're born a man, then you're always a man. You, if, if the idea of liberal free speech,

00:21:36.940 and the idea of academic freedom is actually being followed, then that's a perfectly fine

00:21:41.620 statement. What about persons in the classroom who say, look, a theoretical discussion is one

00:21:45.200 thing, but I do not want to be subjected to sort of personal, you know, personal abuse,

00:21:50.540 personal criticism, things that are targeting me, you know, specifically in this moment.

00:21:54.040 Well, but it's not a matter of targeting somebody in the classroom specifically, if you're having

00:21:59.920 a, an academic conversation about these issues, then it's not a matter of pulling somebody up

00:22:05.520 from the classroom and saying, look, you, you, you know, you're, you're a, not a woman, you're

00:22:10.440 a man or vice versa, or whatever the case may be. It's not about signaling somebody out. It's

00:22:15.640 talking about the, the, the conceptual question. And that kind of conversation is also apparently

00:22:23.280 now in many places beyond the pale. Professor, I want to get your thoughts on something that

00:22:27.860 happened at Queens university, where you were stationed several years ago, a group of students

00:22:32.280 put together something called the free speech charter. They were basing it on something that

00:22:36.220 happened originally, I believe at the university of Chicago, which has a great pedigree of really

00:22:42.680 being a bastion of free thinking, a liberal exchange of ideas that the great books program by

00:22:47.960 their, their former president many decades ago. And it was really considered a great sort of

00:22:52.540 liberal arts facility and so on. Queens sort of taking that, this enshrining the free speech

00:22:57.620 charter. That was kind of a big moment. And a lot of people, well, some people plotted

00:23:02.160 those students. Other people did not support all of that. And then there was the idea, would

00:23:05.740 it catch wildfire? Would you see this happening at other universities and would administrations

00:23:09.360 enshrine it? And maybe one or two did, but by and large that, that kind of fizzled away.

00:23:15.360 Why is that? Was it too controversial? Was there just not an appetite for it?

00:23:18.640 Well, the universities today, especially in Canada, but not just in Canada, are essentially

00:23:25.060 captured by a particular constellation of interests, faculty, students, administration. And

00:23:33.220 they're not all of one mind to a person. But as constituencies, they pretty much all agree

00:23:41.920 about many of these issues. And those interests, because they are powerful on campus, will not

00:23:51.920 allow the kind of open dialogue that you're speaking of. The Chicago principles are good.

00:23:59.380 And in fact, they were mentioned in a policy document developed by the Ford government that

00:24:05.880 purported to require Ontario universities to adopt their own free speech policies that were

00:24:11.800 consistent with those Chicago principles, so as to protect and promote free speech and academic

00:24:17.000 freedom. And that policy was very well intended. And the idea is good, but its actual impact has been

00:24:24.700 not great. It has been a sort of a feeble document to try to accomplish what needs to be done, for sure,

00:24:34.180 but it's just in the wrong form and doesn't work very well. And so we're still stuck with the status quo for now.

00:24:42.180 Yeah. And the status quo, you would say, is not amenable right now to freedom of discussion, whatever the matter is.

00:24:49.860 Well, let's not go quite so far, because in many respects, discussion is able to be conducted on campus.

00:24:57.740 I mean, it's not... So when I teach my classes, nobody has said to me, look, Hardy, don't talk about this or that,

00:25:05.000 or you're getting into trouble. Nobody has said that, and nobody was suggested.

00:25:08.360 Well, hold on. You're tenured, right?

00:25:09.460 I'm tenured, yes, but even some tenured people at some universities across the country have gotten into trouble

00:25:18.040 for things that they've said. Sometimes it's been stuff they've said on social media, sometimes not, sometimes in

00:25:23.600 papers, sometimes not. And so tenure is a great thing. It's a good protection for people who want to color outside the

00:25:30.180 lines, but it's not a 100% guarantee. But even so, people, for the most part, are able to

00:25:39.420 have academic discussions in their classrooms and write what they want without interference.

00:25:43.280 However, at the same time, there is, I think it's fair to say, resistance at universities from coast to coast

00:25:51.100 to the idea that there should be ideological diversity and ideological dissent that is allowed and promoted

00:26:01.760 and embraced on campus. And by ideological diversity, I mean a genuine mixture of political perspectives

00:26:09.620 from left to right. Because those perspectives that come from the right, primarily, are often regarded

00:26:19.400 on campus as not simply diverse, but wrong. Like, they're just wrong. And they should not be promoted. 1.00

00:26:27.440 And so, if you had universities adopting the idea that they were going to embrace and promote

00:26:34.320 viewpoint diversity or ideological diversity, what that might require them to do is to actually go out of

00:26:41.440 their way to hire more people who weren't on the left. Because the left dominates the universities. 0.99

00:26:50.140 Right.

00:26:50.340 And that's something that they just probably wouldn't be able to solve.

00:26:53.380 One other anecdote from my university years, when I was in second year university, I studied philosophy.

00:26:57.560 I took a course, a second year course on Karl Marx, on Marxism. And just because, you know, this is a guy,

00:27:03.620 big figure, lots of people talk about him, and it seems like he had a lot of influence over 19th century,

00:27:07.600 20th century thought. So, it kind of makes sense to learn a bit about Karl Marx, even though,

00:27:11.440 I did not think I was a Marxist while enrolling in that course. But, you know, you want to learn.

00:27:16.300 That's what you're in university for. So, I'm taking this class. And as I read through the various

00:27:21.500 books, I mean, I knew the basic ideas, but we were actually studying the books in depth. It became

00:27:25.600 clear to me that the students who asked some pushback questions were getting a bit of a rough

00:27:30.140 ride from the professor. And then, I guess it was on me for not knowing this, but I do a bit of googling

00:27:35.160 around, and I found out that the professor is also the person who ran as the local Marxist-Leninist

00:27:39.640 candidate, you know, perennially every single election and so forth. I thought, oh man, you

00:27:42.920 know, this guy's a true believer, and this is some sort of, you know, ideological activism thing as

00:27:47.420 well. And I don't know how he can separate himself from this course. So, you know, I took the full

00:27:51.840 course and wanted to learn. I had some issues at the very end with the exam, the last paper I wrote,

00:27:55.920 and so forth. And I can't help but feel it was because the papers were not saying, you know, okay,

00:27:59.600 I've studied Karl Marx, two thumbs up. Where do I sign up? I'm ready to put in the button and start

00:28:03.860 handing out the literature, and so forth. And I look back at that, and that was, I don't know if this

00:28:08.420 professor had ever had any problems with, you know, being censured and so forth by other, you know,

00:28:14.120 administrative people for the way he was conducting himself. But I just kind of thought, wow, I mean,

00:28:17.640 if there was something like this going on on the other side of the spectrum, I mean, Bruce, would

00:28:21.420 that person have not been removed by now and run out of town? Hard to say, depends upon what university

00:28:26.260 he was at and what the students' reactions were. It's also a generational thing, right? Because

00:28:33.600 our students today have been through, you know, 13 years of school. And from what I can tell,

00:28:43.140 all of this revolutionary woke stuff is very much more entrenched in the public school curriculum

00:28:50.220 than it is even at the universities. And so they're used to all of this, and they think it's the truth.

00:28:56.380 Now, of course, not to a person. I mean, there are lots of students who don't,

00:28:59.760 lots of them. And, you know, good minds and so on. But for the most part, this is maybe even what

00:29:09.100 they have come to expect. And so it is not a matter of universities having an iron fist and

00:29:17.540 saying to, you know, giving marching order to their faculty. That's not what happens. It's not what

00:29:22.040 happens at all. Instead, what tends to happen over time is that you get universities reproducing

00:29:32.500 themselves in the sense that they contain a particular political constituency. And that

00:29:38.480 constituency exercises control over who it is that's appropriate to hire next time. And they hire

00:29:44.020 more of their own. So over time, you get a concentration of a particular kind of thought

00:29:47.740 at universities. And so at these places, it is quite safe for the institution to endorse academic

00:29:54.960 freedom, because academic freedom means that you're free to say what you think. And what most

00:29:59.440 people there think is consistent with the prevailing view. And every once in a while, you get somebody

00:30:06.880 who sticks out and who says something that's not politically correct. And then there's a problem

00:30:14.140 about what we're going to do about this. And very often, the answer is a good one, which is no, no,

00:30:18.520 no, we have academic freedom, this person is allowed to speak like everybody else. And that's

00:30:23.300 been my experience at my school. And that's good. But it is not the experience of everybody at every

00:30:30.500 school. And that's why there's a difference between academic freedom on the one hand, which means people

00:30:36.300 who are on the inside can say what they think, versus a commitment to viewpoint diversity, which

00:30:44.620 would require the university to go outside itself, and to make sure that the range of views reflected

00:30:50.300 inside is a broad one. It really hits home for me when you talk about, you know, your students at

00:30:55.860 university, they've had, you know, 10, 12, 13 years of public schooling education, I'd heard a lot of

00:31:00.440 people complain about the school system for a few years now. And I was wondering, you know, what did they

00:31:04.020 really mean? What are the specific complaints? I have some small children now in the Ontario school

00:31:07.900 system, I was a little surprised one assignment, that one of my children in a much younger grade

00:31:13.300 had received was, okay, here's who Greta Thunberg is, here's what she stands for. Let's talk about 1.00

00:31:18.460 Greta at great length for a while. And your assignment is to make a protest placard as if you 0.88

00:31:25.060 are going to a protest in allegiance with Greta Thunberg. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on a

00:31:31.100 second. You do not say to a child, and you know what, happy with the education, teacher, lovely

00:31:36.760 person, great teacher. But I'm like, you can say who Greta is, what she's rallying for, and so forth.

00:31:43.380 And I think even at the younger grades, I don't think there's any reason to do that. But let's just

00:31:46.220 say you can do that. But then you say your assignment is you must do a protest placard, which

00:31:52.100 you are echoing her views. I mean, come on, I don't, I don't care what the issue is, left wing,

00:31:57.700 whatever it is, that should not be something that is done. Well, it shouldn't be done in a primary

00:32:03.640 school, secondary school, university setting where you assign them, this is your political view, go

00:32:08.760 and, you know, attend a protest with this sign. But in a younger grades, I mean, heavens. And part of my

00:32:15.300 problem is the fact that, that the person is such a good teacher and a lovely teacher. And you know,

00:32:20.100 we're otherwise very happy with it, and so forth. It's not even like, I don't think people in the

00:32:24.860 system even think like this is not sometimes you have a teacher who knows they're radical and knows

00:32:29.200 they're pushing agenda and is doing it very aggressively. That is not the situation.

00:32:33.420 Oh, and I think it's probably not the situation with most teachers. I agree. But, but many teachers

00:32:42.680 in the public schools are teaching critical theory, even if they don't realize it. And critical theory

00:32:48.300 is not critical thinking, right? The two things are very, very, very different.

00:32:51.700 What is critical theory? Critical theory is an academic

00:32:55.160 theory, and it's really not even a theory. It's more like an agenda or a, or a, or a conviction.

00:33:01.700 It is a, it has a long pedigree, and it's based originally upon Marxist theory, although they

00:33:09.660 rejected the, the, the class conflict inherent in Marxism, and instead substituted over a long

00:33:15.540 period of time, identity politics, essentially. And so the theory is that Western civilization

00:33:20.160 consists of power struggles between groups. And, and the white group is, is ascendant and

00:33:25.700 oppressive, and everybody else is a victim. And there, the objective is to, to basically 0.56

00:33:31.120 to bring Western civilization to its knees by either eliminating or totally reforming its

00:33:37.660 institutions.

00:33:38.620 Is this being articulated by them, or this is what you sort of discern?

00:33:42.420 Oh, no. This is articulated over a period of time. Now, critical theory is a very broad,

00:33:46.980 a very broad and, and, and longstanding theory, and has given growth to all kinds of different

00:33:52.780 branches. Critical race theory being the, one of the most prominent right now. And it's very

00:33:59.640 difficult to summarize critical theory because a lot of the theories disagree with each other,

00:34:03.380 and it's been written in long, wordy tones over a long period of time. So it's very hard to put

00:34:08.900 your finger on it, but essentially it comes down to what I've just described. And it's,

00:34:14.580 as I said, it's not really theory and it's not really critical in the critical thinking

00:34:19.300 sense. It's simply a platform. And one of the difficulties is that the platform includes

00:34:26.800 a rejection of many of the features of Western civilization, the ones that grew up from the 1.00

00:34:33.720 enlightenment. So for example, the idea of, of evidence, evidence now is rejected in favor of

00:34:42.460 lived experience. So if somebody says, well, my experience is this, and you say, well, that's all

00:34:46.480 very well, but the statistics say that, you will be, you will be dismissed because you're not going

00:34:51.960 along with the theory.

00:34:53.640 I think some people don't realize how extreme that stuff can get. I remember, I think it was,

00:34:59.380 so Donald Trump, before he was out of office, he banned, I think that the teaching of critical

00:35:03.820 race theory or workshops related to it in the U S federal government. And I know someone was

00:35:08.800 saying to me, Oh, isn't that awful that he's banning? He's saying, you can't talk about,

00:35:12.880 you know, anti-racism initiatives and so forth. So that's a very different thing. I mean, I think

00:35:17.280 it's very important and good that my children in school are taught that, look, you're going to run

00:35:20.400 into people of all different walks of life. And, you know, some of your fellow classmates,

00:35:24.140 you know, some of them will have two mommies or two daddies or what have you. And, you know,

00:35:27.020 that's, that's life. And, you know, and everything's great about that. Like there's

00:35:31.180 no issue with all of that. And let's all respect each other and care for each other as a society.

00:35:34.660 But the doing these other workshops is very different than that, isn't it? It's very different

00:35:39.360 about tolerance and respecting differences and so forth, which I think we probably should pause

00:35:44.620 every now and then and acknowledge those facts, but this is not the same thing.

00:35:48.560 Of course, of course. But what you've just described are opposites, opposites. So what you've

00:35:53.380 described is non-racism. The idea that your race doesn't matter, that your sex shouldn't matter,

00:36:00.840 that your background shouldn't matter. We should just all be human beings and we should embrace

00:36:05.040 each other for what we are, for our individuality, for our, for the, for the content of our character.

00:36:11.680 And what, what you have described there and what you are practicing in the eyes of critical theory

00:36:16.160 is racism. That's racism. Why? Because it's not anti-racism. And anti-racism is the opposite

00:36:25.800 from non-racism. Anti-racism in their books is when you fail to acknowledge race. If you fail to treat

00:36:34.400 me as a member of a group, then you are being racist. If you fail to compensate me for the victimhood

00:36:41.820 that I have because of my race, or if you fail to blame me for the privilege that I have because

00:36:48.440 of my group, then you are being racist. And that is the version that's being taught in the public

00:36:53.720 schools. And you know, it's very interesting because I know we're encouraged to, to talk about

00:36:58.860 these issues more and more. And I'm certainly on board with talking about, you know, real problems

00:37:02.740 we have in society and so forth. But I mean, back, you know, when I grew up and how I was raised,

00:37:09.300 I feel like it was, we were told it was impolite to just bring up people's demographic position.

00:37:15.640 You know, you meet someone, you get along with them, you have a connection, you both like Star

00:37:20.040 Trek or whatever. So you start talking about Star Trek and their friendship is formed. But this other,

00:37:25.000 and you don't just acknowledge, hey, I'm going to start talking about your skin color to you right

00:37:29.720 now. I mean, my impression is that's kind of like a rude and socially awkward thing to do. That's how I

00:37:35.240 was raised. But I'm getting the sense that now, no, now the opening conversation with someone is,

00:37:40.720 you should be talking about and kind of accentuating those differences. Is that what's going on?

00:37:46.480 Well, I mean, Anthony, you and I are old school, I totally agree with you that,

00:37:51.160 I mean, this is the whole idea, right? I mean, racism used to mean that you thought race was

00:37:57.320 important. But the way to be racist was to think that race matters. And the way not to be racist was

00:38:04.440 to treat people as people. And if you had both had Star Trek in common, that you should

00:38:08.780 engage with that person, because they're a person, because they have an interest like you do,

00:38:13.920 and just carry on people. And we're all we are all the same, in the sense that we are all

00:38:19.560 individuals, all unique individuals. And our group identity is relevant. And that and that's the

00:38:27.640 opposite of what they want. What they want is group conflict. And so if you're white, 0.68

00:38:33.000 your job is to acknowledge that you are privileged, and you have power. And, and to you, your job is to

00:38:43.160 condemn the privilege that you have. And then maybe you can carry on.

00:38:47.340 Is there any harm in doing that? There are a lot of people who do say that they make those notes and

00:38:52.220 so forth, I would like to acknowledge my privilege and so forth. Is there a problem with them opting to

00:38:57.660 do that? Yeah, because it because it's based upon race. There are, I mean, I don't I don't even really

00:39:03.540 know what white privilege is supposed to mean. But I know that there are a whole lot of people out

00:39:09.280 there who don't have any privilege in any real sense at all. So the whole premise is,

00:39:16.840 but the activist counters that they're talking about systemic issues, they acknowledge that there

00:39:20.300 are, you know, downtrodden, impoverished, Caucasian persons who are on the streets and dealing with 1.00

00:39:25.340 addiction and so forth. But broadly, they would say, systemically, the system is set up in a

00:39:30.900 different way. But next question is, though, what does that mean? Systemically, the system is set up

00:39:36.500 so that I mean, when you asked, when you asked them that question, they all usually have a hard

00:39:41.760 time entering what what that is systemically. So let's talk about the legal system.

00:39:45.580 It would be a it would be a valid complaint, as it was at certain points in history, that the legal

00:39:53.660 system was set up systemically, to favor some people and not others means so, you know, if men could own

00:39:59.900 property and not women, if you have slaves, those were terrible laws. And they were systemically oriented 0.97

00:40:08.320 to favoring some and not other people. That was true. It is not true today. Our laws don't favor,

00:40:17.120 well, they do now, but in the opposite way than the way that they mean. If you are allowed to have

00:40:23.840 job openings for non white people, but not just for white people, then actually, the whole thing is

00:40:29.780 flipped. And I remember years ago, the the liberal government, liberal NPs used to say, I'm talking about

00:40:36.080 the Paul Martin years, which it's hard to believe those are years ago, but they are now coming on 20

00:40:39.280 years, they would say we are the party of equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome. And I guess

00:40:45.560 the NDP would be the party of equality of outcome, basically meaning the liberal said that they would

00:40:51.380 strive for everybody's ability to succeed, you know, regardless of their background, and whether they

00:40:56.140 started impoverished, and so forth. And now, I think things have very much shifted in those past 20

00:41:02.820 years. And it's, it's no longer considered acceptable to talk about equality of opportunity,

00:41:07.740 I guess, because we would be told, we have since learned that systemically, there cannot be equality

00:41:14.660 of opportunity, because the system is rigged, such that so many people are set up to fail. So one needs

00:41:20.380 to go even further, and even beyond equality of outcome, I guess, to what now is meant by the phrase

00:41:26.720 equity? Yeah, okay, so these are the, these, to me, are the two competing versions of equality in the

00:41:33.640 law. And, and they're not complementary, they're opposite. And the two ideas are these, either the

00:41:40.800 idea is that the same rules and standards apply to everybody, without regard to race or sex or

00:41:48.380 background, or different rules should apply to different groups, because of who they are. And

00:41:59.700 you can't have both those ideas, it's got to be one or the other. We have been shifting for a long

00:42:05.920 time. But we have, we seem to have shifted now to the second, not the first. So the first, the first one

00:42:13.200 is equality of opportunity, or equality of treatment, or equality of application, or formal

00:42:19.080 equality. Those are the words you will, you will hear used to describe that idea. And the second idea,

00:42:25.360 that the idea that there should, in fact, be different rules for different groups, is equity,

00:42:31.620 or substantive equality, or equality of outcome. And, and that is the idea of equality that is now

00:42:37.900 beginning to govern. Let's bring this back to Bill C-10, what we began this conversation with,

00:42:44.020 an autocratic piece of legislation, as you write in the pages of the National Post. How does this

00:42:50.020 seemingly small issue about kind of tinkering with the specifics of CRTC legislation, things they can

00:42:56.140 and can't have overseeing ability over, how does Bill C-10 sort of continue or not continue down this

00:43:03.500 path? Well, it, like so many other things, it gives the, the, the say to the state about what is

00:43:12.000 proper and what is not. And in this particular case, it's in the hands of the PRTC, PRTC, but the CRTC

00:43:20.060 is a, is a, a, a state body that will have the ability to demand social media platforms to comply with

00:43:28.920 its policies. And so, like so many other things today, the government is setting the agenda. And

00:43:35.020 that is taking us away from our basic ideas, that, that your, your beliefs, your ideas, your thoughts,

00:43:45.720 your speech are yours, to exercise as you see fit. That, that is no longer a given. And the more that

00:43:55.000 we get legislation like C-10 and like the other legislation that the liberals have promised to

00:44:00.260 bring in, uh, the further away we get from what we think we are. We've had this battle before a

00:44:06.620 number of years ago, young people, folks in their twenties, teenagers will not remember this at all.

00:44:10.860 The battle over section 13, the Canadian Ontario human rights tribunals, taking people to what was

00:44:17.420 called kangaroo courts, uh, Barbara Emile, Mark Stein, Ezra Levant, when he was associated with other

00:44:23.440 publications was a part of all of this issue here, where a number of people were accused of violating

00:44:29.360 section 13 of the Canadian human rights code. That section said, uh, it was against the code,

00:44:35.860 against those laws. If you had said something that was quote, likely to expose a person or persons to

00:44:43.220 hatred or contempt. Now there's a lot of challenges, court challenges over that. The debate was very

00:44:49.160 fraud. It was a national conversation for quite a few years. Ultimately section 13 was rescinded

00:44:53.960 in 2014. And I think a lot of it was just based upon this idea of likely to expose persons to contempt.

00:45:01.800 And I'm like, okay, well, that's not how I roll. And I know there are these losers in Canada who want 0.95

00:45:07.460 to go in their, you know, Nazi forums or homophobic forums and, you know, their radical Islam groups and 0.99

00:45:14.180 so forth. I don't know why they're doing it, but this section, I don't know, this thing is so broad.

00:45:19.860 You can, you know, drive multiple 18 wheelers through it. And I think that's why they rescinded it.

00:45:24.780 And Bruce, a lot of people felt like that battle was won, but that battle is not only coming back

00:45:30.340 now, but one feels like it's coming back with a vengeance. Yes. Yes, it is. It's going to come back.

00:45:37.160 And in fact, it never really left. I mean, we still have sections like that in other legislation in this

00:45:41.860 country. Section seven of the BC human rights code still has a section very much like that that

00:45:48.040 prohibits statements that either discriminate or are contemptuous. And it was good to repeal section

00:45:57.420 13 for sure. But that that's not the end of the story. And this is this is going to come back for

00:46:05.760 sure. And we still have these problems in this country. We it's a difficult idea now for people

00:46:13.600 to accept that people, other people who are saying things with which they disagree, things that they

00:46:19.480 might find to be offensive and hurtful and outrageous should themselves be protected. If you don't believe

00:46:28.500 that someone who is saying something with which you vehemently disagree. Shouldn't be allowed to say

00:46:34.940 that? You mean they're not advocating violence? If you don't believe they should be allowed to say

00:46:41.300 that, then you don't believe in free speech. As soon as you cross the line of saying, yes, free speech,

00:46:46.020 but not offensive speech. Well, that means you don't believe in free speech. That's not what free

00:46:49.920 speech is. Free speech means the right to say things that are hurtful, offensive, outrageous and

00:46:56.080 wrong. Free speech does not depend upon speaking the truth. It's not because something is truthful that

00:47:02.800 you have the right to speak it. It's because it's yours. It's your speech. You can say what you want

00:47:08.020 as long as you don't advocate violence and as long as you don't defame. And there are a couple of other

00:47:13.860 exceptions as well. But for the most part, offensive speech is free speech.

00:47:19.400 Now, there are individuals who say, look, some of that speech does lead to violence, though. So what

00:47:25.260 should be done? Now, it should be noted that there are people with the RCMP and other law enforcement

00:47:30.160 agencies across Canada who are tasked with monitoring. You know, there are people who are

00:47:33.780 saying unsavory things online, various white supremacist yahoos or what have you. And there

00:47:39.140 is law enforcement who is tasked with paying attention to that in case they step across the

00:47:43.900 line. And I fully support my tax dollars going to paying attention to what radicals are saying and

00:47:51.440 potentially getting up to in my country. Is that the remedy for when people say, look, we think we

00:47:56.240 might have a problem here. We got to do something. Well, let's just be careful, though, about drawing

00:48:01.420 our lines. So if somebody says something unsavory, that's no test because people say unsavory things

00:48:10.160 all the time. In a free country, in a free country, a country that is actually free, you are allowed to

00:48:19.060 hate other people. Why? Because you're free. Now, that's not a good thing. We don't want people to

00:48:25.700 hate other people. You don't want them to say that they do. But if it's a really free country,

00:48:30.420 then they're allowed to do both. But do you have a problem with law enforcement monitoring the

00:48:34.820 jihadist chat groups and the neo-Nazi chat groups to go, well, I think this is where these guys start

00:48:41.460 talking about maybe doing an attack kind of thing? We can do that, can't we? Let me just describe

00:48:48.980 what's on the other side of this line. The other side of the line is counseling a crime, counseling

00:48:54.180 violence, saying, all right, you know what we're going to do? We're going to hurt these people.

00:48:57.400 We're going to do it in the following way. Show up to this address with your pitchforks. 0.97

00:49:01.420 That's not on because that's not just speech now. Now you're talking about actual violence.

00:49:06.720 And when you cross that line, then of course, the police have the duty and the right to investigate

00:49:12.800 that. No question. But it's the distinguishing between the two things that's important.

00:49:18.540 If you're just online spouting off about this or that, even if it's offensive stuff and nobody

00:49:24.800 agrees with it, if we're in a free country, you're allowed to do that until you cross the line and say,

00:49:31.520 oh, you know what? We're going to do something about this now. That's no good.

00:49:34.760 Bruce Party, before we go, let's assume Bill C-10 gets royal assent pretty much as is,

00:49:41.020 which seems to be the situation it's headed in. CRTC has the ability to regulate YouTube videos,

00:49:46.160 Twitter videos, and so forth. What happens next for free speech in Canada?

00:49:53.080 Well, the next challenge may be, depending upon what happens in the next few months in terms of

00:49:57.860 an election and so on. If the liberals retain power, it might be this legislation that they have

00:50:04.840 promised to bring in sooner or later that will, it may end up, Anthony, recreating section 13 that

00:50:13.180 you mentioned earlier, maybe in the context of online speech. Maybe we will have a federal

00:50:21.140 legislation basically defining what it is you can and cannot say online. I don't know. No drafts have

00:50:28.480 been produced. It remains to be seen, but I think this is going to be an ongoing struggle because it

00:50:34.060 seems to be the fact that the federal government, anyway, the one we have presently have, is determined

00:50:40.780 to, um, to control what people say in accordance with their prevailing philosophy, which in my mind

00:50:49.220 is taking us away from being the liberal democracy that we're supposed to be. Bruce Party, a compelling

00:50:55.180 conversation. Thanks very much for joining us today. Thanks for having me, Anthony.

00:51:00.120 Full Comment is a post-media podcast. I'm Anthony Fury. This episode was produced by Andre Pru with theme

00:51:05.920 music by Bryce Hall. Kevin Libin is the executive producer. You can subscribe to Full Comment on

00:51:10.720 Apple Podcasts, Google, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can help us by giving us a

00:51:15.900 rating or a review and by telling your friends about us. Thanks for listening.

Full Comment - June 21, 2021

The Overthrow of Free Speech, Merit, and Equality in Post-Liberal Canada

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