Juno News - Canada Needs a Free Speech Union

00:00:00.000 What does it actually mean to defend freedom of expression and I don't mean in theory I mean in

00:00:06.640 practice I mean when it really costs you something or when it's unpopular in your social circle.

00:00:12.720 Now we're living in a time where speech is being criminalized, platforms are censoring dissent

00:00:17.920 and governments are trying to legislate acceptable windows of opinion. Now are conservatives in

00:00:23.520 Canada even interested in standing up for freedom of expression anymore or are we watching the last

00:00:29.920 defenders of liberty trade principles for pitchforks. Now more importantly what can ordinary people do

00:00:36.720 to support those who believe that freedom of expression is the foundation of civilized society.

00:00:42.000 Today I'm joined by Lisa Bildy who's the director of the Free Speech Union of Canada and this is an

00:00:47.040 organization dedicated to protecting speech rights for Canadians through advocacy, legal supports and

00:00:54.000 strategic resistance but I'll let her talk to you about that herself. Now the battle may have started 1.00

00:01:00.400 on university campuses but it certainly hasn't stopped there. I'm Melanie Bennett, this is Disrupted.

00:01:15.440 Free speech is the bedrock upon which all other freedoms rest and I'm very pleased to have with

00:01:21.360 me today Lisa Bildy. Thanks for joining the show. Oh my pleasure Melanie, thanks for having me on.

00:01:26.800 I'm glad to have you here because it seems like the principles of liberty have been eroded all over

00:01:33.120 the west whether it's the UK, America, Canada over the years and in the UK the Right Honourable Lord Toby

00:01:40.880 Acton who is also the author of How to Lose Friends and Influence People and the creator of The Daily Skeptic

00:01:46.080 kicked off the Free Speech Union and they are defending freedom of speech, freedom of expression,

00:01:54.240 freedom of the press, academic freedom, freedom of religion, so these principles that are supposed to

00:02:00.080 underline our liberal democracy and now we have a free speech union in Canada and so I would love for

00:02:07.920 you to give me a brief overview of the FSU Canada, what it does, its purpose, its mission, etc.

00:02:13.280 Oh I'd be happy to and Toby of course was instrumental in getting us launched here in Canada, in fact it

00:02:20.080 was an article that he wrote in The Daily, I think it was in The Spectator, probably about a year ago,

00:02:25.680 just more than a year ago now, saying hey I think we need something in Canada, we got this online harms

00:02:31.760 bill coming down the pike which was put on hold and is probably coming back in some form, I think we'll 0.93

00:02:36.800 find out this week and a number of people reached out and said sure I'd be interested in helping with

00:02:42.720 that and we've been busy trying to get things off the ground, we've launched this just this year with

00:02:49.840 it and yeah it's a member-based organization just like the one in the UK, they have now probably over

00:02:56.800 30,000 members because things are just getting so outrageous in the United Kingdom, so I think a lot of

00:03:03.360 people have looked to the FSU there as a bit of an insurance policy in case something happens to them

00:03:10.800 and that's how it should be viewed here as well, we are trying to provide a place for people to come,

00:03:17.600 become a member, ensure that should the cancellation forces come for you that you've got somebody in

00:03:24.080 your corner and of course you know we'll take cases as our abilities allow as they fit within our

00:03:29.280 mandate and so on but but the idea is by bringing all these members together we sort of crowd fund the

00:03:36.400 the defense of free speech and the protection of free speech in our country and that way if

00:03:42.720 like what I find in my own practice as a lawyer is that a lot of people can and should fight back

00:03:48.400 they've got a case they've got a reasonable case to make but they can't take the financial risk and so

00:03:53.680 as a result people settle or they uh or they don't fight or they just they just uh sign an undertaking

00:03:59.680 with their regulator to to put their accounts on private or whatever the case might be and then

00:04:05.120 the principles of free speech just continue to be steamrolled uh under by you know by the authorities

00:04:11.600 and and the culture as well. Yeah I think the the saying is the process is the punishment. Exactly.

00:04:17.920 Yeah well I have a curious question for you as we begin which is isn't quite free speech union but

00:04:25.280 I'd be curious to have this discussion because speech we're not always clear on what is free

00:04:31.440 speech and what isn't and recently a man called Patrick Gordon MacDonald of Ottawa I believe is in

00:04:36.640 his late 20s he was the first person in Canada according to the RCMP to be charged with both

00:04:41.840 terrorism and hate speech offenses in connection to a neo-nazi group that he was part of called

00:04:47.520 the Atom Waffen division and so he was found to be willfully promoting uh hatred so he was

00:04:55.200 engaging in hate speech and allegedly for helping create and distribute some propaganda videos that

00:05:00.240 were used to recruit other members. Now the reason I bring this up is because today we're seeing people

00:05:06.880 come out so he was a legitimate he was in a legitimate neo-nazi group but today we're seeing so

00:05:11.920 many people come out and say Charlie Kirk uh his assassination was a terrible crime we're not

00:05:18.400 really in interested in assassinating people as uh would be reasonable but on the same on the same um

00:05:25.360 coin on the same hand they're saying but he was engaging in hate speech he was inciting people to uh be

00:05:32.560 hateful so he would and also we have people saying but and he was a fascist now in my assessment Charlie

00:05:38.480 Cook was certainly a social conservative um and a Christian but i would have put him in the classical

00:05:44.800 liberal camp more than anything else so you have these people calling her fascist he has hateful views

00:05:48.960 he's promoting hate speech and so the reason i bring this up is because i'd love to know in principle is

00:05:54.480 hate speech free speech well you know the americans have a different system than we do they have a far more

00:06:02.000 robust constitution and so they do not uh they do not have hate speech provisions like we do in Canada

00:06:10.480 so um now you can see where the temptations are to to come in and curtail speech that you find very

00:06:16.560 offensive in fact the attorney general in the uh united states just did so the other day she called 0.85

00:06:21.360 she called some of the the things that have been said about Charlie Kirk uh to be to be hateful you

00:06:27.040 know celebrating his death glorifying the violent end that he met um but she was quickly called back

00:06:32.560 on that and and changed her course because the united states does have a very robust free speech

00:06:38.400 um amendment in its constitution and they don't they don't curtail uh what some people would call

00:06:44.320 hate speech the problem with hate speech and we do we do have provisions about this in Canada and we're

00:06:49.200 growing them more and more every time you turn around there's some new legislation or new um case law that

00:06:55.040 even if they don't call it hate they call it harm or or something else that is designed to curtail it as

00:07:01.360 much as possible um so we're we're chipping away at the idea that we can have freedom of expression in

00:07:07.440 this country by by characterizing uh really any speech that is kind of counter narrative now is is being

00:07:14.160 hateful uh so there are obvious cases where where you might say where most people would probably agree

00:07:20.240 that something is is hate speech in accordance with the kind of tests that we have in Canada

00:07:25.840 but that category grows and grows and there tends to be a bit of a purity cycle around a circle around it

00:07:31.680 so for example you see a lot of people now um lashing out in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination

00:07:38.800 and wanting to get people fired and go after people's speech that uh that was celebrating it but they

00:07:45.360 don't always want to stop there you know now it's people who might have been critical of him or or

00:07:49.920 what have you and it starts the umbrella of what should be banned or or punished tends to cover more

00:07:56.160 and more territory so we have that risk uh here in Canada when we start down that path of saying that

00:08:01.920 some speech is not permissible even though it's just words it's not violence it's it's words we

00:08:08.240 you know we really need to make this point and it seems so trite but obviously it needs to be reminded

00:08:16.080 people need to be reminded that words themselves are not violence and we have words to avoid violence

00:08:23.360 the whole point of having freedom of expression is so that we can talk out our differences we can hear

00:08:29.360 opposing views we can hear offensive speech and maybe we don't want to but you know if you if you start

00:08:35.440 to to curtail all of that those hate is an emotion it doesn't go away it doesn't just dissipate it will

00:08:42.400 channel itself into other things including violently assaulting or uh executing somebody you don't agree

00:08:50.080 with so we really need to restore this idea that that speech is is essential to having a civil society

00:08:58.080 we are going to hear things we don't like but um but it's better than the alternative of shooting

00:09:02.560 everybody that we don't agree with and there's a real risk of of deciding that we don't really value

00:09:10.720 having those that civil society anymore i think that's probably the thing that i found the most

00:09:16.080 alarming coming out of the the discourse following charlie kirk is how many people

00:09:20.640 felt that that was just okay that you could just take out somebody whose views you profoundly disagree with

00:09:26.960 and i mean there's a whole um sort of assessment of where how our culture got here that we could get

00:09:34.160 into but uh it's very disturbing we i think some of this comes from you know deep human instinct maybe

00:09:43.120 maybe we dehumanize naturally of people who don't agree with us because it it made our own tribes back in

00:09:48.800 in in in the earliest part of our evolution um uh much more cohesive and and we learn to other people

00:09:55.040 we we we um can you know take out other people much more easily in opposing tribes if if we dehumanize

00:10:02.000 them but we've evolved since then to have uh codes of ethics and and uh ten commandments and and other

00:10:09.920 things that have developed in over thousands of years to keep us from those base instincts we're starting

00:10:15.680 to get away from that and now go back to this dehumanizing idea and the idea that somebody

00:10:21.040 doesn't agree with us that it's a mortal sin and a crime and that and that they should be they should

00:10:27.120 be dispensed with um you know it's it's very disturbing but we've got to pull back and we've got

00:10:31.840 to have those that the idea excuse me ideas like free speech have to be upheld so that we don't go down

00:10:40.480 that path of basically might makes right and we just take out people who we don't agree with

00:10:47.360 yeah i'm conflicted about that too because on the one hand i i agree i you know i've been defending

00:10:52.160 not canceling people we should be allowed to speak because there have been many people who've been

00:10:57.040 saying that uh saying homophobic or racist or xenophobic all the phobic uh statements for example amy ham

00:11:04.560 saying that men cannot be women and has faced significant consequences from uh the the bc college

00:11:10.560 of nurses for saying that and on the other hand now we have people calling for the dismissal or removal

00:11:17.360 of many people including academics politicians school teachers for essentially justifying the

00:11:24.880 assassination of someone on the basis of their speech which they consider to be abhorrent but the

00:11:31.600 conflict that i have is that whilst on the one hand some people are engaging in speech that people

00:11:38.960 disagree with on the other hand it's leading to assassinations it's leading to murders we're seeing

00:11:45.360 very violent antifa mobs we're seeing um support within the media class justifying it after it happens

00:11:52.000 although again in america this luigi mangi luigi mangioni who is a man who nearly point blank shot a

00:11:58.480 uh insurance ceo you know in america they're they're celebrating this and now we have uh the

00:12:04.240 justification of the assassin of assassination of charlie kirk and and so where where's the line drawn

00:12:11.600 right so on the one hand we have actual violence and and murder occurring and on the other hand we

00:12:18.240 simply have the accusation of of so-called stochastic terrorism the accusation was that charlie kirk

00:12:24.080 was inciting people to violence whereas the actual violence uh was aimed at charlie kirk on the

00:12:29.840 basis of protecting people like where's the line well that's very interesting and i think um i've been

00:12:35.280 pondering about this for the last week um you know you can't we for a long time you could only have

00:12:42.320 certain kinds of speech on campus because there'd be people would try and shut it down they would

00:12:46.160 protest which in most cases is is fine although sometimes it would cross the line into trying to shut

00:12:50.880 down a speaker entirely from speaking um they would put security costs in place to ensure that

00:12:55.760 alternative views couldn't be held um there'd be the sort of heckler's veto that would try and

00:13:02.000 drown out the speech and now we almost have an assassin's veto but these people are coming in and

00:13:07.920 and now justifying this but relying on the culture of free speech in order to justify their uh entire

00:13:15.920 repudiation of free speech they're they are basically saying well you know i'm counting on

00:13:21.120 your forbearance and acceptance of my speech but over here i'm saying we should be allowed to to

00:13:28.320 intimidate people to the point that they're worrying about their survival when they speak out of line

00:13:33.840 and so there's a there's a real you know conundrum there that i think we're all kind of hashing out

00:13:39.440 right now i understand why people want to get even on this and cancel after spending 15 years being

00:13:46.480 cancelled for you know having uh views that are even slightly outside of a very very narrow orthodoxy

00:13:53.600 people have had their uh social media gone through uh comments they made when they were

00:13:58.240 teenagers 15 years ago our cause for cancellation this is what's been going on for so long and so

00:14:03.840 now there's an opportunity to to kind of put it back on on the other side and i get that and i think

00:14:09.680 perhaps on some level um it's kept actual violence from from being the result of this very uh i think

00:14:19.200 very um earth-shattering and inflammatory event that happened last week but uh we have to come back

00:14:25.760 to those free speech principles we really do we we need to have that culture of freedom of expression

00:14:30.880 uh because and remember too that free speech itself is our relationship with the government the

00:14:36.000 government can't punish you for your free for your speech right they can't take sides on what speech

00:14:42.400 is allowed to be expressed and in the united states as i said that's much more robust uh here we have

00:14:48.640 limitations on that and that's a whole other topic but we're not necessarily just talking about free

00:14:54.640 speech in that legal sense we're also talking about it as a as a cultural um sort of environment in

00:15:01.920 which our society operates between one another um in our interactions with with people on social media

00:15:09.120 and so on that's not purely free speech but there's a free speech culture that we need to reinvigorate

00:15:16.320 where people can say yes well i don't agree with your opinion but i respect the right of you to to to

00:15:21.760 hold it where we tolerate differing views um we don't have to agree with them we don't have to

00:15:27.200 endorse them but we have to understand that there are going to be different views if you want to

00:15:32.080 have a society that is so closed where only people can only have one perspective i mean maybe that

00:15:38.400 works in a tribe maybe it works in a small cloistered uh religious community where everybody has to

00:15:44.000 be on the same page or you're shunned it does not work in broader society in a pluralistic society we

00:15:49.840 have to be able to tolerate other opinions we cannot have science if we don't have other opinions science

00:15:56.480 is as a discipline is you know charlie kirk had had that banner above his head that said prove me wrong

00:16:02.240 science is all about prove me wrong and if you can't have differing opinions you can't speak up on on

00:16:08.880 issues uh about science or medicine or culture or policy uh you simply you're back into some sort of

00:16:15.120 cloistered quasi-religious pre-modern society and uh we're going to have star chambers and we're going

00:16:22.560 to have you know uh people being putting pilloried and put in the stocks for for having different

00:16:28.400 opinions we can't go back there we've got to restore we've got to restore the just the the culture of

00:16:34.560 freedom of expression tolerance and acceptance of the fact there's going to be different views and i

00:16:39.680 no i don't think we should accept that people want to shoot others for their views that is that is

00:16:44.720 something that we should deliver a lot of social disapprobation about but um anyway i i'm on a rant

00:16:53.440 well let's keep it controversial because you said that speech is our relationship with the government so

00:16:59.280 i i believe you you you penned a letter about the sean foyt experience this summer where sean foyt is an

00:17:06.000 american uh i think he's a pastor and he he was doing a tour of church services at various parks

00:17:12.960 and so you you penned a letter to the different provincial and federal parks which is the

00:17:17.440 government uh they cancelled a lot of his shows on the basis i think largely on the basis of safety

00:17:23.200 concerns so again uh the free speech that you're talking about with the government and the idea here

00:17:30.960 was that he should have the freedom of religion and the freedom to express that religion in canada

00:17:34.960 okay that's clear we understand how many people feel about their defending those principles but at

00:17:40.640 the same time as sean foyt was touring there was a there was an imam touring who didn't get any

00:17:47.680 attention which i covered actually in my reporting and he was an imam that was engaging in a homophobic uh

00:17:57.040 anti-western anti-liberal rhetoric and should if there was a tension on that imam let's say the same

00:18:06.640 outrage happened in canada against this particular imam who is quite anti-western would free speech union

00:18:13.280 defend defend that well yes i mean it's it's the same principle right the government doesn't get to decide

00:18:21.120 what speech people get to express um this is one of the things that i think people find the most

00:18:26.800 troubling in our current um environment and that is that uh that aside is being chosen all the time

00:18:33.680 it's not principles are not being applied uniformly and and equitably across all different uh ideas now

00:18:41.520 look if somebody is um is out there saying western civilization should fall i mean look he's not the only

00:18:48.160 guy to say that we're probably hearing that in in all of our university classrooms across the country

00:18:52.000 every day um so people can say something like that and the counter to that it should be you know better

00:19:00.640 and other speech that that challenges that way of thinking uh same thing with sean foyt if you don't

00:19:05.760 like what he says well tell us tell us why let's have you know debate about that but but the government

00:19:11.040 shouldn't be putting a thumb on the scale and saying these views are not acceptable those ones we're just

00:19:15.840 going to ignore uh because you're you're what you're also doing is you're telling the population

00:19:21.600 that they really don't have freedom of expression and they ought to be looking to other ways to resolve

00:19:26.800 their disputes and what are those other ways violence so it's just so wrong-headed to to pick

00:19:34.160 favorites as as our governments have been doing so what i'm hearing really is that there's a distinction

00:19:39.040 between the government engaging in the monitoring and uh telling you of what you should and should

00:19:45.840 not say versus the town square or the public square where people debate these ideas amongst themselves

00:19:51.680 and so i found that to be the case there needs to be more public engagement amongst ourselves but to

00:19:57.120 do that we need to be able to speak freely so there's a double-edged sword here but enough of the

00:20:01.600 controversy or maybe there's a different controversy i'd like to talk about some of the cases

00:20:05.600 that the free speech union has taken up and so let's talk about margaret munn now she's a mature

00:20:11.600 student who returned to university in 2022 at the universe western faculty of education she was

00:20:17.440 obtaining her teacher's certificate and she soon faced the wrath of the equity diversity inclusion and

00:20:24.560 decolonization stasi so that was new to me the the d at the end there and so how um so what's fsu

00:20:33.440 canada's involvement in that so we're providing margaret with legal counsel and it's actually me at

00:20:39.680 this early stage of our juncture uh of our of our civil of our organization i'm uh i'm doing some of

00:20:45.280 the legal work my firm is um but the fsu is is is funding that and uh by the way on that point i would

00:20:51.440 just like to say we need lots of resources in order to be able to hire counsel so that we can take

00:20:56.400 lots of cases because i'm only one person and i can't do it all so um we need members we need donations

00:21:02.080 we need we need grants we need help to ensure that we can continue to do our good work okay plug aside

00:21:07.680 margaret is um uh suing western university for damages because she was just put through this

00:21:13.200 incredible ordeal because she started to express some uh alternate opinions in her classes and ask

00:21:20.400 questions frankly she's not you're not even allowed to ask questions in some of these classes

00:21:24.960 so for example in her uh indigenous pedagogy class she asked how exactly do you decolonize

00:21:31.840 the curriculum like practically speaking what do you mean how do you decolonize a math test or a

00:21:36.400 chemistry test and uh she uh basically was well for that and a few other questions that she raised over

00:21:45.120 the early days of her first year she was hauled before this uh before the associate dean and put under

00:21:50.960 conditions of her continued enrollment they made her life very very difficult she had numerous

00:21:55.520 struggle sessions and uh she managed to get through but it was not not a very nice experience

00:22:01.520 and and we are suing western for damages so on that note i see we're getting to the end of our time

00:22:08.720 here but i'd really i'd really like to hear from you why should people join the free speech union

00:22:12.720 why should they join and and and what can they what can they do well if you like western civilization

00:22:18.480 and you would like to continue to have it uh you need to take you need to step up and do something

00:22:23.440 about it and this is something that people can do all you have to do is sign up and become a member

00:22:27.760 but um it you know i like to think that by joining as a member you're also sending a message you're also

00:22:34.720 to yourself saying okay i'm gonna do something this is not just me throwing a few bucks at an

00:22:39.280 organization it's me stepping up and saying i'm part of this i'm part of this movement to push back

00:22:43.840 i'm part of this movement to preserve the things that make our civilization civil and so when you

00:22:50.560 join you can also um there'll be some activities and events and so on but you're helping your fellow

00:22:55.360 canadians to fight back where where we can make a difference where we can push back on say universities

00:23:01.680 and say look you're loud you're there to allow people to to speak and learn and have academic freedom

00:23:07.840 you're not there to just kind of push dogma down people's throats there has to be something more to

00:23:13.440 to it um so you know we're we're we're going to do all kinds of things to to push back and help out

00:23:18.960 and so i i hope lots of people will join i would like to have 33 000 members just like the uk it makes

00:23:24.560 me sad to think that we need this organization but we really do and until everything has been

00:23:30.640 rectified and however long that takes i think we're in for a very long battle to be perfectly frank

00:23:35.760 um we're all going to have to do something and this is something small that you can do

00:23:39.920 and i hope you'll join us well i'm a proud member and i encourage everyone to become a member if

00:23:45.360 if this is a topic that's interest interesting to you and i think it is to a lot of our listeners

00:23:50.080 join the free speech union and if you're in the greater toronto region i think sometimes there are

00:23:55.200 events that happen and so on so forth so it's not just it's not just an email every so often so

00:23:59.600 yeah please join and lisa thank you so much for joining me today thanks for having me melanie

00:24:04.240 now since you've made it this far ask yourself is there something that you can do to protect

00:24:09.200 the very freedoms that built this country the right to speak your mind the right to ask

00:24:14.800 uncomfortable questions and the right to resist conformity now i don't know about you but these

00:24:20.240 are luxuries that i for one and not prepared to give up freedom of expression is the foundation of our

00:24:26.160 western liberty it makes me sad to see it eroding under the weight of conformity the weight of ideology and

00:24:33.200 even dei soviets i encourage you to join the free speech union of canada or support support those

00:24:40.000 willing to defend the principles of liberty when no one else will and if you value this conversation

00:24:46.800 like subscribe leave a comment share with with your friends let your voice be heard for true north

00:24:52.880 i'm melanie bennett

00:25:01.840 you

Juno News - September 25, 2025

Canada Needs a Free Speech Union

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