Juno News - October 29, 2020


Canadian government only wants to stand up for free speech ＂with respect＂


Episode Stats

Length

5 minutes

Words per Minute

158.72276

Word Count

908

Sentence Count

91

Hate Speech Sentences

7


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 You cannot be a free society without respecting free speech. It's among the
00:00:08.960 most important freedoms if not the most important in the world. Yet when Canada
00:00:13.920 stands up for free speech it's always with an asterisk, it's with a
00:00:16.920 qualification. Just take a look at this statement from Foreign Minister Philippe
00:00:21.240 Francois Champagne in response to tensions between France and Turkey. He
00:00:25.800 says we stand in solidarity with our French friends. Turkey's recent comments
00:00:30.240 about France are totally unacceptable. We must return to respectful diplomatic
00:00:34.680 exchanges. Sounds good right? Well go one line further. We will always stand
00:00:40.120 together to defend freedom of expression with respect. Now what does this mean?
00:00:46.260 You only defend freedom of expression if that expression is respectful? The very
00:00:51.560 speech that needs protecting from censorship is speech that is
00:00:55.260 specifically disrespectful. Which is why what's happening in Paris right now is
00:01:00.420 so important and across France. Charlie Hebdo, a magazine that has now entered the
00:01:05.140 mainstream consciousness around the world for its unwillingness to bend the knee
00:01:09.480 before censors, continues to enrage and outrage a lot of people, most notably
00:01:14.920 Muslims, by its depictions of the Prophet Muhammad and its other
00:01:18.600 characterizations of Islam and Islamic figures. You may not think this is
00:01:23.020 appropriate, it is still free speech. Just as it's free speech when Charlie Hebdo takes aim
00:01:28.180 at Jews or Christians, which again, entirely justifiable to find inappropriate, but is free
00:01:33.900 speech. Yet Charlie Hebdo has considerably staked its lives of its people on this idea of free speech. It is not
00:01:42.820 theoretical. They have actually had their staff slaughtered and they still continue to stand up for what they believe in.
00:01:50.900 But now other people are getting slaughtered. France has had a number of attacks because Muslims
00:01:56.060 are upset that this is allowed in a country that they call home. There was
00:02:01.420 another attack as recently as today in Nice, being derided as terror by the mayor of
00:02:06.380 Nice. And then you can look at this comment from the former president of Malaysia. He says,
00:02:12.340 Muslims have a right to be angry and kill millions of French people for the massacres of the past. But of
00:02:20.620 course he says he wouldn't personally kill people over these depictions and magazines, but Muslims have
00:02:26.860 a right to be angry about it. No one has a right to take the life of another individual in this way,
00:02:32.560 but people do have a right to share their thoughts. People do have a right to make their cartoons,
00:02:37.500 to write their opinions, however objectionable other people may find those. And I go back to
00:02:43.000 Minister Champagne's so-called defense of freedom of expression, freedom of expression with respect.
00:02:50.080 Well, let's contrast that with what Emmanuel Macron has said, the president of France.
00:02:55.320 He was very defiant. We will not give in ever. We respect all differences in a spirit of peace.
00:03:01.520 We do not accept hate speech and defend reasonable debate. We will always be on the side of human
00:03:07.780 dignity and universal values. And to be clear, he even doubled down on that in Arabic. And that is a
00:03:15.860 message that very much needs to go across if there are people in France and around the world that are
00:03:20.720 standing up and trying to not just attack or criticize France's commitment to free speech,
00:03:25.740 but actually wanting to attack French citizens. We see boycotts of French companies,
00:03:31.200 French products right now. Boycotts are not all that effective, but it's within your right. If you
00:03:35.820 hate France so much that you don't want to buy L'Oreal for your hair, that's fine. That's your
00:03:40.120 prerogative. It is not your prerogative to go around and slaughter French citizens, however.
00:03:45.900 And then you look at how the Turkish president Erdogan has responded to this. He called it disgusting
00:03:51.920 and is actually threatening legal action. Now, I'm not sure how Turkey can impose any sort of legal
00:03:58.300 tool against a privately owned newspaper in France, but this is where things are now.
00:04:03.120 And of course, he was not too fond of this image on the cover of Charlie Hebdo featuring a very
00:04:08.000 unflattering portrait of Erdogan sitting around and, well, I'll let the picture be worth a thousand
00:04:13.560 words there. This is not about whether you support or oppose Charlie Hebdo or any other expression of
00:04:19.940 free speech, whether it's the infamous Yellen's Poston's Mohammed cartoons of Denmark, published for the
00:04:24.760 first time really by the Western standard outside of their original publication in Scandinavia.
00:04:30.660 This is about whether when the chips are on the table and the stakes are high, you will support
00:04:36.200 free speech. And when you qualify free speech by, oh, well, free speech with respect, you aren't
00:04:42.420 actually supporting free speech at all. The problem is, is that so many people, including a great
00:04:47.320 many liberal politicians in Canada, only want to talk about the exceptions to free speech
00:04:52.600 without the broader overarching principle of how important it is to have free speech and to
00:04:58.780 maintain free speech. And I never thought I would have said this a couple of years ago, but good on
00:05:02.860 Macron for standing up and not relenting in the face of adversity. For True North, I'm Andrew Lawton.
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