Western Standard - HANNAFORD： Campus free speech strangled by workplace ‘safe space’ laws

00:00:00.000 Good evening, Western Standard viewers, and welcome to Hannaford, the Western Standards

00:00:21.680 weekly politics show. It is Thursday, September the 25th. We have a very strange situation. We

00:00:29.060 all know universities are a bit of a mess these days, offering your kids less of an education

00:00:35.440 for their money than an indoctrination. But every now and then something new comes along

00:00:40.520 that just makes you want to send them to plumber school. We reported on Tuesday that Alberta's 1.00

00:00:45.980 Court of Appeal has dismissed a constitutional challenge to the province's Occupational

00:00:51.940 Health and Safety Act, the so-called safe spaces provisions contained within the act.

00:00:59.060 Apparently, the University of Lethbridge has a safe spaces policy and they use it to shut

00:01:06.060 down opinions they don't like. With me today to talk about it is Glenn Blackett, a constitutional

00:01:13.360 lawyer funded by the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms. Welcome, Glenn.

00:01:18.380 Glenn Blackett Thank you very much. Thanks for coming in. Glenn, what on earth is a safe space?

00:01:25.060 I mean, can I get one?

00:01:26.060 Glenn Blackett Yeah. In fact, your employer owes you a safe

00:01:29.560 space, so you can definitely get one.

00:01:31.060 Glenn Blackett All right. Okay. I'll let Derek know.

00:01:33.060 Glenn Blackett A safe space is, I mean, I use the term safe spaces to describe the obligation

00:01:40.820 that employers are under under the Occupational Health and Safety Act to protect other employers

00:01:46.620 from psychological hazards, let's call it. And those include harassment in the traditional

00:01:53.620 sense, you know, sexual harassment, but also include much more, I'd say, benign behaviors,

00:02:01.620 including basically comments that might make another worker feel uncomfortable or offended

00:02:08.500 or something like that.

00:02:09.500 Glenn Blackett Now, that seems like a fairly broad definition. There's got to be a certain

00:02:15.500 amount of give and take in conversation. Just how deep can this go?

00:02:20.500 Glenn Blackett Well, so I brought a copy of it with me, and I'm

00:02:23.500 going to read you the definition of harassment. So the Occupational Health and Safety Act requires

00:02:28.500 an employer to ensure that their employees don't participate in harassment and aren't subject

00:02:34.500 harassment. Okay. So, and you hear harassment and you think, oh, well, that means some lech 1.00

00:02:38.500 that's whistling at women in the water coolers or something like that. But so what I'm going

00:02:41.500 to do is I'm going to read the definition. It says harassment means any single incident

00:02:46.500 or repeated incidents of objectionable or unwelcome conduct, comment, bullying, or action by a person

00:02:52.500 that the person knows or ought reasonably to know will or would cause offense or humiliation

00:02:57.500 to a worker or adversely affect the worker's health and safety. And then goes on to specify

00:03:03.500 certain things that...

00:03:04.500 Glenn Blackett Okay. So now here we're talking about employers

00:03:07.500 providing a safe space for workers, but something happened at the University of Lethbridge, which

00:03:14.500 has actually brought this thing to the courts. What's the story there?

00:03:18.500 Glenn Blackett So the story there is Francis Whittowson was invited to come give a chat at the University

00:03:23.500 of Lethbridge. She wanted to...

00:03:25.500 Glenn Blackett For some readers, better just refresh memory. She was a tenured professor at

00:03:32.500 Mount Royal University, was she not?

00:03:34.500 Glenn Blackett Right. Yeah.

00:03:35.500 Glenn Blackett So there's a little history there too.

00:03:36.500 Glenn Blackett Right. And she's a tenured professor who has spent her entire life in the area of Indigenous

00:03:41.500 policy. And her life's mission is to basically resolve the socioeconomic disparities between Indigenous

00:03:48.500 and other Canadians. Namely, she wants to find a solution to poverty, high crime rates, high substance abuse 0.59

00:03:55.500 rates, high substance abuse rates, and just generally socioeconomic disadvantage.

00:04:00.500 Glenn Blackett Well, what's the provincial government's emphasis on improving performance in universities

00:04:06.500 by Indigenous students? That sounds like somebody they should be listening to, but obviously something's

00:04:13.500 gone wrong. So now we go to the story. What happened at Lethbridge?

00:04:16.500 Glenn Blackett So she was invited by a professor named Paul Viminence, who was subsequently terminated. I think in part because he

00:04:24.500 because he extended the invitation to her, another tenured professor, and she was invited to talk on the issue of whether

00:04:33.500 or not wokeism is a threat to academic freedom. Not in her original area of expertise, which is Indigenous issues,

00:04:41.500 but rather in her new area of expertise, which is woke cancellation, because she was cancelled. I would say a woke cancellation by Mount Royal University.

00:04:50.500 And every time she tries to speak at a university in Canada, or almost every time, she's denied a permit because of safety

00:04:56.500 considerations, all on sort of wokey premises.

00:04:59.500 Glenn Blackett I think she just goes and does it anyway, doesn't she?

00:05:01.500 Glenn Blackett She kind of does. I mean, she does and doesn't. At the University of Lethbridge, she was going to go and she was going to speak in a big hall,

00:05:07.500 there would be microphones, and it would have been a much more sort of sophisticated enterprise. When she goes on to university campuses now, after she's denied, she does a thing called Spectrum Street Epistemology, 0.91

00:05:19.500 which is kind of a, you know, sort of a Charlie Kirk-ish attempt to engage students on university campus just in rational inquiry.

00:05:28.500 You know, she doesn't lecture on any particular topic. Rather, she picks an issue and she just tries to get students to engage with her on the issue,

00:05:36.500 and sort of acknowledge that, I think generally her concept is, let's acknowledge that our minds could change if certain arguments or certain facts were presented to us.

00:05:44.500 Let's, let's, let's admit that there may be some reason for questioning facts.

00:05:49.500 Yeah. So, so she still comes onto campus, but she, so she was invited onto campus by Paul Veminence.

00:05:55.500 There was a massive explosion of, of protest against the idea from the Indigenous Studies groups, from the Indigenous sort of representative at the university and a number of students and other faculty.

00:06:07.500 Wait a minute. She's on their side. You've said she had a life mission to improve things for the Indigenous community.

00:06:14.500 Right, right. So what, what drove that?

00:06:16.500 Well, she, her view is that the way you're going to find improvement is by using rational inquiry to look at the facts and look at different solutions and then arrive through this, you know, scientific process.

00:06:30.500 Um, at some solutions that may benefit Indigenous people. Um, the woke, uh, mindset instead is, is really, there's just dogmas, right?

00:06:40.500 We know ahead of time what the problems are. We know ahead of time what the solutions are.

00:06:44.500 So for you to come onto campus and start asking questions about what the causes are, what the solutions are, is really to, you know, dissent with, from dogma, which is not acceptable.

00:06:55.500 So that's why she, and specifically she's a persona non grata amongst that community now, because I would say first her, she wrote a book called Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry, 0.87

00:07:05.500 in which she argues that really one of the reasons that we have continued socioeconomic disparity is we have this superstructure of lawyers, academics and consultants that get rich off poverty.

00:07:17.500 Um, and so they're quite happy to see things remain the way they are. Um, and number two, um, yeah, she, she asks questions about these things and she, and she thinks, for example, that, uh, a Western education would be something that would benefit Indigenous students.

00:07:32.500 And that's now anathema. You just can't say that.

00:07:34.500 So, okay. What would she consider a Western education?

00:07:38.500 She would say that Western education is characterized by rational disputation. It's a search for knowledge from ignorance to knowledge. And the way you get there is through a process of rational disputation.

00:07:49.500 Rational disputation. Um, so that sounds like it could be a little unsafe if you were of a tender mind.

00:07:56.500 Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it, uh, rational disputation, right? I, you know, I, I'm going to, I'm going to propose some premise and you're going to oppose my premise, which means you're going to tell me that the thing that I truly believe to be correct is dead wrong and maybe destructive. Right. Okay. So let's go back to our definition. Is that harassment? Well, is it a single incident, like a comment that I know will reasonably cause offense or humiliation or affect your mental health?

00:08:25.500 I mean, presumably it is. So yeah, there's a, there's a major problem with the safe space obligation on employers. When you take, I mean, in any context, there's a major problem, but when you put it into university, there's a particular problem because workers at universities are supposed to be exposed to very uncomfortable ideas. That's the entire purpose of a university.

00:08:45.500 My economics professor when I was at university was a Marxist. I could hardly sit still.

00:08:49.500 Right.

00:08:50.500 But here I am.

00:08:51.500 Right.

00:08:52.500 Unscarred in the end, but better prepare for those arguments.

00:08:54.500 Absolutely.

00:08:55.500 That seems to, is that not what a Western education is?

00:08:58.500 Yeah, I think you're right.

00:08:59.500 Yeah.

00:09:00.500 You would think that anybody, we're talking, we happen to be talking about indigenous students, I guess, but you would think that anybody would in actual fact want a preparation for life that better fitted them to deal with the issues they're going to have to deal with.

00:09:19.500 I mean, that only takes you so far.

00:09:21.500 Right.

00:09:22.500 Right.

00:09:23.500 So there are, there was a case.

00:09:26.500 Um, I think the reason this is in the news is that, uh, um, an appeal court has upheld the decision of a lower court.

00:09:34.500 You're the lawyer.

00:09:35.500 You're in, you're fighting this thing.

00:09:37.500 What we've established is that, um, she was invited, disinvited and then, um, well, what happened?

00:09:51.500 Was there a, there was a riot?

00:09:52.500 Uh, there was a, did she show up anyway then?

00:09:54.500 Yeah.

00:09:55.500 Well, she, she did show up anyway, actually.

00:09:57.500 And she, she walked into Anderson hall and she met a mob of about 300 people.

00:10:02.500 Yes.

00:10:03.500 Uh, she was intending to go in there and I think she was going to try to give her lecture in that space, uh, to whoever she could speak to. 1.00

00:10:10.500 But the, the object of the exercise, this, of this cancel mob was to make sure that she couldn't speak.

00:10:15.500 So they were all screaming and playing electric guitars and banging drums and yelling obscenities and all that kind of stuff.

00:10:20.500 So that she, it was impossible for her really to speak.

00:10:23.500 It was, including, she was standing right beside an indigenous guy who came up to her.

00:10:26.500 And I think he objected to what she had to say, but he started to engage with her in conversation and she couldn't even speak to that guy.

00:10:33.500 And he turned around to the crowd and said, Hey, you know, you're, you're trying to silence now an indigenous person. 0.87

00:10:38.500 That's not right.

00:10:39.500 That's not how it's supposed to go, but you know, he's not indigenous now if he's trying to have a conversation with her.

00:10:44.500 So he was silenced.

00:10:45.500 So she sued? 0.86

00:10:47.500 Yeah.

00:10:48.500 So, so originally she, the professor who invited her and one of the students who wanted to attend a guy named Jonah Pickle all sued.

00:10:55.500 Uh, the court first struck the claim by Paul Viminence, the inviting professor for reasons we don't necessarily have to get into.

00:11:02.500 Um, and now we are, we are about to go into the hearing on the main question, which is whether or not the university, uh, breached the, the constitutional rights

00:11:13.500 of both Francis Whittowson to speak and to be heard and Jonah Pickle to, to sit down and hear the same and also engage with Francis Whittowson and to assemble with other students.

00:11:23.500 Um, but while we were preparing arguments for that, uh, the university of Lethbridge raised for, for the first time that, well, we had this obligation under the Occupational Health and Safety Act, um, to protect people's mental health.

00:11:35.500 And this was relevant to our cancellation.

00:11:37.500 And so we said, okay, well, if the Occupational Health and Safety Act exerted pressure to, to force the cancellation, then the Occupational Health and Safety Act is having a unconstitutional effect.

00:11:50.500 We'd like to challenge the constitutionality of these safe space provisions.

00:11:55.500 So what we wanted to do is really just amend our pleading so that we can argue that.

00:11:59.500 And when I went to court to ask to please amend my pleading so I can argue that the court said, no, it's a hopeless claim.

00:12:05.500 It's impossible to imagine that the Occupational Health and Safety Act, which expressly requires the, the, uh, you know, the suppression of speech could be a charter infringing provision.

00:12:17.500 And so we then went to the court of appeal on that issue and the court of appeal agreed with the lower court.

00:12:23.500 Basically we don't have the right to even challenge the legislation under the charter.

00:12:27.500 So section 52 of our constitution says the constitution is the supreme law of Canada and any statute which is inconsistent with it shall be struck down.

00:12:36.500 We say, okay, this is a statute which is inconsistent with it.

00:12:40.500 We'd like it to be struck down.

00:12:41.500 The court says, can't even argue it.

00:12:43.500 You can't even ask.

00:12:44.500 Now you're also conducting a case on behalf of, um, a lawyer who's a member of the Alberta college.

00:12:55.500 Is it the college of, um, lawyers?

00:12:58.500 Oh yeah.

00:12:59.500 The, uh, law society of Alberta.

00:13:00.500 Law society of Alberta.

00:13:01.500 So I'm going to get my colleges and my universities mixed up here.

00:13:04.500 So, um, there, there seems to be within the law society, we'll call it a woke stream of consciousness flowing.

00:13:15.500 Uh, they have certainly demanded that every lawyer practicing in Alberta take, uh, a question and answer, a score your own thing called the path dealing with indigenous issues.

00:13:29.500 And from those who've taken, I don't believe it's particularly onerous, but if you don't do it, you can't practice law in Alberta.

00:13:39.500 So the law society is taking a very definite, uh, just in case they come on after you.

00:13:45.500 This is me saying this, this is my interpretation of what I'm, of what I'm, you know, uh, of what I'm reading.

00:13:52.500 Uh, they are taking the, uh, the view that they have the right to determine what lawyers, uh, will take into account.

00:14:02.500 I guess they can't control what they think, but they, what, what lawyers will take into account when they're making their reasonings.

00:14:09.500 So that's the lawyers.

00:14:11.500 Now we come to the judges.

00:14:13.500 Um, on the basis of what we've discussed so far, uh, it strikes me that this argument is a convenient way of not having to deal with the issue that a different judge at a different time might well have got into it and said, there's a different set of circumstances flowing through a university education.

00:14:40.500 Um, am I thinking good thoughts?

00:14:46.500 Yeah, I think so.

00:14:48.500 I mean, on the law society, one of the problems is that there was this mandatory political indoctrination and it's framed as cultural understanding.

00:14:57.500 We're just going to learn that indigenous people think and behave differently than we. 1.00

00:15:01.500 And if we don't understand how they think and behave differently, then how can we have a successful relationship with an indigenous person? 1.00

00:15:07.500 And how can we not re-traumatize them with certain kinds of improper behaviors?

00:15:11.500 Which the, a, that's not really what the path was about.

00:15:15.500 The path had one small section on cultural understandings and it was, you know, it took, it starts by saying there's hundreds of different indigenous cultures across Canada and it's ignorant to treat them all as the same.

00:15:27.500 And then the next chapter is, and here's how they're all the same.

00:15:30.500 And it gives you a bunch of, you know, useless stuff.

00:15:33.500 Like, you know, don't be arrogant or have fun or things like that.

00:15:37.500 Like I, okay.

00:15:38.500 I mean, this is not sophisticated cultural lessons or stuff.

00:15:42.500 Fun?

00:15:43.500 Yeah.

00:15:44.500 Like sometimes when an elder is making, you know, making fun at you, instead of getting upset, you should just laugh along because, you know, or something like, like, I mean, just basic human social skills.

00:15:56.500 Right.

00:15:57.500 I don't, I, it had no value as a way of teaching you about cultural understandings, but then it went on to say that lawyers should basically participate in this project to be shoehorring indigenous people into this parallel system of justice and a system of really much more significant racial segregation than they already experienced.

00:16:18.500 That doesn't sound like cultural understanding to me.

00:16:21.500 I mean, now it is a kind of a cultural understanding if you put your woke helmet on and you go, well, culture means that indigenous people have to live in a certain environment.

00:16:28.500 Sounds like it's the racism of low expectations.

00:16:30.500 Yeah.

00:16:31.500 Yeah.

00:16:32.500 I think, yeah.

00:16:33.500 I mean, I, I think it's incredible bigotry when I actually go through the path and see what it taught, what it tells me about indigenous people.

00:16:37.500 And I think it's very dangerous.

00:16:39.500 And I think Francis Whitteson would probably agree, which is the idea that, you know, the, the basic premise is that in order for us not to, to traumatize indigenous people, we have to insulate indigenous people. 0.99

00:16:51.500 from Western values.

00:16:53.500 Okay.

00:16:54.500 So free speech, free thought, legal equality, rationality, reason, empiricism, all these different things.

00:17:01.500 If we expose an indigenous person that it's going to make them feel awkward and traumatized because that's not the way indigenous people as a race really think and feel. 1.00

00:17:10.500 which is a, I think racist bigotry and be suggest that the environment that we're supposed to put indigenous people in or help them, you know, usher them into is one that would be characterized by not by democracy, but by authoritarianism, not by reason, but by spirituality, not by, you know, rule of law, but by rule of man, et cetera.

00:17:32.500 So.

00:17:33.500 So.

00:17:34.500 Okay.

00:17:35.500 So, so what we've got here is we've got woke lawyers.

00:17:38.500 It would appear to me that we have woke justices who don't want to upset or challenge this way of thinking, certainly not by rendering a decision.

00:17:50.500 You get a provocative, uh, professor of the kind that you and I encountered all the time in our own university educations, people who, you know, took your comfortable grade 12 assumptions and stood them on their end and say, no, argue out of that.

00:18:05.500 Um, which is really what a Western university university education is about.

00:18:12.500 It is a Western university education that the provincial government says that it wants for indigenous people.

00:18:19.500 And if you actually talk to, uh, indigenous leaders, I suspect that they would say the same privately privately, but when somebody tries to deliver it and challenge assumptions,

00:18:33.500 they are shut down and the courts don't even want to hear the case.

00:18:41.500 Is there any further level of appeal?

00:18:44.500 The federal court, the Supreme court, where do you go from here with this case?

00:18:49.500 Well, um, I mean, first of all, I don't know that I can quite come to an agreement that we're dealing with a woke judiciary or a woke legal profession.

00:18:57.500 I mean, in my Roger song file versus law society of Alberta, our great concern is that there's a lot of pressure on the legal profession to become woke.

00:19:04.500 And I think the legal profession is becoming woke.

00:19:07.500 Most people don't know what it means.

00:19:08.500 Most people don't know what's happening, including the lawyers themselves, but it's happening.

00:19:13.500 Um, the judiciary is under very similar pressures to go woke as well.

00:19:18.500 Okay.

00:19:19.500 And one of them is, uh, a bill called bill 14, which was introduced by or passed by the provincial government in 2022.

00:19:26.500 Um, and that relates to the Premier Kenny's.

00:19:30.500 Premier Kenny.

00:19:31.500 Yeah.

00:19:32.500 Administration.

00:19:33.500 Yes.

00:19:34.500 Yeah.

00:19:35.500 I think that's right.

00:19:36.500 Yeah.

00:19:37.500 Okay.

00:19:38.500 And, uh, basically, so the provincial, the provincial court in Alberta now called the court of justice is the only court that's appointed by the provincial government.

00:19:43.500 The, our King's bench is appointed by the federal government.

00:19:46.500 Yes.

00:19:47.500 Um, and in fact, most of the judges I now appear in front of are Trudeau appointees.

00:19:51.500 Um, and so, but with respect to the provincial court, um, and the provincial, um, appointments, there's a new piece of legislation bill 14, which awaits proclamation.

00:20:02.500 It's basically passed and we just need a pen stroke to, to make the thing law.

00:20:06.500 Um, it requires that in order for a person to be appointed to the bench, the provincial court in Alberta, they need to first go through certain kinds of training.

00:20:15.500 And the kind of training they need to go through is something called social context issues.

00:20:19.500 So the legislation says they have to take training in social context issues, which, I mean, why does a judge need to understand what social context is?

00:20:28.500 It seems if you, if your judge doesn't know social context, they shouldn't be on the bench, number one, but number two, in fact, that just seems to be a euphemism for woke indoctrination.

00:20:37.500 So whose idea was this?

00:20:39.500 That training?

00:20:40.500 Yeah.

00:20:41.500 I, great question.

00:20:42.500 I, I, uh, I think it was the ministry of, uh, status of women or something like that, that had introduced it.

00:20:47.500 I, I don't know if it was Kenny's idea.

00:20:49.500 So does this only apply to federal appointments to King's bench?

00:20:53.500 Well, well that bill 14, the provincial legislation only applies to provincial court appointments to the provincial court, but the federal, uh, there's federal legislation that mirrors it.

00:21:04.500 I see the federal legislation and the federal legislation, uh, in defense of the federal liberals is actually at least a little bit more honest because instead of just saying judges have to complete, uh, training in social context issues.

00:21:16.500 It says judges have to, I think they have to undertake to, to complete ongoing training in, in, which makes sense because the dogma and propaganda is always changing.

00:21:25.500 You've always got to be up on your latest propaganda, um, in social context issues, including systemic discrimination.

00:21:31.500 And so that word systemic discrimination is a real buzzword that tells you you're dealing with woke.

00:21:35.500 Okay.

00:21:36.500 So you have these two bill 14, is it passed?

00:21:40.500 Yep.

00:21:41.500 It is passed.

00:21:42.500 Yeah.

00:21:43.500 The legislation that mirrors it requires what, a vote?

00:21:48.500 No, it just, I think it just requires the, uh, Lieutenant Governor Council to proclaim the thing in force.

00:21:53.500 No.

00:21:54.500 It doesn't really sound like something that Danielle Smith would be advancing.

00:21:57.500 I'm surprised it's got this far.

00:21:59.500 Are you?

00:22:00.500 I'm not surprised it got this far.

00:22:03.500 Um, I'm a little surprised that it hasn't been, uh, repealed, but I suppose it may be politically more convenient to just let the thing die, uh, than to actually go out and repeal it.

00:22:14.500 Cause you're going to make more enemies by trying to repeal it.

00:22:16.500 But the problem is you leave it on the books and NDP government gets elected 10 stroke.

00:22:20.500 And now you've got a mandate.

00:22:22.500 Now, having said all that, just because there's a statutory mandate that requires it, or there is no statutory mandate that requires it is not to say the judges don't undergo that kind of training anyway, voluntarily.

00:22:34.500 Like there's not, I don't even know if it's voluntary.

00:22:37.500 I don't know how the education system works in the court system, but in the court system, they have a strategic plan that says one of their four pillars, like the court of Kings Bench in Alberta has a strategic plan.

00:22:48.500 One of their four pillars of their strategic plan is DEI.

00:22:52.500 Um, and part of that program is legal education.

00:22:56.500 To get back to left bridge.

00:22:58.500 The solution then is doesn't look like it's any good looking at the courts.

00:23:03.500 Right.

00:23:04.500 Well, we'll see.

00:23:05.500 I mean, I remain, can the legislature fix this?

00:23:08.500 Yes.

00:23:09.500 The legislature, well, can the legislature fix it?

00:23:11.500 Um, yes, but the legislature has got to roll up their sleeves and get serious.

00:23:14.500 Like the government, the minister of education, of advanced education.

00:23:18.500 I think it was in 2019 after there had been a spate of cancellations required university

00:23:24.500 senates to pass these free speech policies.

00:23:27.500 And so university of Lethbridge sure enough has a free speech policy that basically says we'd never do something like cancel Francis Wilson.

00:23:34.500 Okay.

00:23:35.500 But, and they originally, they said, okay, we can't cancel this thing.

00:23:38.500 They sent out a statement saying we can't cancel this thing because of the free speech policy and all that kind of stuff.

00:23:42.500 And then they changed their mind and they said, Oh, actually we can cancel the thing.

00:23:45.500 And I think they also said because of the free speech policy.

00:23:48.500 So just having a piece of paper in front of the Senate or the university that says something like there shall be free speech is not enough.

00:23:56.500 There's got to be a much more significant overhaul of the universities.

00:24:00.500 But, uh, yeah, I mean, I think there's definitely some, and I think the, the provincial government has their foot on the neck of universities because they provide most of their funding.

00:24:11.500 So if the, if the provincial government really wanted to do something, they could, but you know.

00:24:16.500 Or they could introduce a bill saying the OHSS safe spaces is great for the office towers.

00:24:24.500 It doesn't apply in universities.

00:24:26.500 Yeah.

00:24:27.500 I don't think it's great in the office towers either.

00:24:29.500 You know, I mean the problem, you know, part of the problem with the Occupation Health and Safety Act at universities is that the university is a place where you're supposed to encounter, you know, difficult ideas.

00:24:38.500 Right.

00:24:39.500 Yeah.

00:24:40.500 So generally in a democracy, one where we have free thought, free expression, you also are supposed to be able to encounter challenging ideas, you know?

00:24:48.500 So, you know, if I go to the water cooler and I see Sally there and I tell Sally that, you know, I think Trump's a great guy, that's part of democracy.

00:24:55.500 But Sally would say, well, that's harassment because you made a comment that made me feel offended and humiliated. 0.83

00:25:00.500 Right.

00:25:01.500 Therefore she goes to HR and she tells HR to fire Glenn and turns out Glenn's a MAGA lover and he gets, you know, canceled.

00:25:07.500 And the problem with the Occupation Health and Safety Act, too, is if employers don't comply with these censorship obligations, they can go to jail.

00:25:14.500 Right.

00:25:15.500 You can go to jail for exposing workers to certain risks.

00:25:19.500 Right.

00:25:20.500 You can go to jail or you can be fined.

00:25:22.500 These are it's like it's like a quasi kind of a criminal statute and it's a strict liability offense.

00:25:27.500 So, boy, if I go to the water cooler and I say something that makes Sally feel uncomfortable and there is therefore an injury.

00:25:34.500 Okay.

00:25:35.500 Okay.

00:25:36.500 Then de facto, my employer has committed an offense.

00:25:39.500 Now, my employer has the obligation to disprove that it should be held accountable, you know, for a fine or imprisonment.

00:25:47.500 So, you know, yeah, it's bad enough at universities, but the idea that we're mandating woke censorship, which is I think what it comes down to, woke censorship on the entire, you know, public in their, you know, in their universities, in their sandwich shops.

00:26:03.500 You and I sitting right here, I mean, all the things I've said right now probably constitute harassment.

00:26:07.500 Right.

00:26:08.500 So under this definition.

00:26:10.500 Mm hmm.

00:26:11.500 So the idea that the that the provincial government mandates employers in every industry to censor like this is a huge problem.

00:26:19.500 Wow.

00:26:20.500 This is a lot bigger than University of Lethbridge, Francis Whittowson and an appeal court.

00:26:25.500 This is this is a huge issue.

00:26:27.500 Yeah.

00:26:28.500 Look, we need to hear more about this.

00:26:29.500 And I just want to congratulate you on the work that you're doing in representing people who are caught out in this legislation.

00:26:36.500 Ain't the country that we thought it was, but maybe maybe with the work of folks like yourselves and the other guys at the Justice Center, you can get some we can do some good.

00:26:48.500 Don't have to take it laying down.

00:26:49.500 Right.

00:26:50.500 Glenn, thank you very much for joining the program today.

00:26:52.500 Okay.

00:26:53.500 Thanks for having me.

00:26:54.500 For the Western Standard, I'm Nigel Annafort.

00:26:59.500 Thank you.

00:27:08.500 Me.

Western Standard - September 30, 2025

HANNAFORD： Campus free speech strangled by workplace ‘safe space’ laws

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