The University of Lethbridge has a "safe space" policy, and they use it to shut down opinions they don't like. We talk to constitutional lawyer Glenn Blackett about what a safe space is and why it's a bad idea.
00:03:35.500Glenn Blackett So there's a little history there too.
00:03:36.500Glenn Blackett Right. And she's a tenured professor who has spent her entire life in the area of Indigenous
00:03:41.500policy. And her life's mission is to basically resolve the socioeconomic disparities between Indigenous
00:03:48.500and other Canadians. Namely, she wants to find a solution to poverty, high crime rates, high substance abuse
00:03:55.500rates, high substance abuse rates, and just generally socioeconomic disadvantage.
00:04:00.500Glenn Blackett Well, what's the provincial government's emphasis on improving performance in universities
00:04:06.500by Indigenous students? That sounds like somebody they should be listening to, but obviously something's
00:04:13.500gone wrong. So now we go to the story. What happened at Lethbridge?
00:04:16.500Glenn Blackett So she was invited by a professor named Paul Viminence, who was subsequently terminated. I think in part because he
00:04:24.500because he extended the invitation to her, another tenured professor, and she was invited to talk on the issue of whether
00:04:33.500or not wokeism is a threat to academic freedom. Not in her original area of expertise, which is Indigenous issues,
00:04:41.500but 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.
00:04:50.500And every time she tries to speak at a university in Canada, or almost every time, she's denied a permit because of safety
00:04:56.500considerations, all on sort of wokey premises.
00:04:59.500Glenn Blackett I think she just goes and does it anyway, doesn't she?
00:05:01.500Glenn 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,
00:05:07.500there 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,
00:05:19.500which is kind of a, you know, sort of a Charlie Kirk-ish attempt to engage students on university campus just in rational inquiry.
00:05:28.500You 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,
00:05:36.500and 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.
00:05:44.500Let's, let's, let's admit that there may be some reason for questioning facts.
00:05:49.500Yeah. So, so she still comes onto campus, but she, so she was invited onto campus by Paul Veminence.
00:05:55.500There 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.
00:06:07.500Wait a minute. She's on their side. You've said she had a life mission to improve things for the Indigenous community.
00:06:14.500Right, right. So what, what drove that?
00:06:16.500Well, 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.
00:06:30.500Um, at some solutions that may benefit Indigenous people. Um, the woke, uh, mindset instead is, is really, there's just dogmas, right?
00:06:40.500We know ahead of time what the problems are. We know ahead of time what the solutions are.
00:06:44.500So 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.
00:06:55.500So 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,
00:07:05.500in 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.
00:07:17.500Um, 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.
00:07:32.500And that's now anathema. You just can't say that.
00:07:34.500So, okay. What would she consider a Western education?
00:07:38.500She 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.
00:07:49.500Rational disputation. Um, so that sounds like it could be a little unsafe if you were of a tender mind.
00:07:56.500Yeah, 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?
00:08:25.500I 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.
00:08:45.500My economics professor when I was at university was a Marxist. I could hardly sit still.
00:09:00.500You 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.
00:10:03.500Uh, 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.
00:10:10.500But the, the object of the exercise, this, of this cancel mob was to make sure that she couldn't speak.
00:10:15.500So they were all screaming and playing electric guitars and banging drums and yelling obscenities and all that kind of stuff.
00:10:20.500So that she, it was impossible for her really to speak.
00:10:23.500It was, including, she was standing right beside an indigenous guy who came up to her.
00:10:26.500And 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.
00:10:33.500And he turned around to the crowd and said, Hey, you know, you're, you're trying to silence now an indigenous person.
00:10:48.500So, so originally she, the professor who invited her and one of the students who wanted to attend a guy named Jonah Pickle all sued.
00:10:55.500Uh, the court first struck the claim by Paul Viminence, the inviting professor for reasons we don't necessarily have to get into.
00:11:02.500Um, 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
00:11:13.500of 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.
00:11:23.500Um, 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.
00:11:35.500And this was relevant to our cancellation.
00:11:37.500And 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.
00:11:50.500We'd like to challenge the constitutionality of these safe space provisions.
00:11:55.500So what we wanted to do is really just amend our pleading so that we can argue that.
00:11:59.500And 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.
00:12:05.500It'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.
00:12:17.500And so we then went to the court of appeal on that issue and the court of appeal agreed with the lower court.
00:12:23.500Basically we don't have the right to even challenge the legislation under the charter.
00:12:27.500So 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.
00:12:36.500We say, okay, this is a statute which is inconsistent with it.
00:13:01.500So I'm going to get my colleges and my universities mixed up here.
00:13:04.500So, um, there, there seems to be within the law society, we'll call it a woke stream of consciousness flowing.
00:13:15.500Uh, 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.
00:13:29.500And 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.
00:13:39.500So the law society is taking a very definite, uh, just in case they come on after you.
00:13:45.500This is me saying this, this is my interpretation of what I'm, of what I'm, you know, uh, of what I'm reading.
00:13:52.500Uh, they are taking the, uh, the view that they have the right to determine what lawyers, uh, will take into account.
00:14:02.500I guess they can't control what they think, but they, what, what lawyers will take into account when they're making their reasonings.
00:14:13.500Um, 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.
00:14:48.500I mean, on the law society, one of the problems is that there was this mandatory political indoctrination and it's framed as cultural understanding.
00:14:57.500We're just going to learn that indigenous people think and behave differently than we.
00:15:01.500And if we don't understand how they think and behave differently, then how can we have a successful relationship with an indigenous person?
00:15:07.500And how can we not re-traumatize them with certain kinds of improper behaviors?
00:15:11.500Which the, a, that's not really what the path was about.
00:15:15.500The 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.
00:15:27.500And then the next chapter is, and here's how they're all the same.
00:15:30.500And it gives you a bunch of, you know, useless stuff.
00:15:33.500Like, you know, don't be arrogant or have fun or things like that.
00:15:44.500Like 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.
00:15:57.500I 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.
00:16:18.500That doesn't sound like cultural understanding to me.
00:16:21.500I 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.
00:16:28.500Sounds like it's the racism of low expectations.
00:16:33.500I 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.
00:16:39.500And 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.
00:16:54.500So free speech, free thought, legal equality, rationality, reason, empiricism, all these different things.
00:17:01.500If 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.
00:17:10.500which 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.
00:17:35.500So, so what we've got here is we've got woke lawyers.
00:17:38.500It 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.
00:17:50.500You 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.
00:18:05.500Um, which is really what a Western university university education is about.
00:18:12.500It is a Western university education that the provincial government says that it wants for indigenous people.
00:18:19.500And 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,
00:18:33.500they are shut down and the courts don't even want to hear the case.
00:18:44.500The federal court, the Supreme court, where do you go from here with this case?
00:18:49.500Well, 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.
00:18:57.500I 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.
00:19:04.500And I think the legal profession is becoming woke.
00:19:38.500And, 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.
00:19:43.500The, our King's bench is appointed by the federal government.
00:19:47.500Um, and in fact, most of the judges I now appear in front of are Trudeau appointees.
00:19:51.500Um, 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.
00:20:02.500It's basically passed and we just need a pen stroke to, to make the thing law.
00:20:06.500Um, 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.
00:20:15.500And the kind of training they need to go through is something called social context issues.
00:20:19.500So 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?
00:20:28.500It 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.
00:20:42.500I, I, uh, I think it was the ministry of, uh, status of women or something like that, that had introduced it.
00:20:47.500I, I don't know if it was Kenny's idea.
00:20:49.500So does this only apply to federal appointments to King's bench?
00:20:53.500Well, 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.
00:21:04.500I 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.
00:21:16.500It 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.
00:21:25.500You've always got to be up on your latest propaganda, um, in social context issues, including systemic discrimination.
00:21:31.500And so that word systemic discrimination is a real buzzword that tells you you're dealing with woke.
00:22:03.500Um, 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.
00:22:14.500Cause you're going to make more enemies by trying to repeal it.
00:22:16.500But the problem is you leave it on the books and NDP government gets elected 10 stroke.
00:22:22.500Now, 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.
00:22:34.500Like there's not, I don't even know if it's voluntary.
00:22:37.500I 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.
00:22:48.500One of their four pillars of their strategic plan is DEI.
00:22:52.500Um, and part of that program is legal education.
00:23:09.500The legislature, well, can the legislature fix it?
00:23:11.500Um, yes, but the legislature has got to roll up their sleeves and get serious.
00:23:14.500Like the government, the minister of education, of advanced education.
00:23:18.500I think it was in 2019 after there had been a spate of cancellations required university
00:23:24.500senates to pass these free speech policies.
00:23:27.500And so university of Lethbridge sure enough has a free speech policy that basically says we'd never do something like cancel Francis Wilson.
00:23:35.500But, and they originally, they said, okay, we can't cancel this thing.
00:23:38.500They sent out a statement saying we can't cancel this thing because of the free speech policy and all that kind of stuff.
00:23:42.500And then they changed their mind and they said, Oh, actually we can cancel the thing.
00:23:45.500And I think they also said because of the free speech policy.
00:23:48.500So 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.
00:23:56.500There's got to be a much more significant overhaul of the universities.
00:24:00.500But, 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.
00:24:11.500So if the, if the provincial government really wanted to do something, they could, but you know.
00:24:16.500Or they could introduce a bill saying the OHSS safe spaces is great for the office towers.
00:24:27.500I don't think it's great in the office towers either.
00:24:29.500You 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.
00:24:40.500So 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?
00:24:48.500So, 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.
00:24:55.500But Sally would say, well, that's harassment because you made a comment that made me feel offended and humiliated.
00:25:01.500Therefore 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.
00:25:07.500And 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.
00:25:36.500Then de facto, my employer has committed an offense.
00:25:39.500Now, my employer has the obligation to disprove that it should be held accountable, you know, for a fine or imprisonment.
00:25:47.500So, 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.
00:26:03.500You and I sitting right here, I mean, all the things I've said right now probably constitute harassment.
00:26:28.500Look, we need to hear more about this.
00:26:29.500And I just want to congratulate you on the work that you're doing in representing people who are caught out in this legislation.
00:26:36.500Ain'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.