More on Canadian Liberal Attacks on Democracy

Another piece of stupid legislation is about to emerge from the colon of wisdom in Ottawa: a bill before a parliamentary committee promising to strengthen Canada's law against child pornography at the expense of education, art, literature and freedom of speech and expression.

If passed, the bill's provisions will censor and outlaw any educational, artistic or cultural description or depiction of children in the context of sexuality. Even books or articles written about sex education will be caught in the legal web created by such a law. No doubt the supporters of such an outrage will defend their handiwork by claiming that Canadian judges will prevent artists and writers from being criminalized for creating "legitimate" works [educational texts, works of literature, etc.].

The problem is that charges will be laid by ignorant police officers, often goaded by loony interest groups and "activists", based on the bill's expanded, loosely worded and highly subjective definitions of allegedly harmful material. This harrassment, involving costly legal
defences, will create a significant chill, itself preventing truly legitimate writers and artists from discussing or including reference to material that might be deemed by those police or interest groups to be pornography, whether or not the writers or artists might be eventually
acquitted of any offences charged.

As well, there is no reasonable guarantee that the courts will protect free speech and legitimate works, as illustrated by the subjectivity displayed by many judges and the willingness of those same judges to embrace the same hysteria evidenced by the very existence of theproposed law itself.

Alan Borovy, general counsel for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, and a long time opponent of overweaning and unnecessary governmental attacks upon civil liberties, characterizes the problem created by the proposed law very nicely: "...the subject matter of
education, art, and literature cannot be appropriately confined to birds, flowers and cans of soup." Parliamentarians and those bureaucrats who dreamed up this new horror cannot seem to get it. Lets hope that exposing their crassness and stupidity to the light of criticism may help them get it.

Perhaps they are not part of a conspiracy to destroy democracy bit by bit. Perhaps they are just too stupid to know what they are doing. Given the eagerness with which politicians embrace corruption [note the latest mess exposed daily during the Gomery Inquiry], the latter is
likely closer to the truth.