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Overall impressions of free speech symposium
by Scott Gilbreath ~ November 1st, 2008
I plan to blog some of the events from the Joseph Howe Symposium, “The Media’s Right to Offend: The Legal and Ethical Limits on Free Speech” tomorrow and Monday, but I thought I’d briefly offer my overall impressions of the day.
Ezra Levant is a riveting and dynamic speaker, and was without a doubt the highlight of the day. His approach to free speech issues was clearly not shared by other panelists, one of whom looked like he could hardly stand to sit at the same table. Ezra has no pretence of impartiality or objectivity and does not possess the academic credibility of most of the other panelists. Some audience members found his sarcastic sense of humour highly objectionable.
Yet his passion commands attention, and his comprehensive factual knowledge and years in the trenches fighting speech restrictions confer more credibility than a university posting.
One measure of that credibility and attention, it seems to me, could be seen after formal proceedings were adjourned for the day. Panelists stayed behind to chat among themselves and with people in the audience who wanted to discuss the issues further and ask more questions. Most of the panelists had two or three others talking with them. Ezra had a group of up to 15 people crowded around him listening to what he had to say. Most of them were young people.
That observation indicates to me that, for the average interested Canadian, Ezra Levant’s way of thinking is more compelling and persuasive than the official legalistic line taken by defenders of our human rights commissions and tribunals. If today is any indication—and I, for one, fervently hope it is—Canada’s “human rights” industry is on the way out.
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November 2nd, 2008 at 07:36 PM
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November 3rd, 2008 at 08:43 AM
Ezra Levant’s speaking style may have been viewed as “objectionable” by many panel members, but I’ve noticed that Canadian human rights defenders of the white persuasion tend to also be terribly “whitebread Anglo types” as well. This was true during the time I spent working in the “race relations” arena in the mid-1980s to the later 1990s. These people’s objections to Levant’s style as more cultural and social (snobbery) than they are genuinely substantial.
Forthright and frank communications styles are ALWAYS labeled “objectionable” by the leftist elite whitebread Anglo Canadians nurtured on the art of not identifying the elephant in the room. How else to explain the mess that English Canada’s elite has nurtured over the years?
There was a time when Canada’s dilemma was one of “TWO SOLITUDES”. The Anglo Canadian, flaccid reaction response to that dilemma? Well, rather than “bridging” the solitudes, Anglo Canadians went multicultural.
Now Canada HAS SO MANY SOLITUDES that we can’t count them anymore. Canada is adrift in a miasma of identity politics that has made the country virtually ungovernable. Frankly, it’s all very depressing, and I’m glad to have a way out.
There was a time when I loved my country more than I pitied it. That time is long gone.