Nova Scotia Scott

The Chumir Foundation has posted videos of the Joseph Howe Symposium held at University of King’s College, Halifax, on 1 November. They can be viewed at the foundation’s website and at YouTube. The series of videos covers only each speaker’s prepared remarks. I have sent an e-mail asking whether there are plans to post videos [...]

This great photo of Ezra Levant, taken at last Saturday’s Joseph Howe Symposium in Halifax, was posted at the Halifax Commoner. I wonder if the photo was taken when Ezra found over 100 online references, including some in Harper’s magazine, to an Ayatollah Khomeini quotation that Mark Steyn had cited, after John Miller said he [...]

I have written many posts on the free speech debates held in Halifax on 30 October and 1 November. In order to make that series of posts more easily accessible, I have created a portal and posted it as a page. Click on “Halifax Free Speech Debates” at the top of the blog.

Near the end of the morning session at the Joseph Howe Symposium, the mighty Binky made his way to the microphone and posed a question to the panelists: Wayne MacKay, Krista Daley, and Noa Mendelsohn Aviv.  My recorder wasn’t on at that time (to save the battery), so I paraphrase from memory.  He said something [...]

A peripatetic grievance-monger named Asaf Rashid showed up at the Joseph Howe Symposium last Saturday and attempted to shout down Margaret Wente as she was about to deliver her keynote address.  When she came to the podium and was introduced, he stood up and started ranting at the top of his lungs, calling her a [...]

Ezra Levant‘s speaking notes, marked “non-confidential”, have landed in my in-box. So, I’ve posted them here as a Word document for downloading by anyone who is interested. The notes are quite sketchy, but they mention several issues that Ezra did not have time to raise in his remarks, as well as taking another swipe at [...]

John Miller, Associate Chair, Ryerson University School of Journalism, spoke during the afternoon session of the Joseph Howe Symposium, immediately after Ezra Levant. To my mind, Prof Miller’s remarks typify the knee-jerk liberal thinking that has brought Canadian free speech law to a now-evident crisis.  He rejects the view that human rights commissions endanger Canadian [...]

The final speaker at the Joseph Howe Symposium was Dr Stephen Ward, James E. Burgess Professor Journalism Ethics, University of Wisconsin at Madison. He spoke forcefully in favour of freedom of the press and against censorship by human rights commissions. In particular, he does not find the BC Human Rights Tribunal’s decision to reject the [...]

And now the post we’ve all been waiting for (I know I have). Ezra Levant spoke first in the afternoon panel at the Joseph Howe Symposium. Although the symposium was to be devoted to free speech issues, Ezra used his time to talk about a Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission case that had nothing to [...]

Noa Mendelsohn Aviv, Director, Freedom of Expression Project, Canadian Civil Liberties Association, was the third and final speaker on the morning panel of the Joseph Howe Symposium.  She was immediately preceded by Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission Director Krista Daley, whose remarks are posted here. What follows is based on my own audio recording made [...]

Krista Daley, Director and CEO, Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission, was the second speaker on the morning panel of the Joseph Howe Symposium. She was preceded by Dalhousie University law professor Wayne MacKay. Ms Daley was the only panelist who also spoke at the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Public Affairs (CCEPA) debate on human [...]

Yesterday’s Joseph Howe Symposium on “The Media’s Right To Offend: Exploring the Legal and Ethical Limits on Free Speech” was organised by the University of King’s College School of Journalism and the Sheldon Chumir Foundation for Ethics in Leadership. An outline of the event and some background material is posted at the Chumir Foundation’s website. [...]

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 [...]

I just returned from the Joseph Howe Symposium, “The Media’s Right to Offend: The Legal and Ethical Limits on Free Speech”, featuring Ezra Levant, Margaret Wente, and several other experts in Canadian free speech law and/or journalism.  While there, I noticed two young women typing on laptop computers.  They were live blogging the day’s proceedings [...]