Speak No Evil

A posting from a few days ago has strangely disappeared from this site. Ironically, it was on free speech.

My guess is that the photos attached simply broke Blogger’s bandwidth restrictions.

So I’m reposting without the images:


There is something Orwellian about the speaker’s podium set up at one corner of Nathan Phillips square. There it stands, unused, behind a barricade, and with a rather frightening warning label:

This Speaker’s Corner is dedicated by the City Council of Toronto to the concept of free speech. The public may mount the dias and speak, or challenge another speaker to debate.

Speakers may not use the dias for any purpose that is contrary to law, and are reminded that the Canadian Criminal Code prohibits slanderous statements or statements promoting genocide or hatred against an identifiable group or race.

When speaking from the dias, the speaker assumes all risks. The City does not assume and shall not be liable for any damages or action resulting therefrom.

It bears mute witness that there is no free speech in Canada; that something like Speaker’s Corner in London's Hyde Park is in fact no longer possible under Canadian law. And any member of the public is taking his personal liberty in his own two hands to dare to mount that platform.

This must change, for Canada to become again truly free.

And without free speech, ultimately, without the free exchange of ideas, there is no democracy either.