Canada: Liberal, but not Free

Written by Taylor A. Barnette, EIC

Libertarian - opinion

O Canada! Known the world over for your quirky flag, your hypocrisy is thicker than your delicious maple syrup.

Canada's broadcasting regulator, the Northern equivalent of America's FCC, recently scuttled attempts to end a prohibition on the dissemination of 'false news' in the media. The Globe and Mail reported that many Canadians feared the prohibition's demise would "open the door to Fox TV-style news and reduce their ability to determine what is true and what is false."

Which is to say, the fear of the mob trumps the sacrosanctness of free speech. Which is to say, the hoi polloi prefers the government do their thinking for them, to subjectively choose what is false news and what is not.

The Canadian Radio-Television & Communications Commission sought to end the ban, rightly claiming it violated Section 2b of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which states,

"2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:...

(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;"

Everyone except conservatives, that is.

Like an ice-hole fisherman heating himself in his log cabin, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President of the Waterkeeper Alliance and a Professor at Pace University here in New York City, took a warming to Canada's frigid policy and penned an op-ed praising the CRTC's decision on the Huffington Post. Nevermind that its policy violates a basic human right. Kennedy wrote, "fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News Will not be moving into Canada after all!"

Yes, but neither will free speech. And what is so enlightened about squelching dissent? And what does the battle between unions and Madison Republicans have to do with conservatives accessing news in Canada? Kennedy's rhetoric is silky-smooth, but his verve betrays his vacuousness.

Living in a liberal democracy is not easy. It requires a bold tolerance for that with which we would disagree or otherwise loathe. Knowing this ideal to be easier praised than practiced, the Founding Fathers (and drafters of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms) knew to elevate free speech above the reach of both the mob and the tyrant, lest out of stupidity or maliciousness, either aim to destroy it.

Contrary to Canadian thought, when the mind does not courageously engage its opposition it never comes to learn why it believes what it does, and why it should or should not; it never experiences the chance to prove it's thinking to be good and virtuous or false and malignant. Without opposition there is no Socratic self-examination, only a revolting surrender to that ideology with which others have chosen to inculcate you. Without opposition, there is no chance for an individual to make a choice and say, "though the whole of Canada might be liberal, I think conservatism makes more sense." Without opposition, there is no freedom. As Louis D. Brandeis pithily said,

"Fear of serious injury alone cannot justify oppression of free speech and assembly. Men feared witches and burnt women. It is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears."

And so, while Canada might be a Fox-free, Michael Moore-approved Promised Land where healthcare flows like milk and honey, it certainly isn't free. I trust my fellow liberal Americans (excluding Kennedy) understand this. I trust that even though Fox (or Faux?) News might be the scourge of lefties everywhere, we can agree that its presence is healthier than its absence.