Dear Sir:
I am amazed there has been so little public comment about the story you carried November 25— 'Crackdown on hate materials planned'.
Canadian attorneys-general seem too willing to buckle before the usual minority censorship lobbies. The fatuous Attorney General of British Columbia Ujjal Dosanjh brightly informed us that further proposed restrictions on freedom of speech would protect the right to openly discuss controversial issues.
Indeed. With such measures as seizing hard drives containing hate and criminalizing the possession of hate for the purposes of distribution and making truth no defence in challenging claims of genocide, it's hard to see how already timid Canadians will feel more liberated to discuss controversial issues. It will be shut up and keep your opinions to yourself, just as in the Asian dictatorships so beloved of many of our political leaders.
It's unworthy of a free people to deny truth as a defence in any historical debate. What we're heading for is the imposition of a state religion or party line on matters of history. What will it be: six millions Jews killed in WW II; 1.5-million Irish in the potato famine? Any deviation and off to jail you go.
The proposal to criminalize possession of quantities of so-called hate for distribution is clearly aimed at disabling groups critical of immigration, native land claims, imposed bilingualism, or the homosexual lobby.
Let's hope the politicians reconsider their love affair with thought control and let these ill-thought-out imitations of despotism die on the planning board.
Sincerely yours,
Paul Fromm
Director of the Canadian Association for Free Expression Inc.