The Free Speech Union of Canada
A new member organization dedicated to maintaining, and in some cases restoring Free Speech rights in Canada. I am honoured to be the inaugural Chairman of the Board.
Today The Free Speech Union of Canada officially launched its website fsucanada.ca, and it is my distinct honour (forcing substack to use Canadian spelling here) to be its inaugural chairman of the board.
As any of you who read me regularly know, free speech is an issue of great importance for me, and I am essentially a free speech absolutist. It also became clear to me in the past year or so how tenuous this right currently is in Canada. For example, the current government tabled an Online Hate bill that I have written about, that is chilling in its intent. If this bill were to become law, if someone suspects you are likely to engage in any form of speech they might interpret as hate speech online, and if they complain, the government would have the right, essentially, to shut down your social media access.
When I have told others about this, they always bring up Minority Report, the Tom Cruise science fiction film in which criminals are apprehended before they commit crimes because technology that foretells the future labels them as future offenders. But the Online Harms Act is in many ways worse. First, what people may be shut down for, in a reasonable democracy, should not be considered a crime. Second, to give a mere unsubstantiated, and perhaps even anonymous, accusation this kind of legal weight is ridiculous.
This proposed legislation is just one of the more egregious examples of efforts to restrict speech, including politically incorrect speech, that some may find offensive. So, when Toby Young contacted a group of us last year to explore whether we might consider forming a Free Speech Union in Canada to partner with the Free Speech Unions in UK, Australia, New Zealand, and elsewhere, I was quite eager to become involved.
The union is a non-partisan, non-profit membership organization dedicated to the defence of free speech in Canada. It will engage in numerous activities. It will lobby to defeat anti-free speech legislation like the Online Harms Act, and will actively promote public events and discussions designed to defend free speech. It will provide resources that members and others can use to understand their free speech rights, and the potential impact of free speech violations, and it will work to help defend free speech rights of members, including in some cases, helping individuals with possible legal battles, including providing legal representation.
Funds for FSU Canada will come from donations, and membership dues. I long for the day when the organization will become unnecessary and irrelevant. But until then, this new beginning, with a great board, working withExecutive Director Lisa Bildy, marks an important first step to fight the dangerous erosion of one of the most important rights citizens in a democracy should have.
Congratulations, Lawrence. You are perfect to lead the Board of the FSU. I hope people have read the speeches of Mario Savio, the spokesman of the Free Speech Movement (FSM) in the 1960's. Mario was a free speech absolutist, and also a physics major, and he eventually became a physics professor. There are several excellent biographies of Mario. He was my dear friend and research student.
Congratulations, professor Krauss!
Well, I find quite ironic that on line hate speech, as a kind of bullyism on the web, is of free speech the direct unwanted son, which is undirectly tempting to kill its natural dad. But killing son is killing dad, and viceversa. So we must do our best efforts to keep hate speech alive, in order to obtain free speech up to live.