What Bill 21, transgender kerfuffle share

The Toronto Public Library is involved in one of those de-platforming controversies — you know the kind: the ones in which some institution is hired, rented, or used by somebody with an unfashionable opinion, and a small number of determined opponents raise hell about it and succeed in recruiting the attention of the media. (Jon Kay wrote about the TPL’s troubles in this section Friday.) The library has been booked for a lecture by a traditional feminist, Meghan Murphy, who believes that there are hard cases, such as women’s shelters and women’s prisons, in which there may be risks in applying the new social doctrine that transgender women are to be treated unconditionally as women.

To some, this is a hateful opinion that the library ought to exclude from its premises. They say that trans women are women, period, and any discussion of ulterior limits to this principle should be punished. I think both sides would accept that “trans women are women” is a good rule that we should observe for ourselves, establish in workplaces, and extend as far as possible. The problem arises within those last four words — “as far as possible” — just as most of the Charter of Rights case law in our courts ends up involving the bit in Section 1 about “reasonable limits (that) can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.”

In fact, for those trying to adjudicate the war between “TERFs” (trans-exclusionary radical feminists) and pro-trans ultras in their own minds, that language in the Charter might be instructive. Even when it comes to our common basic right not to be tackled by a cop, cavity-searched, and bunged up in prison without trial, there is a very wide acceptance of hypothetically existing “reasonable limits.” A mere principle of social conduct surely can’t be more categorical or unrestricted than our core personal liberties — but if you are anti-TERF, you could, and would, make the word “demonstrably” a hill to die upon.

I don’t intend to enter into that litigation, and the TPL is specifically trying not to. The problem the library has now is in defining its own nature as a public service. Libraries are increasingly recognized as practical redoubts of liberty: for a hundred years or more they have encouraged us, and been supported by liberals, in the view that they represent the business end of free expression.

The Toronto Public Library exists, according to its own “values” statement, for the purpose of “protecting intellectual freedom.” But critics will point to its mission statement, which also promises “a welcoming and supportive environment,” and will insist that the existence of certain intellectual or expressive content on the premises of the library, even at the level of a taint or impurity, might have the effect of making the whole darn thing unwelcoming and un-supporting.

So is TPL in the position of a publisher, or is it what’s known in telecommunications law as a content-agnostic “common carrier?” The liberal traditions of librarians will urge them toward the latter view — but maybe this is where another troublesome “as far as possible” crops up. Librarians, after all, would also be the first to tell you that they exercise informed professional discretion, and sort trash from treasure according to their own notions, when buying inventory or answering reference-desk queries.

The de-platformer is someone who believes that there is really no such thing as a common carrier: if you knowingly sold ink to or installed a telephone for a fascist creep, that makes you culpable for outrages of fascism everywhere. Without prying into that proposition, I will note that you can see publisher-versus-common-carrier disagreements everywhere once you start looking out for them. What struck me this week in watching the election, and thinking about the national-unity debacle that seems about to take place in Quebec, is that the argument over Bill 21, the ban on wearable religious symbols for some classes of Québécois public workers, has similar features.

There has been a total breakdown in dialogue between English and French Canada over Bill 21, and this will now be a major contributor to the revival of the Bloc Québécois. We in the R.O.C. (this acronym will also be making a comeback) have failed in coming to grips with the bill. Polite opinion is unanimously opposed. Yet within Quebec, even among people we would otherwise recognize as respectable liberals, the bill is very popular.

The stated underlying principles behind the bill aren’t especially controversial: they include “the religious neutrality of the state” and the right to public services of a “lay,” or secular, nature. This can’t in itself be the reason that the R.O.C. is frowning hard at Quebec, or that federalist parties are facing a dégringolade. Nor do we believe, surely, that a government can never impose dress regulations on workers.

The reason for the schism seems to be that Quebec has taken a “publisher” view of its state institutions, as opposed to a “common carrier” view more comfortable to the English-speaking world. Quebec insists that government personnel (in “coercive” or “authority”-related settings including schools) must actively conform to the secular nature of their enterprise: they ought not to, on the job, exhibit signs that contradict the message and promise of state secularism. Complaining in muttered tones that Quebec is full of racists won’t really resolve this argument, although it is the strategy we seem to be using. National Post Twitter.com/colbycosh

NATIONAL POST FILES The Toronto Public Library has become a lightning rod of sorts because traditional feminist Meghan Murphy, who believes there are risks to treating transgender women unconditionally as women, has booked the facility.

COLBY COSH