Canada must restore individual freedom

Re: WLU censures grad student for lesson that used TVO clip — Nov. 15

Herbert Pimlott, a professor at Wilfrid Laurier University involved in the Lindsay Shepherd issue, was quoted as saying: “To present as if here’s two sides to a debate when there substantially is not … that becomes problematic.”

Actually, what is problematic is that people from a such wide array of backgrounds as Martin Regg Cohn, an Ontario political columnist often featured in The Record, and Julie Payette, our governor general, agree with this philosophy and are knowingly or unknowingly pushing Canada along the road to serfdom in an authoritarian regime where there is no room for opinions other than their own. According to them, there can be only one particular world view in the state. Otherwise, a censure is in order.

This is a frightening thing to contemplate, and certainly does not represent the Canada that most of us stand for.

Instead of mocking people of faith and instead of disciplining independently minded students, the way to a better future for Canada lies in restoring individual freedom, in having reasoned debate, and in understanding that what we call “facts” today will likely be proven otherwise by future generations.

What is interesting is how this narrowing conception about what is politically correct, to the exclusion of all other perspectives, comes at a time when the internet is allowing for the widest discussion of opinion in history. Andrew Friedel Waterloo