In praise of a superb speech

Sen. Richards condemns online censorship

Gold is, I suppose, where you find it. And perhaps among the last places you would look for a clear-minded, strong and direct condemnation of the Trudeau government's insolent Bill C-11 — the Online Streaming Act — is from the Senate of Canada.

Before I get to that, just one observation on the bill itself, and the yet-to-be-introduced online harms bill, and the gang behind them. I cannot conceive of any group less competent, less situated to determine what may or may not be said on public information sites, than the obsessively “progressive” membership of the social-justice cocoon of the Trudeau-Singh collaboration — otherwise known as Canada's government.

The Trudeau cabinet is undeniably intellectually undernourished — will someone argue otherwise? — and conceives of such platitudes as “diversity is our strength” and “because it's 2015” as evidence of depth, needing no elaboration.

From which understanding the last set anyone would wish to legislate on disinformation or misinformation, on what is hateful and what is not, is the band of woke chained performance artists of Justin Trudeau's cabinet.

They are the last, the very last set, who should rule on the thoughts or writings of anyone. So how fine it was to hear from that most unlikely venue, the Canadian Senate — hospice for party loyalists, erstwhile bag-persons, and innocuous friends of whatever the present political moment applauds — to hear a talk, a speech, of strenuous, eloquent, educated response to this government's dreadful C-11.

The senator is David Adams Richards. He is a writer, a novelist, and in his case both terms have some real weight. And it was in the senate that he delivered a philippic — his reference, and a perfect one — on the obnoxious bill.

His speech was a classic denunciation, under-girded by a real understanding of free speech, creativity, and history — of any attempts by state power, state oversight, on thought or speech. The talk is available.

Go to the fountain itself. I assume the liberty of generously quoting from Sen. Richards' address. Mainly to draw people to the whole of his speech, and better to listen to it in full. So, just some samples. Is it possible to disagree with any of these?

❚ “I do not know who would be able to tell me what Canadian content is and what it is not, but I know it won't be in the minister of heritage's power to ever tell me.”

❚ “The idea of any hierarchical politico deciding what a man or woman is allowed to write to fit a proscribed national agenda is a horrid thing. I am wondering if anyone on the staff of our Minister of Canadian Heritage understands this.”

❚ “I think, overall, we have lately become a land of scape goaters and finger pointers, offering accusations and shame while believing we are a woke society. Cultural committees are based as much in bias and fear as in anything else.”

❚ “No decree by the CRTC could, in any way, tell us what Canadian content should or should not be, or who should be allowed to bob their heads up out of the new murkiness we have created. Like Orwell's proclamation, the very bill suggests a platform that decrees, `All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.' And Bill C-11 certainly spells out who they might be.”

❚ “(The bill) suggests that there is no communication or interplay between writers of different ethnicities. That identity politics is positive because it teaches a bland society about new voices or about trauma which only certain people are allowed to say they know.”

❚ “This law will be one of scapegoating all those who do not fit into what our bureaucrats think Canada should be.”

❚ “(C-11) is a balkanization of freedom of expression; is so narrow-minded that it defeats the very thing it proposes and destroys the principle set forth by Terence over 2,000 years ago: `I am human, I consider nothing human alien to me.' That is, we understand because we identify, not because we are being taught a lesson.”

❚ “We have spread our books and movies across the world, but it is not because of some formula.”

❚ “We have insulted so many of our authors and singers and actors and painters by not paying attention to them, and then claiming them when they go somewhere else. They come back to get the Order of Canada and to be feted at Rideau Hall.”

This was very well done Sen. Richards. And it would be a very hard task to find any Canadian, who is not steeped in the beautiful stupor of the partisan mind, who would not salute and applaud any word of what you said.

UNDERSTANDING OF FREE SPEECH, CREATIVITY, AND HISTORY.

CANDACE ELLIOTT / POSTMEDIA NEWS “I do not know who would be able to tell me what Canadian content is and what it is not, but I know it won't be in the minister of heritage's power to ever tell me,” said Sen. David Adams Richards of Bill C-11.