Those words were spoken by the Chinese ambassador to Canada in October of 2003, speaking to the Canada-China Legislative Association.

For most people who know anything about China, the towering hypocrisy makes one's skin crawl. Chinese prisons are filled with people who offered "good-natured criticism", many of whom will suffer the fate of being executed so that their organs can be harvested and sold on the black market.

But Canada is better, right? Canadians understand the importance of free speech, especially the freedom to criticize and to dissent, right?

I know one group of Canadians who seem to have a problem with this -- Joe Volpe and his Liberal leadership campaign team.

When the Joe Volpe campaign was caught accepting thousands and thousands of dollars in donations from families, including children, each family headed by an executive of the generic drug manufacturer Apotex, people immediately cried foul, accusing Volpe and his people of accepting a corporate donation far in excess of the legal limit by hiding the money in individual donations.

Of course, it was the use of children as donation mules that drove the story.

So Mike Hunt created a parody site, www.youthforvolpe.ca. It featured hilarious send-ups of earnest children glad to have the chance to send money Volpe's way:

"Joe Volpe's deep commitment to integrity inspired me to support his campaign! I borrowed $5,400 from my parents in a manner compliant with all campaign finance regulations as they then existed." -Ann Lee, age 4, Calgary

That site was shut down by Volpe's people (it has since re-appeared under a different address):

Mr. Volpe's campaign had the site shut down without knowing, it seems, who put it up: "Hi Everyone," wrote Brenden Johnstone, who is with the Volpe campaign, in an e-mail to other leadership campaigns. "There has been concern about how the issue of the Volpe donations was reflecting on the leadership race.

"My Office has had the website suspended through CIRA [Canadian Internet Registration Authority] and CDNS [Canadian Domain Name Services] and it will be down as soon as 6 p.m. I think the issue with the website has been dealt with. . . ."

CIRA acted on the basis of "defamation":

When the website creator discovered the site had been removed, an email was sent to the registrar asking why the actions were taken. The registrar advised the site creator that it had violated Article 3.1 Paragraph (h) (i) and (ii) of CIRA Policies which allow CIRA to suspend a domain name. The rules say CIRA may suspend a domain if the site is directly or indirectly, defaming or contributing to the defamation of any other Person or unlawfully discriminating or contributing to the unlawful discrimination of any other Person.

Defamation is the act of injuring the reputation of another person through false statements. I dare say Volpe had done plenty of injury to himself -- to blame a parody site and then have it shut down shows him to be as oblivious to his situation as he is disdainful of freedom of speech.

And where was the defamation? The site was "Youth for Volpe" -- the joke was that a third party (a group from Apotex) was enticing children to donate to their favourite candidate, not of Volpe himself tricking children into giving him money.

If the people at Apotex were the targets of defamatory statements, then why did Brenden Johnstone of the Volpe campaign get involved? The people at Apotex can afford their own lawyers. Johnstone answers the question in his own email, and strikes at the heart of the matter:

There has been concern about how the issue of the Volpe donations was reflecting on the leadership race. [emphasis added]

The issue was the donations, not the website. In other words, the website amplified the issue, but did not create it.

But then that is the role of political humour, to bring into sharp focus the actions of public figures, especially those who would wield great responsibility over our lives. If every politician took action like Volpe, there would be no political cartoonists working in Canada. Volpe's actions (and I attribute the actions of his team to him personally, since he is their boss) are abhorrent in a democracy. Volpe has shown himself to value personal power over the rights and freedoms of citizens in this country. Subjected to a joke aimed squarely at the actions he took in accepting and then defending questionable donations, he attacked the person making the joke, perhaps hoping to quell further discussion. The 18th century German satirist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg said, "A person reveals his character by nothing so clearly as the joke he resents."

Volpe's actions against the website, and the support he received from CIRA, should be denounced in the strongest possible terms, especially by those who use the Internet as a means of political and personal expression. I hope people reading this take the time to register their anger. Don't stop, though, with an email to Volpe. Get in touch with your MP to point out that you feel that your freedoms have been diminished by this action. Get in touch with the editor of your favourite newspaper or your favourite talkradio personality. Tell that person you expect him or her to take a stand when political speech is being threatened.

They, of all people, ought to understand just how precious that freedom is. Their livelihoods depend on it.

Which brings me full circle. Why did I choose to quote the Chinese ambassador? There have been plenty of far more worthy people throughout history who have spoken words in defense of political dissent than this hypocritical ChiCom mouthpiece.

The reason is the delicious irony. Present when the ambassador delivered his remarks was the Vice-Chair of the CCLA, a man dedicated to improving relations with the Mao's dictatorship. It was our very own Joe Volpe. Part of his job was to help the Chinese improve their attitude towards human rights and political freedoms. Instead, it looks like Volpe was the one getting advice.

List of bloggers calling Volpe out on a censorship charge:

• Stephen Taylor
• Dust My Broom
• The Daily Bayonet
• A Frank Perspective on Politics
• Left Wing = Hate
• Canadian Christian Conservative
• Blue Blogging Soapbox
• Larry Borsato
• bound by gravity
• Wolfevillewatch
• Blind Mind's Eye
• Civitatensis
• Random Bytes
• Abandoned Stuff
• The New American Citizen
• Generalized Nonsense
• Spiderman's Web
• Uncle Meat
• little green footballs
• Captain's Quarters
• slashdot
• boing boing
• Canadian internet sleaze
• Rob Hyndman
• Jay Currie
• Generation Zel! Radio

Send me a link and I'll add you to the list.

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