An update on the state of free speech in Canada
Well, it's been a couple of days since the controversy over Liberal Party leadership candidate Joe Volpe's odd donations (including thousands from several young children of drug company executives) boiled over. One of the casualties was a parody website, YouthForVolpe.ca, a wickedly funny send-up of the sort of people who would use children to evade political funding limits. On the word of the Volpe campaign manager, the website was shutdown by the Canadian Internet Registration Authority.
I wrote on the terrible precedent this sets, where criticism of political figures can be silenced. Many other bloggers did the same.
I have just gone through each of the candidates' websites, and not a single one of them has acknowledged the actions of Joe Volpe, either in support of free speech and so critical of Volpe's actions, or supportive of Volpe.
Obviously, these candidates, each of whom would like to be prime minister one day, would rather not take a stand.
That's not good enough, not on this issue, not for me.
So I've written to each of them:
Dear Sir or Madam,
I am writing to each of you as the registered candidates for the Liberal leadership campaign in search of an answer to the question, "Are you in support of political free speech?"
In the recent controversy surrounding candidate Joe Volpe's campaign donations, a parody website www.YouthForVolpe.ca was created. The site was careful not to attribute any actions, real or imaginary, to Mr Volpe. The site was created by the Apotex executives to entice children to donate to Mr Volpe's campaign -- or at least that was the joke. There were no quotes from Mr Volpe, real or imaginary, nor any attributed actions, even as innocuous as saying Mr Volpe appreciates all the help he can get. Mr Volpe was essentially a passive backdrop to the satire.
In my mind, it is hard to claim defamation when the remarks in question don't actually say anything about the subject claiming defamation.
But even if it cuts it close, doesn't political freedom require the greatest possible latitude, the most generous interpretation, in order to maintain a healthy democracy?
The Volpe campaign was successful in having the site shut down on the basis that it was defamatory. To many people, that is a chilling action. Will you, as a Liberal leadership candidate, take a stand to say that shutting down such a site is unacceptable, or at the very least, an over-reaction?
What can we expect of the the current crop of Liberal leadership candidates when the media and the public at large find themselves at odds with them? Are you willing to say that criticism has a special place in political discourse, and that the actions of Mr Volpe and his team were heavy-handed?
Or is criticism of our leaders not a Liberal value?
I look forward to your thoughts on the matter.
Best wishes,
Steve Janke
(aka Angry in the Great White North)P.S. All responses (or lack thereof) are subject to publication. All responses will be published without any editing.
I'll post the responses as I get them.
Will they respond? I'm not sure, but I'm not hopeful. It might make for an interesting discussion tomorrow on Charles Adler's radio program. I'll be on around 3:30pm eastern to discuss the Volpe situation, his takedown of the website, and the role of satirical free speech in politics.
You can find links to the live internet broadcast at CharlesAdler.com
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Comments
Please ask Mr. Adler who he would suggest would be the best person to be Prime Minister right now.
The hammer job he has been running on PM Harper is disgusting and childish. He suggests that it is wrong to try and have order and etiquette in the press and that the PM is the one who is childish. If the PM is ducking questions he is wrong, but nowhere have I seen evidence of some grand conspiracy to do that (except by the loonies on the left).
I guess Martin was great at properly answering questions??.
Posted by: Sid at June 4, 2006 02:02 PM
Janke does not usually pull punches, but where Volpe is concearned, there is the matter of White Collar Crime.
Too crass? Too blunt? When vested interests of a drug cartel channel units of $5400 to politicos through four year old children, I call that a crime.
Especially as I have seen seniors who have 8 to 10 prescriptions on their dresser. There is no way any doctor can understand how all those costly medications interact.
The doctors and the drug companies are involved with what appears to be a co-operative rip-off of Canadians and our health care system.
We have all heard documenteries about excessive surgeries. Ceasarian births, for example, are far beyond normal required numbers. Multiply that by all the various elective surgeries that need not be done, but are done anyway.
White collar crime, run amok, is what it is.
Why not call a spade a spade. You know it and I know it, but it is just not fasionable to say so. Is that it? TG
Posted by: TonyGuitar at June 4, 2006 02:47 PM
To continue on your theme of free speech, do you recall during the last election campaign some guy who heckled Paul Martin in Quebec was thrown in jail for the weekend. Compare that to the treatment given to the hooligans who refused to all Monty Solberg to address a meeting last week. That was barely even reported in the media, but then the first instance concerned a Liberal, and the second a Tory.
Posted by: Judith Dvies at June 4, 2006 06:39 PM
I'd be surprised if you got any response from those Losers, er, Liberals.
Posted by: Musings about This and That at June 4, 2006 07:14 PM
Spot on, Judith. There is a double standard: one standard for lefties and another for conservatives.
"Those on the right are in the right; those on the left are merely 'sinister'."
Posted by: Musings about This and That at June 4, 2006 07:16 PM
You won't hear squat from a one of them on this. They'll just let their pals in the MSM deflect and distract until it has blown over.
The Liberals mistakenly think that their position is the High Ground, and for that we will give them a pass on their transgressions. In this they are misguided, and continue to demonstrate through this campaign that they have learned nothing, that they remain arrogant in their Belief in Ownership of the High Ground, and are thus entitled to anything this is not nailed down.
No amount of spinning by their Press Pals is going to fool us.
Where is the Tsunami money?
Posted by: Shaken at June 4, 2006 08:13 PM
The youthforvolpe.ca site wasn't taken down from the web by CIRA on the request of Volpe's campaign manager. They issued a statement here:
http://www.cira.ca/news-releases/176.html
The registrar removed it because it was registered with invalid information. There are likely thousands of sites registered that way, but the registrar would have to act if someone made a complaint. It seems Mr Volpe is just trying to make it seems like he has a lot more power than he actually does. His office likely just complained to the registrar who pulled the site.
Posted by: Angry Canadian at June 4, 2006 09:06 PM
Angry Canadian,
Yes, that is what the Volpe campaign said, hwever, those behind the parody site have published the letter they got from CIRA which indicated that the volpe campaign is bs-ing. The volpe campaign threatened to sue CIRA and CIRA pulled the site.
Websites in Canada
Politicians threatening litigation
Freedom of speech eliminated
Liberal party same old story
Posted by: capt joe at June 4, 2006 09:16 PM
This is not about free speech. Steve, I thought (perhaps incorrectly), you're line of work was Information Technology?
I've written a brief article on domain names on my site as well as a couple of articles on Freedom Of Expression, if you are interested.
If Joe Volpe has "eroded" free speech with regard to the regisration of a domain name, then so have thousands of others who have complained to registrars about a domain name registration.
Domain name registration has NOTHING to do with free speech.
Posted by: Ian Scott at June 4, 2006 10:57 PM
Capt Joe, don't think I'm trying to defend Volpe and I'm no Liberal, but I'd like to see some links to this information your looking at so I can see for myself. PolicyWatch has a post on the false information used to register the site.
(http://policycanada.blogspot.com/2006/06/youth-for-volpe-i-have-saved-copy.html)
As well Michael Geist of CIRA has posted on the issue on his blog. If you read the comments there's a link indicating an email from the registrar to the registrant indicating the removal of the site. Again nothing to do with CIRA....
(http://michaelgeist.ca/component/option,com_content/task,view/id,1277/Itemid,85/nsub,/)
Personally I agree with Ian Scott...
Posted by: Angry Canadian at June 4, 2006 11:04 PM
"those behind the parody site have published the letter they got from CIRA which indicated that the volpe campaign is bs-ing. The volpe campaign threatened to sue CIRA and CIRA pulled the site."
Incorrect. What they have published is an email they claim is from the Registrar, not from CIRA.
CIRA claims that the registrar sent them, through their automated system, a request for suspension because of incorrect registrant information.
Both of these issues may be indeed be factual - there however, is NO evidence that Volpe threatened to sue anyone - that is simply your projections upon the email the 'youthforvolpe.ca' folk published. All the email said was to the effect, in "our opinion, your domain name registration (note, this does not apply to "CONTENT" but simply to the registration and purpose of registration of a domain name), that it could be against one of the articles of the CIRA contract.
Whether that domain name is indeed, defamatory, or whatever else is listed in paragraph 3 of CIRA's agreement, the very fact that Mike Hunt did not provide factual information, and therefore if the registrar could be found to be responsible for not informing CIRA that the registration did not meet the contract for .ca domains, would then put the Registrar at risk for civil action.
Posted by: Ian Scott at June 4, 2006 11:30 PM
I have to keep wondering why so very few people want to discuss the fact that "Mike Hunt" fraudulently entered into a contract in the first place?
If he hadn't fraudulently entered into the contract, he could at least have the opportunity to appeal the suspension.
"Mike Hunt's" freedom of speech has not been eroded. Rather, the fact that he fraudulently contracted for a domain name registration, and was caught out in that, has now been turned into a "freedom of speech" issue, by people who have no clue about domain names, IP addresses, or how the Internet works, and how it relies on Standards, one of which is providing factual inforation for a domain name - regardless of whether it is done under the auspicies of CIRA, or ICANN, or any of the world regional Internet domain name authorities.
I find it incredulous that only part of the issue, from those who should know better, is being presented.
Posted by: Ian Scott at June 4, 2006 11:39 PM
It's laughable to think that the Apotex folks thought they were giving Volpe a golden egg when in fact they left him nothing but a flaming bag of dog waste on his campaign doorstep. With friends like that...
To paraphrase a wiser man than me, the folks in the Liberal war rooms seem to have an uncanny knack for hitting their own jugulars!
Posted by: at June 5, 2006 07:34 AM
Here's how one former CEO is dealing with the issue of 'free speech' and 'defamation':
http://www.dustmybroom.com/?p=3788#comments
Posted by: JM at June 5, 2006 09:21 AM
For those who care: www.youth4volpe.ca.
This one's registered to a legitimate person with a real address.
Posted by: at June 5, 2006 10:23 AM
 
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