Today in the Georgia Straight there is an article by Carel Moiseiwitsch and Gordon Murray who claiming sole responsibility for creating the parody of the Vancouver Sun that has got Mordecai Briemberg sued by CanWest.  They argue convinciengly that political satire is a fundamental freedom in Canada.

I’ve been surprised and disappointed that there has been almost no mainstream media coverage on this issue.  In June, there was a public demonstration outside the CanWest offices where the Golden Gag award was given out.  I heard that there was no mainstream media coverage of the event.  Chilly climate?

Vancouver based Adbusters magazine ran an article in May, but I haven’t heard any coverage on CBC radio, nor seen coverage on the CBC website, or on The Tyee (even though Briemberg is a contributor).  The Straight has run a few small bits.  I was happy they ran this piece today.

There’s a few great points in the article.  First on media concentration:

In Vancouver, CanWest dominates the news market through ownership of the Vancouver Sun, the Province, the National Post, Global TV, the Vancouver Courier, the North Shore News, and the Now community newspaper chain. With so few news sources to provide alternative views, we concluded that a newspaper parody would be the best method to point out CanWest’s extreme anti-Palestinian bias.

The authors name the Canadian Library Association in the list of organizations concerned with freedom of information:

Prominent Canadian freedom-of-information organizations, including the B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), Quebec’s Ligue des droits et libertés (LDL), and the Canadian Library Association, disagree with Bent’s view and have called on CanWest to drop its lawsuit.

This looks like it’s going to be hot, literarcy and smut-tastic. Hear local authors read queer erotica and the Little Sister’s staff reading smut that was stopped at the Boarder. Queerotica is part of the Pride in Art Festival.

WHEN:
7:30pm | Wednesday, July 30, 2008

WHERE:
The Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre (181 Roundhouse Mews)

TICKETS:
$5 suggested donation

I just heard a story on CBC radio about Russell Odgen, a sociology instructor at Kwantlen University College who researches assisted suicide.

An article in the Vancouver Sun states “Despite receiving earlier ethics board approval, Ogden has since been told by Kwantlen’s administration he cannot “engage in any illegal activity, including attending at an assisted death,” says a CAUT letter written by (James) Turk (Executive Director of the CAUT), which was addressed to eight academics and administrators.”

Someone (likely Turk, but the morning caffeine hadn’t taken effect yet) on the the CBC radio interview stated that there was no case law in this area, so Kwantlen administration couldn’t argue that the research was illegal.  He also argued that much like before abortion became legal it was important and valuable to study what was happening with illegal abortions to better understand what was happening so that laws and public policy could be crafted.

The Canadian Association of University Teachers has formed a committee to look into why Ogden’s research is being blocked by university administration.

The CAUT`s statement on academic freedom is:

Academic freedom is the life blood of the modern university. It is the right to teach, learn, study and publish free of orthodoxy or threat of reprisal and discrimination. It includes the right to criticize the university and the right to participate in its governance. Tenure provides a foundation for academic freedom by ensuring that academic staff cannot be dismissed without just cause and rigorous due process.

The full CAUT policy statement is here.

I was surprised to hear that BC Premier Gordon Campbell named Mary Polak to his cabinet as the Minister of Healthy Living and Sport.  Whenever I hear her name I remember that she was the the Surrey School Board Chair who supported banning three kids picture books that had representations of gay and lesbian parents:  One Dad Two Dads Brown Dads Blue Dads by Johnny Valentine, Asha’s Mums by Rosamund Elwin and Michel Paulse, and Belinda’s Bouquet by Leslea Newman and Michael Willhoite.  This decision was eventually overturned by the Supreme Court of Canada.  This legal challenge cost the Surrey taxpayers over $1.3 million (I realize that it’s not how civic budgets work, but imagine if that money was instead given to school or public libraries in Surrey).

I’m glad she’s not the the new Minister of Education.

Even if I wasn’t a homo I would be disgusted by her homophobic “pro-family” beliefs and practices of banning diverse representations of families.

Read more about the book bannings in Surrey schools:

Censorship in British Columbia website

EGALE Canada-Book Banning in Surrey-What Happened?

On 6 May, an e-mail from a Vancouver Public Library Director instructed all VPL Branch Heads:

“If the Walk for Palestine poster is up in your branch please remove it. We have had a number of complaints about it.”

The poster advertised a number of events around Palestine Solidarity Month, and contained the phrase “60 Years of Israeli Ethnic Cleansing and Palestinian Resistance”.

In subsequent e-mail correspondence, 2 possible reasons for the removal were given:

• the poster violated the BC Human Rights Act
• the poster contravened VPL’s poster policy

VPL’s poster policy is at http://vpl.ca/about/details/distributing_posters_and_newspapers (scroll down for the policy). It clearly states that material that violates the BC Human Rights Act is not acceptable. VPL states that it is currently seeking a legal opinion on whether this could be the case. VPL also does not accept political posters for individual political parties or candidates.

The broad statement of principle cites the Canadian Library Association Intellectual Freedom Statement, and states, “Vancouver Public Library will not distribute material that is primarily commercial or political and does not have compensating cultural or community importance.”

Removing a poster based on complaints, rather than on a measured consideration of how its content fits into VPL’s poster policy seems rash. But what disturbs me just as much is the lack of reaction from most people who received the original e-mail. To hark back to the CLA Statement on Intellectual Freedom, “Both employees and employers in libraries have a duty, in addition to their institutional responsibilities, to uphold these principles.”

The cover article in this week’s Georgia Straight is about this film. The review says it’s mostly about 4 couples and one threesome and their relationships. Young people fucking was mentioned a lot earlier this year because of it’s title, and because of the controversy around Bill C-10. Bill C-10 is a long, omnibus Bill of technical changes to tax laws that also included a provision that would allow the Heritage Minister to withhold tax credits if a production was considered ‘contrary to public policy’.

YPF was sucked into the eye of the Bill C-10 controversy (see this issue’s cover feature for more information). Christian activists, without actually seeing the movie, nailed it as the type of movie that shouldn’t receive tax credits.

Yet like any storm, it’s far calmer at the centre. “We’re a perfect target because no one’s seen the film,” Gero says. “Once it’s out there, it’s not that controversial. But in a way that’s good, because when the movie does come, people’ll be like, ‘This is what the big deal is about? Gimme a break!’ Certainly it’s been very, very good for the movie.”

Young people fucking is showing at many cinemas in the Lower Mainland and Victoria.

Thanks to Janine Fuller for agreeing to speak, to Shannon LaBelle for convening this session at the BCLA conference, and to Ashley Dunne for the following session writeup.

Little Sister’s Bookstore: Fighting Censorship in Canada for Over 20 Years

Report by Ashley Dunne, SLAIS student

Little Sister’s Book and Art Emporium is celebrating their 25^th anniversary. They have been fighting Canada Customs for nearly just as long. This is because most of their books have gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender themes, which Canada Customs often deems “obscene.”

The store’s manager, Janine Fuller, came to the BCLA Conference to speak about how the discriminatory practices of Canada Customs affected Little Sister’s, and the country as a whole.

Since 1985, court battles against Canada Customs have cost Little Sister’s well over a million dollars. Their shipments have been seized, their merchandise incinerated, and their spirits crushed.

One effort to raise funds for the trials resulted in a book called Forbidden Passages. They wanted to have the book distributed from a Canadian distributor (so it would not be seized), but some major distributors refused to touch it for fear of being associated with Little Sister’s and having their other books flagged at the border.

Fuller described how the Canada Customs seizures had a huge impact on censorship in Canada, beyond the direct impact they had on Little Sister’s. Other bookstores stopped carrying Jane Rule and Armistead Maupin because they were afraid that their stores would start to be targeted by Canada Customs.

Even though Jane Rule earned a Governor General Award for The Young In One Another’s Arms in 1976, Canada Customs felt the book was too indecent to allow into the country. Another Jane Rule book, Contract With the World, was seized because the Customs officer thought it was “too political.”

Other materials that were seized in the 1980s included Gay Ideas, an academic book, along with other important information resources on AIDS and safer sex.

Strangely enough, these books were allowed into Canada when their destinations were the Vancouver Public Library and Duthie Books. During the trial, John Sheer, head of the regional office for the Customs post that seized the books, admitted that there was a memo for a “lookout” for Little Sister’s shipments. Customs had previously denied that they had been targeting the bookstore specifically.

Little Sister’s has appeared in the Supreme Court twice-once for their lawsuit against Canada Customs, and once for a plea to get advanced funding for another lawsuit against Customs-and have lost both times. Customs stopped seizing books when they were in court, but they continue to operate as a subjective guardian of Canadian morality.

Canada Customs can’t control the Internet, though. Fuller questions Customs’ insistence on seizing books and burning magazines when so much “indecent material” can be found online. Their attempts at censoring material for our own good is really only affecting the book industry. Even then, it just affects some types of books for some types of book providers.

BCLA’s Intellectual Freedom Committee sponsored the Little Sister’s conference session to inform delegates about the bookstore’s important battles against government censorship. While the Little Sister’s case involved a bookstore and not a library, Fuller reminded those in attendance that Canadians, and particularly librarians, need to be vigilant against all attempts to limit our freedom to read.

Thanks Heather De Forest and Janis McKenzie for convening this session. Thanks also to Heather for this writeup of this session that has become a BCLA conference favourite!

The Ain’t on the Globe and Mail Bestseller List session runs as a non-stop series of lightning-fast book (and other format) reviews, presented by a panel of volunteers. Sponsored by the Intellectual Freedom Committee, the session’s aim is to promote enthusiasm for diversity in library collections and to encourage one another to walk the talk in facilitating access to a wide range of intellectual and creative output.

This was the fourth consecutive edition of Ain’t on the G+M and new reviewers joined veterans on the panel. Presenters were: Randy Gatley, Shirin Eshghi, Chris Kevlahan, Faith Jones, Colleen Alstad, David Conn, Tara Stephens, Valerie Patrick, Wendy Jang, and co-convenors Janis Mckenzie and Heather De Forest. Collectively, we reviewed 44 items in just over an hour.

I always enjoy this session as a chance to meet up with colleagues from other kinds of libraries and gain exposure to items that would otherwise escape my notice. The kinds of materials reviewed are on controversial topics, are from small or independent publishers, or are otherwise obscure and underrepresented in the mainstream . Among the items this year are graphic novels; murder ballads and other recordings; analyses of class strife, the prison system and modern communities; DVDs about sustainability issues; and books by and about local characters.

There’s so much more! Please check out the list that’s posted on the Intellectual Freedom Committee’s portion of the BCLA website at http://www.bcla.bc.ca/IFC/page/2008%20list.aspx. A big thank you to Shirley Lew, who not only wrangled the list of items into web form but also masterfully presided over the session itself with the 90 second countdown clock.

Here’s the BCLA resolution on CanWest and Free Speech that was passed by the membership at the AGM in May. Also check out the article on Briemberg’s case in Adbusters.

See you Friday!

A hearing into a human rights complaint alleging a Maclean’s magazine article spread hatred against Muslims started yesterday in Vancouver.

From the CBC website:

Mohamed Elmasry and Naiyer Habib of the Canadian Islamic Congress complained to the Canadian, Ontario and B.C. human rights authorities after the Toronto-based magazine published the article, titled The future belongs to Islam, in October of 2006.

The article, an excerpt of a book authored by Mark Steyn, talks about Islam being a threat to North American institutions and values. It used statistics to show higher birth rates plus immigration mean Muslims will outnumber followers of other religions in Western Europe.

I heard Jason Jason Gratl, a lawyer for the Canadian Association of Journalists and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association speak on CBC radio this morning. I appreciated how he acknowledged that Islamophobia in Canada has increased dramatically since 9/11. He then went on to state that “the human rights tribunal doesn’t have any business deciding what appropriate expression in Canada might be”. He said that it was clear if writings called for violence against a particular group, then those writings were clearly over the line.

This statement reminded me of Kiss and Tell collective’s book titled Drawing the Line: Lesbian Sexual Politics on the Wall. This is a book of images from an interactive photo exhibit that toured in the 90s showing a “continuum of lesbian sexual practice ranging from kissing to whipping, bondage, and voyeurism” (from Wikipedia). Viewers were encouraged to write their comments on the gallery wall and to draw a line on the wall where they felt the images went too far. I like the idea of doing a similar exercise with images and text that are racist.

Where does one draw the line? Where does society draw the line? Where do libraries draw the line? Where does the media draw the line?

Personally, I disagree with Steyn. However, I strongly believe that Macleans magazine should be allowed to publish the things he says.