Free Speech in Canada?

A couple of things crossed my computer screen this morning as I was scanning the news...

I'll start with a disclaimer, I am not of Israeli descent, nor of Palestinian... I am Canadian, and perhaps the reason why reading these news blurbs is so troubling today is that Canadian Pride and Patriotism is at a pretty substantial high right now with a record number of Gold medals at the just closed Vancouver Olympics. On a personal level I have stayed away from the politics of the Israeli/Palestinian debate. I always figured their political issues were theirs and didn't involve me regardless of how fair or unfair I feel certain political actions are or how many friends or colleagues I may have of either descent.

I'm a bit of an history buff too, and I see a similar strain of events having occurred in a particular European country in the 1930's... only this time it's different, it's current history and it's in the democracy of Canada.

First I would like to draw your attention to the arts news: Artists Unite to Protest Israeli Apartheid. I have no issue with artists standing up for what they believe in or feel. In fact art is one of the first areas that often shows, through literature, film, visual art forms, and music, sea-changes that are occurring in our national and international social milieu.

...but that isn't really the headline or story that got me, this is... Parliament to Vote on Tory Motion Against Free Speech By Corvin Russell, March 1, 2010. At first glance I was thinking that this was occurring in some back-water, non-progressive, democratic-in-name only nation that wasn't in this hemisphere. Opps, wrong! It's Canada, my home nation, my pride and joy, a bastion of free speech and democracy even if we have been legislating gun ownership since the 30's and been actively trying to disarm sane Canadian citizens for the past 25 years.

So here's my problem... being a self-absorbed Canadian and not really having given Israel or Palestine a passing glance for their conflicts... We have provincial and federal Parliamentarians bringing bills forward that will restrict the hard fought and hard won rights (through the battles of World War 2) to maintain democratic free speech in Canada, where we can as Canadians support any religion, ideology, political theory without fear of repercussion provided that we aren't being nasty and violent while we are protesting or supporting the ideology.

Seems to me that the some twisted up German psychopath went to work at first disarming the country's law-abiding citizens, picking out the troublemakers and having them quietly disposed of, stifling free speech by passing legislation in whatever their Parliamentary system was, segregating the population, and hosting some Olympic games in the late 30's. We called them Nazi's when we fought them in WW2 and lost 46,998 of the 2.5million Canadians that were enlisted in the effort.

I fear that we have started down a slippery slope that has nothing to do with skiing, sledding or skating.

When it happens in Canada, what are we going to call them?

I also wonder if I am still allowed to ask that question?
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